APRIL 2026

April 2026|

April tends to be when the year snaps into focus. The noise of Q1 — the announcements, the predictions, the repositioning — settles, and what remains are the signals that actually matter. This month those signals pointed in a consistent direction: power is concentrating, trust is eroding, and the assumptions underneath many organisations' strategies are quietly becoming unreliable. And underneath it all, the question of what people — leaders, employees, all of us — actually need, as distinct from what we say we need. 

What I've learned about the context

• Social media use is becoming more passive and circumspect, with around half of users actively posting, sharing or commenting — down from 61% in 2024. Meanwhile, more than half of UK adults now use AI tools such as ChatGPT, Copilot or Gemini, up from 31% last year. (Ofcom)

• A YouGov poll in March/April showed that just 14% of British people still believe the UK and US have a "special relationship," and only 18% want to be closer to America. By contrast, 57% want to get closer to the EU. (The Times)

• China's R&D expenditure increased sixfold between 2007 and 2023, overtaking the EU. In 2024, China surpassed the US on this metric, spending $1.03tn compared to the US's $1.01tn (OECD). China produced 3.6mn STEM graduates in 2020, compared with India's 2.6mn and fewer than a million in the US. (Nature)

• Since late last year, China has been building an island, Antelope Reef, in disputed waters off the coast of Vietnam. China claims about 90% of the South China Sea, including areas also claimed by several Southeast Asian nations. (NYT)

• By some measures, emerging markets are now more concentrated than that of the US, with the five leading stocks accounting for a greater share of the index. The top US stock (Nvidia) represents 8% of the US index; the top EM stock (TSMC) accounts for a record 13% of the EM index — a larger share than all Indian stocks combined. (Ruchir Sharma, FT)

• About 40% of all dollars are created outside the US. No other currency comes close to this. (FT)

• While 70% of US adults trust local news and 56% trust national news organisations, just 37% trust information from social media — a figure that has remained relatively stable for a decade. (Pew Research)

• “Major AI breakthroughs, such as Anthropic's Mythos this month, are beginning to function less like product launches and more like weapons tests. According to the Bank of England governor, Anthropic may have found a way to "crack the whole cyber-risk world open."” (FT)

  
  

What I've learned about people

• 60% of respondents in the T Minus Disruptive Leadership Report said they were too busy to be innovative.

• "We are ashamed of our humanity; others are drawn to us because of it." (Brené Brown, Daring Greatly). I’ve noticed that in my conversations with coaching clients, leaders often say they feel they cannot show any inadequacies — those are for the privacy of the coaching space. They frequently miss the fact that when they do so, others see them as strong, not weak. 

• “One of the beauties of my career is the breadth, and not always the depth. In this area of machine learning, AI, the value is going to be more on the questions than in the answers, and the ability of leaders to have breadth across all sectors is going to be key." — Jose Marcilla, Executive Director at Novartis (via Rita McGrath)

• Pandemic-era lifestyle perks such as early-finish Fridays, unlimited leave, dog-friendly offices, are losing their pull; worker demand for summer Fridays fell 36% and unlimited leave fell 24%. What has risen sharply is demand for fully flexible hours, personal development, and health insurance. The gap between what employees say they want and what they actually use is also widening. "People are prioritising security, progression, and control over their time above [lifestyle] perks." — Molly Johnson-Jones, Flexa (FT)

• "Alter patterns, not outcomes." — Peter Coleman, The Five Percent

  
  

What I've learned about myself

• I've been working through the polarity between being fully present with clients and holding the longer perspective that is equally valuable. As I’ve come to understand it better, I feel like I am an electron circling a nucleus, able to move between two states at once, following an infinity loop in and out of presence and perspective.

• I've been doing a lot of work on Somatics — listening to my body as a source of information. I assumed, as a former athlete, that I would have strong channels to my physicality. I've discovered I barely listen to it at all. Even when consciously trying to check in, I receive almost no signal. I believe this is an invaluable source of information I've been ignoring, and reconnecting with it has become a goal.

  
  

As I quoted last month, luck is the convergence of opportunity and action — we all pass by opportunities. I hope some of this is useful as you navigate yours.

Best wishes,

Xenia

Wickett Advisory 

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