By Professor Bernd Vogel
As the world of work continues to evolve, leaders face growing pressure to balance or prioritise people over short-term profit. Professor Bernd Vogel explores what it means to lead with a human focus – why today’s choices around wellbeing, flexibility, and purpose will shape organisational performance and the legacy leaders leave behind.
Leadership is always about choices: how to respond, where to invest, what to stand for personally and when representing the business. Lately, those choices have been under intense public scrutiny. From major corporations enforcing return-to-office mandates to CEOs stepping back from diversity and sustainability, a familiar pattern is emerging: business priorities are being redrawn, and not everyone is convinced it’s for the better.
There’s no denying that economic pressure is real. But there’s also a sense that some leaders are retreating into old economic models, where productivity is king and people are an afterthought. These strategies often produce short-term results. But what will they cost us in the long run?
Leadership encompasses far more than day-to-day management. It shapes how an organisation relates to the people inside it, and what kind of value an organisation brings to the world around it, now and in the long term, and just as importantly, when individual executives have left the business.
Rethinking what people want from work
Over the last decade, people’s relationship with work has fundamentally changed. Financial security still matters, of course. But for many, especially younger workers, remuneration alone isn’t enough. They express demand for roles that align with their values, offer space to grow and support their wellbeing in meaningful ways.
This shift isn’t just anecdotal. Across sectors, organisations that genuinely invest in their people tend to attract more committed, high-performing employees. And those employees are more likely to stay, even in a competitive market. According to Gartner, employees in human-centric work environments are 3.8 times more likely to be high performing.
Changing how leaders think about the employer-employee relationship requires more than perks or wellbeing programmes tacked onto ‘business as usual’. Evolution needs to be rooted in trust and mutual benefit. Less transactional. More purposeful.
The trouble with nostalgia
In uncertain times, there’s a temptation to fall back on familiar models. Return-to-office policies. Top-down decision-making. Efficiency above all else. What worked in one era, however, may fall flat in the next. Many of the assumptions behind traditional leadership have simply stopped working. The idea that loyalty is earned through job security, or that people will follow if you give them a plan, no longer rings true.
Take flexibility as an example. While some leaders still view remote work as a compromise, for many employees, it has become a baseline expectation. The same principle applies to wellbeing, development, and inclusion, which are no longer ‘nice to have’ extras but essential parts of the deal.
Failing to recognise this shift creates risks. Disengagement is growing, particularly among younger employees. Many feel that the social contract at work has broken down, and when that happens, performance, retention, and trust all take a hit.
What lasting leadership looks like
It would be easy to view this as a problem to manage, but there’s another way to look at it. One that sees leadership not as a fixed role, but as something that evolves with people. Something that requires listening, learning, and, at times, letting go of what used to work. In our study on work and leadership, we talk instead of ‘Episodic Loyalty’ to explain the link between people and organisations: a strong bond, mutual commitment and trust, with the option to exit and to rejoin graciously.
To build organisations that are not only successful, but sustainable – in the human sense –means thinking beyond productivity targets and towards cultures where people can grow, feel connected, and bring their full selves to work. It also means leaders are willing to ask different questions. It’s not about how we get more out of our people but what would it look like to build something they want to be part of.
As we move into Industry 5.0, where technology accelerates the pace of change, human skills like empathy, resilience, and adaptability become essential. These qualities hold everything together.
Moving from systems to relationships
Many traditional leadership frameworks focus on structures: job titles, reporting lines, and performance indicators. But culture, the real and felt experience of work, isn’t built through systems alone. It takes shape through relationships effective leadership comes down to how you connect within those relationships. Whether you build trust or erode it. Whether you make space for difference or fall back on sameness. Whether you lead through values or through fear of falling behind. Those leaders who evolve their approach to create a culture and workplace that people want to be part of will be the ones who shape lasting and positive legacies.
The legacy question
Sooner or later, every leader will hand the reins over to someone else. We often think this refers solely to the top. Make no mistake, first-line or middle, and senior managers also have this in mind, and if not, they had better start. The impact of what they leave behind will be measured not just in terms of business metrics, but in how they made people feel, what kind of culture they helped create and sustain, and what they stood for when it mattered.
As leaders navigate through challenging times, how will the decisions they make now impact their businesses in the years ahead? Did we double down on old models, or did we use this time to rethink what kind of working world we want to build? Managers must embrace the fact that they continue to lead even when they are no longer with a business, and that is a great opportunity.
The leaders who will be remembered with positivity and admiration will be those who saw this moment as a chance to reset. To move from profit to a people-first approach, not because it sounds good, but because it works. For people. For performance. And for the kind of legacy that truly lasts.
Professor Bernd Vogel
