As a new year begins, it is difficult to ignore the wider context in which we learn, live, and exercise leadership. Across institutions, societies, and systems, conditions are increasingly defined by uncertainty, fragmentation, and a steady erosion of trust. These are not temporary disruptions to be endured and left behind; they are shaping the terrain on which leadership now takes place.
In such times, connection is often framed sentimentally – as something desirable when circumstances allow. The present moment, however, calls for something more exacting: connection as responsibility. Reconnection to our own humanity, to others through sustained and meaningful relationships, and to the planet in genuinely regenerative ways is no longer peripheral to leadership. It is foundational.
The present moment, however, calls for something more exacting: connection as responsibility.
This understanding continues to sit at the heart of GRLI’s work. Not as a claim to moral certainty, but as a recognition that globally responsible leadership requires holding complexity together rather than retreating into silos – institutional, disciplinary, or ideological. The challenge is not simply to respond to crisis, but to resist the forms of disconnection that make crisis harder to address in the first place.
Over the past year, GRLI has reflected carefully on where this work has taken shape and where new questions are emerging. Our 2025 Year in Review, recently shared publicly, offers a snapshot of that journey – not as a record of activity alone, but as an articulation of the inquiries that continue to guide us.
Equally important is how this work is carried collectively. GRLI’s network of partners and associates is geographically dispersed, institutionally diverse, and intellectually plural. Mapping where we are “scattered together” is not an administrative exercise; it is a way of making visible the relational landscape in which collaboration, mutual learning, and shared stewardship can occur.
Moments of in-person gathering remain important. Early this year, the EFMD Deans Conference in Vienna will offer the first opportunity to reconnect with members of our community alongside GRLI board members and guardians. But connection cannot be reduced to events alone. It is sustained through ongoing conversation – one-to-one, institution-to-institution, and across the wider ecosystem of leadership education and practice.
As the year unfolds, GRLI remains committed to creating and holding spaces where such conversations can take place with seriousness, openness, and care. In a world that often rewards speed, certainty, and separation, this is slower, more demanding work – but it is also where the conditions for responsible leadership are most likely to be renewed.
