Why we are entering the age of the disposable leader

Business has become addicted to immediacy. The danger is we are replacing leaders faster than they can create the lasting value organisations actually need.

Business has become addicted to immediacy. Customers expect instant service. Investors expect rapid returns. Employees want faster progression. AI promises answers in seconds. Every new technology claims to accelerate growth, while every challenge demands an immediate response.

The pressure on leaders is no longer simply to perform. It is to prove their value immediately.

A 23-year-old entering the workforce today has already lived through nine UK Prime Ministers, with now Andy Burham as their tenth PM. For an entire generation, leadership change has become normal. Increasingly, business is following the same pattern.

Last year alone, 234 CEOs left their roles globally, a 16% increase on the previous year. The proportion leaving within their first three years rose by 79%, while average CEO tenure has fallen to just 7.1 years.

I am not convinced we have a leadership problem. I think we have a patience problem. Somewhere along the way, we have started expecting human leadership to operate at digital speed. That is a mistake. Technology can be implemented in months. AI can generate content in seconds. Dashboards refresh in real time. Trust does not. Judgement does not. Culture does not. Neither does the confidence that allows people to perform under pressure, nor the resilience that enables organisations to navigate uncertainty. Yet these are precisely the things that determine whether a business succeeds over the long term.

This is the defining leadership paradox of our time.

Entrepreneurs must deliver today’s results while investing in tomorrow’s growth. Leaders are expected to move quickly without becoming reactive, create stability while driving transformation, improve performance while creating workplaces where people flourish, and embrace AI without losing the very human qualities that technology can never replace.

None of these are either-or choices. They all have to happen at the same time.

The irony is that the outcomes businesses value most refuse to work to quarterly timescales. Building a strong culture takes years. Developing future leaders takes years. Embedding AI successfully is not about installing technology; it is about changing behaviour, building confidence and helping people adopt new ways of working. Creating resilient, high-performing teams is built through thousands of everyday conversations, not one transformation programme.

Yet we continue to judge leaders as though all of this should happen almost immediately. Perhaps that is why so many organisations keep changing the person at the top while seeing very little change underneath. Replacing a leader may create the appearance of action, but it rarely solves the real problem if expectations remain unrealistic.

Most organisations already know what good leadership looks like. They invest heavily in developing leadership capability: strategic thinking, coaching, communication, influencing, decision-making and leading change. These capabilities remain essential because they enable leaders to create value over time. Strategic thinking creates direction. Coaching develops future leaders. Sound judgement improves decision quality. Trust strengthens collaboration. Clear communication creates alignment. Together, these are the foundations of sustainable organisational people development. The ultimate measure of lasting impact is the growth of people and the resilience of culture over time.

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