Every year leaders and power brokers from around the world gather at the World Economic Forum in Davos. 

They network, pitch their view to other key global stakeholders, and grab some insights on the future that they hope will give them a competitive advantage.

And despite all the talk the world’s problems seem to be getting worse and the complexity of these problems continues to escalate.

And 2026 was no exception.

The conversations in the mountains this year focused on:

• war and geopolitical uncertainty
• the erosion of trust in institutions, corporations and society
• AI acceleration and technological disruption
• the future of capitalism and the challenge of economic growth
• climate transition and energy security
• human capital, universal basic income (UBI) and rising economic inequity
• social fragmentation, polarisation and beneath it all
• unbelievable fatigue

Most commentators discuss these issue as though they are all completely unrelated to each other. Each problem is different requiring different strategies, different task forces, different frameworks, and different policies.

And therein lies the problem.

These things are not separate they’re all interconnected.

Disaggregating them significantly reduces the likelihood of solving them.

These Are Not Separate Problems - they Are One Wicked Issue.

What Davos surfaced was not eight leadership challenges, but one wicked issue with eight or more symptoms.

The term ‘wicked issue’ was first coined by Rittel and Webber years ago to describe issues that seem intractable and massively complicated. I discussed how it’s possible to solve the world’s toughest problems, in my 2021 book Wicked and Wise. All wicked issues have six characteristics, they are:

Many wicked issues are interconnected, they are mutually reinforcing, resistant to linear solution and certainly can’t be solved by addressing symptoms in isolation.

Yet this is exactly how most global leaders continues to tackle their toughest problems.

• Geopolitical uncertainty is seen as a way to increase power and dependency
• Trust erosion is seen as a consequence of cynicism and a 24-hour news cycle
• AI is seen as a new competitive playing field for global dominance
• Economic growth is still seen as the only type of growth that matters
• Climate transition is seen as a marketing challenge and energy security as a national interest
• Economic inequity and the likelihood of UBI is seen as market evolution
• Social fragmentation is seen as a cultural and generational issue
• And fatigue is for wimps

Oversimplifying each issue and failing to understand its complexity is why these problems persist and seem to worsen each year.

Dismissing these issues as “too difficult” or leaving them for someone else to fix compounds the problems.

Not because leaders are incapable, but because they are misdiagnosing the nature of the problem.

The Real Constraint Is Developmental, Not Strategic

Wicked issues expose a hard truth that most leadership models still avoid:

When environmental complexity exceeds a leader’s internal capacity to make sense of it, problems get worse and performance drops

This is why:

• Dialogue collapses into deadlock
• Trust collapses under speed and pressure
• AI outpaces human judgement rather than augmenting it
• Governance becomes rigid or vague
• Sustainability oscillates between urgency and pretence
• Insight fails to translate into coordinated action
• Leaders feel breathless, fragmented, and perpetually behind

These are not failures of intent, intelligence, or effort. They are signals that the level of complexity outstrips the level of leadership maturity.

Incremental Improvement No Longer Works

Most leadership responses remain horizontal:

• More skills
• More knowledge
• Better process
• Faster execution

But wicked conditions don’t respond to incremental improvement. They require a step change. A step change is not about doing more. It is about operating from a more developed level of consciousness.

More mature leaders don’t just:

• Know more
• Decide faster
• Communicate better

They do all that but what differentiates them is that they can:

• Hold multiple, conflicting perspectives without defensiveness
• Tolerate uncertainty without rushing to false certainty
• See patterns across systems rather than reacting to events
• Regulate their own physiology and emotions under sustained pressure
• Act coherently even when clarity is unavailable

This is vertical development, not as theory, but as a daily practice for leaders.

Davos as a Developmental Signal

When the same tensions surface simultaneously across AI, geopolitics, sustainability, trust, governance, and execution, it is not coincidence, it’s a signal.

The world is already operating at a higher level of complexity than most leaders are used to. Until leaders become more mature, we will continue to:

• Treat wicked problems as technical challenges
• Invest heavily in solutions that cannot scale
• Exhaust capable leaders by asking them to operate beyond their developmental centre of gravity

And then wonder why nothing really improves, and lots of things just get worse.

The Question Leaders Now Face

The most important question coming out of Davos is not what should we do next?

It is this:

From what level of development are we trying to lead a world that has changed and become more complex that most leaders are capable of handling?

Because wicked problems do not yield to better answers. They yield to more developed leaders. And that requires a different kind of investment altogether.