2026 will test leadership judgment

Leaders are concerned that they have spent years investing in ‘intelligence’ systems, but now notice they neglected to build judgment as a critical workforce capability. 

First published in The Mandarin on 28 January 2026

January is traditionally a month for setting resolutions and making forecasts. We often craft optimistic narratives about achieving great things this year. 

Leaders will acknowledge that the world and markets are becoming increasingly complex, but technology will offset uncertainty, analytics will reduce ambiguity, and artificial intelligence will help us navigate challenges that once felt overwhelming.

In 2026, I wonder how long it will take for that story to feel thin.

We are surrounded by dashboards, forecasts, scenario models, and AI ‘copilots’. We will be constantly exposed to recommendations, rankings, and predictions. However, beneath this surface of advanced capability, a growing doubt will emerge in the leader’s mind. The issue is not a lack of intelligence; it is a lack of judgment.

Judgment is not the same as intelligence. Judgment discriminates among future possibilities, and many intelligent people lack it. 

Our technologies give us more information, but this only helps us optimise our actions within the same frame. Information describes what is (and maybe what’s trending), while judgment asks what is worth doing.

For leaders, there may be a concern that they have spent years investing in ‘intelligence’ systems that are disgorging data, but they are now noticing they neglected to build judgment as a critical workforce capability. 

Nearly 12 months ago, in an APS Academy Mastercraft video, Sam Chard, the Head of Division, Business Grants Hub, in DISR, recognised that all public servants need to exercise judgement and that ‘good judgement’ is a skill that can be learned and developed. How is the APS consistently investing in that capability?

Judgment is called for when general rules no longer suffice. It is the human faculty we rely on when reliability fades. In politics, public administration, corporate leadership, and professional life, the ground is shifting too quickly for old assurances to hold. More information and tools will only confirm what we already know. 

Our growing dependence on technologies that mimic human cognition has led us to prefer machine intelligence over human judgment. This shift begins small, with seemingly accurate decisions that, over time, gradually erode trust in human judgment.

The first sign is that rules and compliance expand to cover virtually every possible situation. ‘Governance frameworks’ grow not as genuine governance but as extensive checklists. Authority over decisions gradually shifts from individuals to processes, and finally to AI. Citing ‘following the process’ or ‘AI says’ now serves as a defence.

If the outcomes are disappointing, responsibility dissolves into the system: the steps were followed, approvals were secured, and the risk assessment was completed. It is possible to do immense harm while remaining procedurally innocent. 

Hannah Arendt’s darkest warning was that moral collapse often arrives not through cruelty but through thoughtlessness. A New Year’s resolution for leaders might be to resist thoughtless compliance in everything we do.

The second sign is that leaders develop an obsession with measuring every aspect, only to feel overwhelmed later. The world might improve with fewer dashboards and meaningless KPIs.

Not everything needs to be measured. Excessive measurement reduces our ability to distinguish important factors, making everything seem risky and urgent. This fragmentation of leadership attention leads to increased noise, complicating decision-making. The role of human judgement is to identify what truly matters, filter out unnecessary information, and offer clear guidance for action.

Herbert Simon predicted this decades ago. When information overload surpasses our ability to process it, rational thinking doesn’t enhance our judgment; it actually deteriorates. Instead of becoming wiser, we feel overwhelmed. In these cases, decisions tend to be delayed, deflected, or delegated to others. We tend to offload our mental workload. People often mistake having abundant data for being more significant or comprehensive. Consequently, leaders may become more cautious and reluctant to make judgment-based decisions.

Automation and agentic AI will increasingly shape our shared world in 2026. Recommendation engines will guide our focus and actions. While their neutrality, consistency, and quick responses offer advantages, they also prompt people to doubt their own judgment more. As responsibility shifts to these tools, individuals tend to feel less confident and less willing to take charge of decisions.

This is the danger of intelligent systems: not that they will decide, but that humans will stop deciding for themselves.

Judgement is influenced not only by personal skill but also by cultural factors. It differs across workplace settings—such as whether people are allowed to pause, interpret freely, and are rewarded for discernment rather than just rule-following. When institutions penalise errors but reward justified conformity, individuals tend to act more cautiously. This cautiousness doesn’t equate to prudence; instead, it often leads to timidity, which is not a moral virtue. Rather, it becomes a simple survival tactic in systems that see judgement as risky.

This is evident in everyday organisational behaviours: professionals escalate issues rather than make decisions, leaders hedge their commitments rather than fully commit, and committees are created not to solve problems but to shift blame. Conformity starts to disguise itself as agreement, with ‘alignment’ serving as a polite way to mean silence.

By 2026, the divide between access to information and the quality of decision-making will widen. AI will grow more powerful and convincing. However, it will still remain silent on the crucial questions: How should we prioritise when values clash? Which losses are intolerable despite efficiency? What risks are acceptable when acting for others? 

These are questions of judgment and responsibility.

The coming year will determine whether we are prepared to re-establish judgment as a shared public resource, not just an individual skill but a collective institutional ability. Failure to do so will mean information will keep growing, while our capacity for subtle discernment will decline.

A loss of judgment does not create stillness. It creates motion, sometimes frantic motion. Activity becomes a substitute for choice. 

This is how organisations mistake movement for progress. When judgment erodes, something else naturally fills its void. Organisations don’t stop acting. Instead, they keep moving.