Clarity and Courage in New Leadership
/ 2025 Nobel Prize in Economics – What it teaches us about Leadership in a World of Ambiguity and Accumulated Turbulences
Each January, as snow settles over the rooftops of Davos, the town becomes a spotlight for clarity among global decision makers. At the World Economic Forum, it is not only the formal sessions that shape direction. It is the quiet exchanges, the unplanned reflections, and the space between events where the real questions surface. The 2026 CxO Luncheon, hosted by bluegain [already in its third year] enters this space of reflection with a theme deeply attuned to the current moment.
The 2026 CxO Luncheon sheds light on this theme, asking:
“What meaningful tomorrow can we shape with the courage [‘Mut’] to leave yesterday’s recipes behind?”
It is not just a theme to provoke conversation and debate. It is a strategic compass built in response to the world we face now: fractured truths, competing narratives, technological acceleration, and the slow erosion of collective trust. In this context, legacy approaches stretch thinly. In the face of systemic turbulence and decision fatigue, we usually look for ‘control’ and ‘certainty’ but instead we need to focus on the ‘clarity’ towards your directional ‘north star’.
However, even with clarity, the path forward is rarely paved with certainty. This is why we deliberately chose the German word ‘Mut’ to guide our theme. Unlike the English ‘courage,’ which often suggests a loud, momentary act of bravery, ‘Mut’ implies a quiet, enduring state of mind. It is the inner fortitude required to let go of familiar methods and confront ambiguity without retreating into routine. ‘Mut’ evokes more than bold action; it speaks to an inner readiness: a willingness to meet uncertainty with presence (comes through clarity) and conviction. It is precisely this grounded quality, rather than performative bravery, that defines the leaders shaping ‘relevance’ today.
Many organizations now face the dual pressure of transformation and coherence. On one hand, there is the push to act fast digitally, sustainably, and systemically. On the other hand, there is the need to slow down, interpret, and navigate meaningfully across shifting contexts. Holding both requires more than operational agility; it demands clarity of direction and courage of leadership. The idea of leaving behind inherited recipes is appealing at first glance, but we all know it is not always easy to implement because these recipes are, after all, what brought us here.
This year, the 2025 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences provides a remarkable signal that aligns with this exact posture. Awarded to Joel Mokyr along with Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt, the prize recognizes their body of work around “as a central driver of economic growth. Their research shows that progress emerges not by extending the past, but by making space for better ideas, bold technologies, and system-level renewal.
In their models, innovation happens when new entrants disrupt incumbents, not because of disloyalty to the past, but because the future requires something else. The conditions for transformation are not technical; they are philosophical. A system renews through deliberate choices: preserving what matters, evolving what must, and replacing what no longer serves. These decisions are rarely comfortable, but they are decisive.
The Nobel Prize-winning research builds directly upon and significantly extends the work of Joseph Schumpeter, who first conceptualized “creative destruction” as the heartbeat of capitalism. Aghion, Howitt, and Mokyr have not only validated this idea with modern empirical data, but they have also reframed it as a dynamic system that links innovation policy, competition, and growth. Their models show that it is not merely disruption, but the capacity to institutionalize renewal through R&D, knowledge diffusion, and entrepreneurship that sustains progress. This elevates the discussion beyond macroeconomics into the realm of leadership behavior, system design, and cultural commitment to change.
Their theory makes one idea unmistakably clear: long-term growth favors the courageous.
This lens aligns naturally with the bluegain CxO Luncheon’s 2026 theme. Each year, our team spends months refining the question that will anchor the conversation, and for 2026 we chose: “What meaningful tomorrow can we shape with the courage to leave yesterday’s recipes behind?”
The theme underscores the importance of strategic discontinuity, the deliberate act of stepping beyond inherited playbooks to shape futures that remain relevant. It also highlights why clarity and conviction are becoming defining leadership traits. In Davos, amid swirling headlines and high-stakes agendas, this dialogue becomes even more essential. When progress is discussed in global terms, the instinct is often to default to scale, speed, and technology. Yet as the Nobel-winning theory shows, progress begins with courage – the willingness to create the conditions in which something genuinely new can take root.
The bluegain CxO Luncheon, held once again at the historic Heimatmuseum, offers a setting where this courage becomes tangible. Its format is intimate, curated, and cross-sectoral and mirrors the French salon tradition where ideas evolve through dialogue, not presentations. In this setting, the theme becomes not just a prompt, but a shared commitment. Every speaker brings a personal story of stepping beyond legacy systems, challenging assumptions, and dissolving rigid mindsets. Every insight becomes part of a collective attempt to understand how relevance is designed today.
bluegain’s role in this conversation is intentional. As a technology and professional services company specializing in transformation, we support leaders who step into the future not with fear, but with focus. This year’s Nobel Prize strengthens our belief: lasting transformation is not a matter of improvement; it is a matter of principle. It grows from choices grounded in values, shaped through ecosystems, and animated by meaning. In a rapidly changing uncertain world, the leaders who rise are those who redesign relevance with clarity, courage, and direction.
The conversation begins in Davos. We invite you to take a seat at the table.
/ About the Author
- Arjun Aditya is a Digital Marketing Associate at bluegain, where he focuses on digital branding and communications. Before joining bluegain, Arjun worked at Adidas AG on a global transformation project, leading user-centric change initiatives that impacted over 1,000 employees. He also gained experience at Pollup Data Services and A2A Digital Transformation Consulting. Arjun holds a Master’s degree in Digital Business Innovation from Politecnico di Milano.
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