The year 2026 will probably be marked once again by economic stagnation and technological upheaval. However, Hannah Arendt would probably not have seen these challenges as the real causes. For her, the true dangers lay deeper: in the disintegration of truth, in the fragmentation of the public sphere, and in the loss of human agency and responsibility.

For Arendt, political crises do not begin with the failure of institutions, but rather when people stop thinking for themselves, distinguishing truth from manipulation, and taking responsibility. When citizens become spectators and systems replace action, our shared world is put in danger. Leadership therefore means protecting truth, enabling public discourse, and strengthening collective action.

In our series “Leadership, Philosophy, and Human Impact,” we examine Arendt’s thinking and her teachings for today’s leadership.

Three of her insights seem particularly relevant:

1. The Decay of Truth

For Hannah Arendt, the decay of truth is not a matter of poor communication, but a fundamental political danger. The greatest threat lies not in individual lies, but in people losing the ability to distinguish between truth and falsehood.

Systematic disinformation does not generate conviction, but cynicism. When everything seems possible and nothing is valid anymore, the public sphere breaks down. When facts become negotiable, freedom, responsibility, and democracy lose their foundation. For Arendt, truth is therefore not a moral virtue, but a prerequisite for political space and collective action.

She would demand that leaders protect truth as a common good through clear language, transparency, and active resistance to manipulation and strategic ambiguity. For her, leadership means creating spaces in which truth can emerge through exchange, contradiction, critical thinking, and open debate. In Arendt’s view, responsibility for judgment and consequences cannot be delegated to systems, procedures, or seemingly objective constraints.

2. Fragmentation of Society

Arendt understands freedom as joint action in the public sphere. It does not exist within the individual, but rather where people meet, talk, and act. Fragmentation destroys precisely this intermediate world: people withdraw, lose trust, and become passive.

For Arendt, isolation and apathy are the breeding ground for political crises long before authoritarian movements come to power. The loss of plurality does not mean less diversity, but the end of the ability to judge and act together. Where the public sphere disappears, democracy begins to fail.

Leadership therefore has the task of protecting and renewing the public sphere. This means enabling plurality instead of neutralizing it, allowing dissent instead of smoothing it over, and empowering people to take responsibility instead of reducing them to roles, key figures, or functions. Social problems cannot be solved technically; they require public discourse, judgment, and courage.

3. Loss of Human Agency and Responsibility

For Arendt, freedom means being able to act, to start something new (“natality”) and to take responsibility for this action („agency“). Systems become dangerous when people see themselves only as executors of rules, algorithms, or structures. Where responsibility is outsourced, freedom is lost.

For Arendt, the greatest danger lies not in error, but in the disappearance of one’s own power of judgment. Leadership must therefore not hide behind processes, experts, or technology. Systems and technology can provide support, but they cannot replace human judgment.

Arendt would encourage leaders to open up scope for action rather than limiting it, not to delegate responsibility, and not to manage people, but to empower them to think and act. Organizations do not fail because of mistakes, but because responsibility is diffused or no one makes their own judgments anymore.

Final Thoughts and New Year’s Wishes

For 2026, Hannah Arendt would probably have advised leaders to be more than just managers, to defend truth, to understand plurality as a strength, and not to hand over responsibility to systems. Leadership then means not control, but creating spaces where people can think, speak, and act together.

Her wish would probably be to choose courage over cynicism, to resist the temptation to simplify, and to protect our shared reality. Because the future is not created by efficiency alone, but by understanding ourselves as actors and shaping the world together.

May the new year give us the courage to protect truth, take responsibility, and make joint action possible, so that freedom, trust, and the future can endure.

Jan Kiel & 

The Human Impact Group