Why Leaders Need to Unlearn Everything in 2025

The world of 2025 is redrawing the maps of power, influence, and business success. As Trump's return to the White House signals a dramatic shift in the global order, leaders face a sobering reality: we're witnessing the end of the unipolar moment that defined international business for the past three decades. With inflation pushing up across major economies, China acknowledging "challenges of uncertainties," and Europe struggling to find its footing, business leaders confront a fundamental question: Are the mental models that brought success in a rules-based multilateral world still relevant in today's multipolar reality?

The wake-up call

When the World Trade Organization was fully functional, its Dispute Settlement Body provided a reliable framework for resolving trade conflicts. Today, that system lies paralyzed. "Under a bilateral system, trade agreements become more volatile and susceptible to sudden political shifts," explains Jeremy Ghez, Professor of Economics and International Affairs at HEC Paris. 

"While tariffs can be quickly imposed or withdrawn based on personal negotiations between leaders, this flexibility comes at the cost of predictability."

At Davos, this new reality hit home. Trump's message was unequivocal: "Either you come manufacture in the United States and benefit from the lowest taxation on the planet, or you want to produce elsewhere, and then you'll face tariffs." The response from European business leaders was telling: many admitted they couldn't rationally justify new investments in their home markets.

Acknowledging the new reality

As U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio observes, "It's not normal for the world to simply have a unipolar power. That was an anomaly." This new multipolar reality is creating stark divides. 

"We're seeing a historical shift from previous challenges," Ghez notes. "U.S. executives navigate an environment of economic strength complicated by political polarization. Their European counterparts face the more fundamental challenge of catalyzing growth in economies that have remained static for over a decade."

This divergence creates unprecedented complexity. While U.S. business leaders focus on maintaining momentum amid political uncertainty, European executives must drive structural reforms with limited political appetite for change. As former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers observed at Davos, "In Europe, I see nothing moving. In six years, there will be a Lagarde report on competitiveness saying the same thing as last year's Draghi report."

Meanwhile, China demonstrates how traditional power dynamics are being upended. Its strategic adaptability, particularly in response to semiconductor sanctions, shows how nations and businesses can find unexpected paths forward. For global business leaders, this multipolar landscape demands more than just adaptation—it requires a fundamental rewiring of strategic thinking.

Four ways to rewire leadership thinking

First: Beyond Traditional Tools

" Business leaders need to recognize that traditional forecasting tools and strategic frameworks, while still valuable, may not capture the full complexity of current geopolitical dynamics," Ghez argues. 

Today's shift toward transactional relationships presents a dual threat: myopic decision-making and diminished drive for transformation. Leaders chase immediate gains while neglecting fundamental innovation, risking their competitive position in rapidly evolving markets.

"While traditional business tools and frameworks remain valuable, they must be applied with greater creativity and nuance," Ghez explains. Leaders must develop the capacity to identify and analyze complex, interconnected global dynamics that have far-reaching implications for their organization's long-term success. This means carefully interpreting insights within a context where established patterns may no longer hold true.

Second: Embracing Strategic Ambiguity

Rather than seeking binary scenarios in U.S.-China relations, leaders must cultivate a new mindset. "Business leaders should explore diverse possibilities," Ghez explains, "looking for opportunities in unexpected places—whether that means developing new market relationships, restructuring supply chains, or identifying emerging partnerships that might have been overlooked in a more predictable environment."

HEC Paris Executive Education's new program addresses this challenge through ground-breaking simulation exercises that push executives beyond conventional thinking. 

"This is what we achieve in the classroom thanks to a very diverse set of participants who bring unique experiences to the table," Ghez notes. 

The program transforms uncertainty from a source of paralysis into a catalyst for creative problem-solving and strategic innovation.

Critically, this approach requires moving beyond "flavor of the day" reactions to headlines. When facing trade tensions, successful leaders build adaptable business models that can thrive across multiple scenarios. The program's hands-on approach helps participants develop this capability through real-world cases and interactive exercises that challenge traditional assumptions about risk and opportunity.

"By acknowledging the limits of our knowledge," Ghez observes, "we create space for more innovative and robust strategic thinking." This mindset shift is essential in a world where, as evidenced at Davos, the old playbooks for managing geopolitical risk no longer apply.

Third: The AI Advantage

The AI landscape's recent disruption underscores how quickly traditional assumptions can be upended. In January 2025, Chinese startup DeepSeek published language models rivaling U.S. giants at a fraction of the cost—27 times cheaper per user request than GPT-4, with development costs 96% lower than OpenAI's models. This breakthrough sent shockwaves through the market, wiping $590 billion from Nvidia's valuation in a single day.

But Ghez sees beyond the productivity race. "We're likely underestimating AI's capacity to generate novel ideas and challenge existing hypotheses," he notes. 

"AI 'hallucinations,' traditionally seen as flaws, are becoming valuable tools for scientific discovery. 

Researchers are leveraging these creative outputs to design new proteins, medical devices, and antibiotics, potentially revolutionizing medicine and sustainable energy development."

This represents a crucial shift beyond efficiency metrics. "AI isn't merely automating tasks; it's expanding the boundaries of human imagination and scientific possibility," Ghez explains. "In time, this capability may extend beyond hard sciences to revolutionize business solutions as a whole. Those that realize this may have a strategic advantage in the long run."

The DeepSeek case exemplifies this potential: achieving superior results through unexpected approaches rather than brute-force computing power. For business leaders, the lesson is clear: AI's true value lies not just in optimization but in its ability to challenge our fundamental assumptions about what's possible.

Fourth: New Success Metrics

"The very metrics of risk are about to shift," Ghez observes. "We're seeing resilience replace efficiency among top concerns of insurers and bankers."

 This transformation is already visible in Europe, where sustainability KPIs are reshaping investment landscapes. The EU Taxonomy now requires companies to report sustainability metrics alongside traditional financial indicators, with over €620 billion in annual investments needed to meet energy transition goals.

Success in this new environment demands more than quarterly results.

 "Leaders should focus on reconciling immediate business objectives with longer-term global challenges," Ghez advises. 

"Their decisions resonate across interconnected systems spanning technology, society, geopolitics, and climate." The evidence is compelling: companies aligning with new sustainability metrics are accessing deeper capital pools, with sustainability-focused funds now managing 60% of European assets.

This shift goes beyond environmental concerns. The parameters for remaining relevant and profitable now include regulatory evolution, stakeholder expectations, and emerging risks. In the utilities sector, for instance, capital expenditure aligned with sustainability metrics exceeds 60%, indicating how systemic these changes have become across industries.

The message is clear: traditional performance indicators alone no longer capture what matters for long-term success. Leaders must institutionalize both trend-spotting and performance tracking, developing metrics that capture both immediate performance and future resilience. In territory where the previous rulebook offers limited guidance, this new approach to measuring success becomes essential for survival.

The path forward

"The most successful leaders aren't those who master the old rules," Ghez concludes, "but those who recognize when it is time to write new ones." 

In an era where conventional thinking can become a competitive liability, the real opportunity lies not in incremental improvements but in fundamentally reimagining what's possible when we free ourselves from inherited constraints.

For executives navigating this new landscape, the message is clear: what got you here won't get you there. The future belongs to those willing to unlearn everything they thought they knew about leadership—and brave enough to write new rules for a world that defies old logic.

HEC Paris Executive Education's new program "Doing Business in a Complex World," offers leaders a structured approach to developing these crucial capabilities. As the old certainties crumble, the program provides a framework for executives to not just survive but thrive in this new reality. In a world where unlearning becomes as crucial as learning, the program offers a vital path forward for leaders ready to embrace the challenge of reimagining their role in shaping tomorrow's business landscape.