John Cleveland

expert panel

Members of the Senior Executive HR Think Tank explore why empathy, self-awareness and compassion are becoming essential leadership competencies and what the shift means for developing and evaluating leaders.Leadership has never been only about strategy, execution or financial results. But as employee expectations continue to change, the way leaders create those results is receiving greater scrutiny. Employees increasingly expect leaders to understand their own impact, recognize the experiences of others and create environments where people can perform without sacrificing trust or humanity.That makes the distinction between “soft skills” and business skills increasingly difficult to defend. Members of the Senior Executive HR Think Tank bring experience across executive leadership, HR, talent acquisition, leadership development and organizational consulting to examine what this means for organizations and how companies can make these competencies part of how leaders are developed, assessed and promoted.The timing matters. Gallup's 2026 State of the Global Workplace report found that global employee engagement fell to 20% in 2025, its lowest level since 2020, while manager engagement fell to 22%. At the same time, a recent Forbes article on workplace trust highlights how trust is built through the everyday ways leaders communicate, connect and follow through. Together, these dynamics raise an increasingly important question: Are self-awareness, empathy and compassion simply “soft skills,” or are they now essential leadership competencies?

expert panel

When a merger or acquisition closes, the financial model is set—but the real work is just beginning. Members of the Senior Executive HR Think Tank share their strategies for protecting culture, retaining critical talent and building something stronger than either organization had before, from clinical talent audits and listening sessions to organizational network mapping and the deliberate design of a third culture.The deal closes. The press release goes out. The board is satisfied. And then, quietly, the talent begins to leave. According to EY research, 47% of employees depart within the first year of an acquisition and 75% are gone within three years; running at more than three times the normal voluntary turnover rate. The employees most likely to exit are the high performers with options—precisely the people the acquiring organization paid a premium to access. Culture and people, not financial models or operational synergies, are where most mergers either deliver their value or quietly forfeit it.Members of the Senior Executive HR Think Tank, a curated group of human resources leaders, executives and organizational strategists, have navigated acquisitions across industries and company sizes. Their strategies converge on a shared conviction: Integration cannot be an afterthought. The people decisions made in the first weeks of a transition determine whether the combined organization retains what made the deal valuable—or spends years rebuilding it.A study by Instill found that up to 60% of M&A failures after closing can be traced to cultural misalignment, and Bain & Company's research puts the proportion of acquirers facing significant cultural challenges at 75%. The financial cost is measurable too: Replacing a key employee can run between 50% and 200% of their annual salary, and that is before factoring in lost institutional knowledge, disrupted client relationships and the cascade of departures that often follows the first high-profile exit.