The Renaissance is back. Leadership must catch up.

ACA executive director Gillian Rightford says in 2026, leadership itself becomes a creative act (Image supplied)

Five hundred years ago, the Renaissance produced a new kind of leader: the polymath. Thinkers like Leonardo da Vinci worked across science, art, engineering and philosophy because their moment in history required it.

They were responding to a profound shift in how knowledge was created, shared and applied. The term polymath describes a person with deep expertise across multiple, diverse fields, often described as a “Renaissance person.”

Rather than knowing a little about everything, polymaths achieve real proficiency across disciplines and connect ideas creatively to solve complex problems.

Polymaths are defined by:

• Broad expertise across numerous subjects.
  
• Deep understanding, not superficial knowledge.
  
• Relentless curiosity and continuous learning.
  
• Interdisciplinary thinking that connects patterns across fields.
  
• Strong problem-solving ability through diverse perspectives.
  
• The Renaissance ideal of expansive human potential.

In 2026, we are facing a similarly destabilising yet profoundly expansive moment. For the first time in human history, the full scope of accumulated human knowledge is accessible on demand.

New technologies can generate, synthesise and optimise at speeds far beyond human capability.

Creativity is being democratised, information is infinite, and change is exponential.

The new Renaissance leader

But as always, abundance creates a new scarcity.

The rarest thing in business today is not data, capability or even intelligence. It is leaders who know how to integrate creativity, technology and humanity in ways that drive meaningful progress.

Perhaps this is the era of the New Renaissance Leader, and the organisations that thrive in 2026 will be led by people who can bridge these worlds.

Marketing

#BizTrends2026 | Absa's Erica Bopape: What 2026 will demand of financial services marketers

Erica Bopape  12 hours

When information is abundant, integration becomes the advantage

In every major historical revolution, the limitation was access to tools, knowledge or networks. In 2026, that constraint has disappeared.

Anyone can generate concepts, content, strategies or code at near-zero marginal cost. And as in most revolutions, not all of this will be done for good.

This is both a time of opportunity and mild terror at would could go wrong.

So, the challenge has shifted to something far more complex: combining disciplines into coherent and effective solutions, anchored in human judgement.

The New Renaissance Leader is not a narrow specialist. They are a synthesiser, translating between creative possibility, technological capability and organisational reality.

They hold three equally important literacies: creative literacy, technological literacy and human literacy.

On the face of it, all leaders should have these anyway, but this new era is going to insist on a hybrid skill-set.

Effie Awards

#EffieAwards2025 | Gillian Rightford: The Alchemy of Effectiveness

27 Nov 2025

Creativity is no longer a department, it is a leadership mindset

Many organisations still treat creativity as something that happens inside creative teams.

But the challenges leaders face today are not merely tactical. They are conceptual, and contextually smart.

Finding new routes to growth, navigating declining trust, making sense of complex data ecosystems, retaining scarce talent and challenging outdated operating and pricing models are not mechanical problems. They are creative ones.

Creativity is not an act. It is a way of thinking. It requires curiosity, critical judgment and the willingness to challenge established patterns.

In 2026, the leaders who succeed will be those who treat creativity as a core business capability, not a decorative extra. (More creative CMOs, please, and more CMOs as CEOs, please.)

Technology is only as powerful as the judgment that guides it

Generative AI has become a default co-worker in many industries. Its real impact is not just efficiency, but the pressure it places on leaders to sharpen discernment.

When ideas are cheap and plentiful, the value lies in choosing which ones matter. Leaders must decide what is original, truthful and distinctive, when to trust the machine and when to override it, and how to manage ethical risk, intellectual property and reputation.

Also, how to structure teams, and how to retain and build talent. If all the junior jobs are wiped out, there is no talent pipeline.

The critical question is no longer “What can technology do?” but “What should we choose to do with this capability?”

As automation accelerates, the human contribution shifts from execution to meaning. Consumers do not form relationships with algorithms, and in fact are starting to aggressively reject algorithms (and platforms) that no longer service them.

This will amplify.

The New Renaissance Leader champions trust as a strategic asset, relationships over transactions, and cultures that support psychological safety and creative bravery.

Empathy, context, purpose and courage remain distinctly human, and therefore strategically essential. We can also only hope that the wider geopolitical landscape also heads this way.

Renaissance Now

The first Renaissance elevated humanity by merging disciplines to create new ways of thinking. The next demands the same approach.

In 2026, leadership itself becomes a creative act.

The future will not be shaped by the smartest machines, but by the most integrated humans.