The World Economic Forum conference in Davos is a place where leadership is put on display. Every year, the world’s most powerful figures step onto stages to outline solutions to global problems. Many of the speeches are impressive. Few are memorable.

What cuts through is not polish or scale. It’s something more human.

This year, Mark Carney’s speech stayed with me and many people. Not because it was provocative, but because it carried weight. It felt grounded. It felt true.

I wasn’t surprised by that. Over the years, working closely with senior leaders across sectors, I’ve learned that the leaders who have the greatest impact are rarely the loudest or most performative. They are the ones who know what they stand for and are willing to sit with complexity without rushing to certainty. People I know personally who have worked closely with Carney consistently describe him as thoughtful, grounded and clear in his values. On the Davos stage, that came through.

What struck me most was not what he said, but how he said it. There was no attempt to impress. No need to dominate the room. Just a quiet confidence that invited people to listen.

One story he shared resonated deeply. He spoke about life under communism, where shopkeepers displayed slogans they did not believe in. They complied not because they agreed, but because conformity felt safer. Systems, he reminded the audience, continue because people participate in them…until someone decides not to.

I see versions of this dynamic play out at times in my work with leaders. Not in slogans on shop windows, but in meetings where people say what’s expected rather than what they think. In organisations where leaders privately acknowledge that something isn’t working, yet feel constrained by precedent, politics or fear of disruption.

Many of the leaders I work with don’t lack intelligence or ambition. What they wrestle with is how to lead when the old playbook no longer applies. When certainty is gone. When the cost of getting it wrong feels high and the pressure to conform is subtle but persistent.

This is where leadership is changing.

In Davos, alongside the political debates, McKinsey discussed its 21st Century Leadership report, pointing to what many leaders already feel: the role is no longer about managing stability, but about navigating constant change. The expectation is not to have all the answers, but to create enough clarity and trust for others to move forward.

In practice, this requires a different way of showing up.

From experience, leaders who truly make a difference share a few defining traits:

 

 

Increasingly, leadership is less about being the expert, and more about being the conductor of an orchestra engaging the collective intelligence of their teams rather than solely on their own. Many organisations are waking up to this, investing not just in individual capability, but in how leaders are developed across all levels of the organisation, because traditional succession models no longer prepare people for the volume and pace of challenge they now face.

Davos itself is a reminder of this. Its impact lies as much in the conversations between sessions as in the speeches on stage. A client who was there said the most valuable part was just simply being exposed to different ways of thinking, and noticing how that changed their thinking.

I spend much of my time with leaders behind closed doors, in conversations that rarely make it into public narratives. What I see most often is not a lack of talent or ambition, but a gap between what people are capable of and what they allow themselves to do. Many are operating well within their range, shaped by expectation, caution, or the weight of responsibility. My work is about enabling them to see themselves more clearly and trusting that clarity. When they do, they make braver choices, communicate more simply, and lead with a confidence that doesn’t need to announce itself.

Executive presence, in this sense, is not about authority or status. It’s about the ability to shift a room, not through force, but through integrity.

As Carney said, “Capital, talent, leadership and values give you power. Be a stable and reliable partner in a world of disorder and uncertainty.”

In a world full of noise, the leaders who matter most are those willing to stand quietly but firmly for what they believe and invite others to do the same.

 

If you want to explore how to unlock greater clarity, confidence and impact in your leadership team you can contact Oona at team@potentialplus-int.com.

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