CEO's column June 2026

It is easy to believe that competitiveness is determined by technological shifts, strategy documents and new initiatives.

But there is a more stubborn truth that recurs, time and time again.

The organizations that succeed the most are rarely the ones that think the most.

They are the ones who make people actually do what they have already decided to do.

It's going fast now.

AI is taking strides, markets are fluctuating and forecasts are becoming outdated before they are ready.

Yet there is something that does not change at the same pace. The questions are the same as five, ten or twenty years ago.

How do we create growth? How do we get people to pull in the same direction?

Maybe that's where the problem lies. Because if the world is changing faster than ever but the answers look the same as they always have – what are we missing?

They know what is required. Yet it doesn't happen.

Three reconnaissances

There is something paradoxical about our time.

The faster the world seems to change, the more important that which changes slowly becomes.

It's been six months since artificial intelligence went from being a question of the future to becoming an everyday issue. Six months since geopolitics, tariffs, and uncertainty have turned forecasts into perishable goods. Six months since most things seem to be moving faster than before.

And yet.

After many conversations with CEOs, sales managers and HR managers this spring, it is striking how familiar the questions still are. How do we create growth? How do we get people to collaborate better? How do we develop leaders? And how do we get strategies to leave the conference room and emerge into the real world?

There's something almost comforting about that.

Here are three discoveries I'm taking with me into the summer.

AI appears to make human traits more valuable, not less

Just a year ago, many conversations were characterized by an almost existential anxiety about falling behind. This spring, the tone has changed. The questions have become more concrete and therefore more interesting.

What actually creates value?

McKinsey’s latest global research shows that AI adoption continues to grow rapidly. At the same time, significantly fewer companies can demonstrate that the technology has already had any profound effects on the bottom line. This does not mean that the potential is lacking. Rather, what has always been difficult is still difficult.

The technology can be purchased.

Behavioral change doesn't do it.

There is an almost ironic logic to it. The smarter the tools become, the higher the value of human skills seems to become. PwC's analysis of over a billion job postings shows that the demand for skills such as judgment, collaboration and leadership is increasing, despite or perhaps because of the rapid development of technology.

It turns out that people are still significantly harder to upgrade than software.

And perhaps that is precisely why AI has not primarily become a technology issue, but a leadership issue.

Uncertainty has made leadership a scarce commodity

There is often talk about a lack of skills. Much less often about a lack of leadership.

Yet it is difficult to ignore the fact that leadership has become an increasingly important competitive factor.

Gallup's latest global report shows that employee engagement continues to decline. At the same time, it is managers' own engagement that is falling the fastest. This is problematic, not least because Gallup has long shown that the manager has a decisive influence on how well a team functions.

It's not really that strange.

Managers today are expected to handle AI, hybrid work, skills provision, change management, and at the same time deliver short-term results in a world where uncertainty has become something of a normal state.

Maybe that's why I increasingly think that leadership is about to become the new capital.

As the world becomes more difficult to predict, the value of things that create direction increases.

• Confidence.

• Opinion.

• Relationships.

• The ability to get people to pull in the same direction.

This has a strange ability to retain its value even when most other things change.

Growth is still a matter of people

There is hardly any shortage of strategies in Swedish business.

On the contrary.

Most organizations I meet have ambitious plans, clear priorities, and well-articulated goals. The problem is rarely that people don't know where they're going. Much more often, it's about getting enough people moving in the same direction.

It may sound less spectacular than the next AI breakthrough, but that's likely where the big differences between companies arise.

McKinsey’s research on organizational health has long pointed to the connection between culture, leadership, and long-term profitability. Gallup has come to similar conclusions. Highly engaged teams perform better, have lower turnover, and are more profitable.

These are hardly revolutionary insights.

Rather the opposite.

The interesting thing is that we seem to need to rediscover them periodically.

Because while technology is developing at breakneck speed, competitiveness continues to be built on things that are much harder to buy into. The ability to develop leaders. To create cultures where people want to perform together. To build sales organizations that don't just talk about customer value, but actually succeed in creating it.

Perhaps that's why the most successful companies rarely stand out by having the most spectacular strategies. Often it's about something much less dramatic.

They are simply better at getting people to do what was decided at the last meeting.

It is possibly a less glamorous explanation for growth than the next technological shift.

But historically, it has had an annoying tendency to work.

As we enter summer, I hope there is also time for something that can easily become in short supply during the rest of the year: perspective.

Because what feels urgent in June isn't always what feels most important in August.

And if there's anything the first half of 2026 has reminded me of, it's this:

Technology creates opportunities.

But growth is still created by people.

Mikael Nylund, CEO, Mindit – the House of Sales & Leadership