đ„ Whatâs in, whatâs out: 2025âs biggest trends + most important leadership skills
This yearâs focus: AI literacy, emotional intelligence, and cutting through the noise

Thereâs still a lot to unpack from 2024, with plenty of lessons to carry into the new year.
This week, weâre digging into the balance of soft and hard skills in leadership, whatâs in and whatâs out, andâon a lighter noteâwhether you should give Field Notes a shot to boost your productivity and creativity in 2025.
Todayâs agenda:
đ§ Skills leaders need in 2025
đ Whatâs in/out this year
đ Field Notes: Is it worth it & will I renew?
đŒ Briefly: Employee burnout, your 2025 word, & AI job cuts
â±ïž Up & coming: Are we reaching the end of search?
đ Leaders: Donât forget about your âsoft skillsâ
The unsettling tension between what was and what is yet to come is called a âliminal experience,â according to Harvard Business Review contributors Laura Empson and Jennifer Howard-Grenville.
This tension has driven the need for connection in the workplace and the strengthening of âsoft skills,â yet according to Aytekin Tank, founder and CEO of Jotform, our collective emotional intelligence levels have taken a dive.
A survey from the nonprofit Six Seconds found that emotional intelligence (EQ) is on its fourth consecutive year of decline. CEO Joshua Freedman says on average, people are now:
More volatile
Less likely to be able to navigate emotions
Less likely to feel connected to empathy or a bigger sense of purpose
Less likely to accurately understand and label how theyâre feeling
đ Why does this matter?
Tank says in 2025, leaders should be âdoubling downâ on their emotional intelligenceâand they can start by identifying what theyâre really feeling when they experience strong emotion.
High EQ helps:
Foster connection in uncertainty
Prevent burnout
Resolve conflict and improve communication
Encourage collaboration
Navigate change efficiently
âïž What else?
Beyond EQ, here are two other skills Tank says are important for leaders this year:
AI literacy: Understand AIâs limitations and capabilities, and learn how to use it effectively for tasks without delegating human-centric decisions
Motivational skills: Employees are seeking a greater purpose and meaning through their work, so leaders have to be able to communicate how each team player contributes to the companyâs larger mission
đĄ What do you think of these âsoft skillsâ? How can you start to implement these strategies within your own team?
đ Trends that are worth your time in 2025
Every year, Wall Street Journal best-selling author Ann Handley writes a list of âWhatâs In, Whatâs Outâ in marketing/communications/daily life for the new year.
Here are some notable items from her 2025 list:
IN: Craft
OUT: AI slop
Use AI to enhance your writing, but not generate it.
IN: Lasting impact
OUT: Fleeting attention
Hint: More niched, focused content.
IN: Content for brand building
OUT: Content for MQLs or traffic
âThe brand that is remembered is the brand that is bought,â Handley writes.
IN: Building relationships
OUT: Building audiences
You can see the full list here, plus Handleyâs 2023 & 2024 lists to compare. MarketingProfs articles are behind a âwall,â but you just need to sign up with an email to view them.
đ Another year of Field Notes?
Guilty pleasure, helpful tool, or both?
â¶ïž Watch me unbox the final Field Notes drop of the year, and find out if I decide to renew (spoiler for my loyal newsletter readers: I do!)
đŹ In the video, I discuss:
Features of the drop, which was a vintage edition
How Iâll use it/how I use my other notebooks
Past drops throughout the year
My thought process behind renewing
The value of analog tools in a digital world
đĄ Subscribe to my YouTube channel for more insights that have helped me achieve wealth while maintaining a strong work-life balance!
Briefly
đ A Glassdoor report found that nearly two-thirds of professionals are concerned about career stagnation, but experts donât predict another âGreat Resignationâ in 2025âquit rates are far below that periodâs peak.
đ€ł A TikTok ban would be the first national-level ban in the U.S.âand it could do a number on the economy. Check out what the ban could look like, and potential ways around it.
â Choosing a word at the beginning of a new year can serve as a âguiding principleâ as we navigate the successes and challenges to come. Read how this founder chooses his word, and how itâs applied throughout the year.
đ€ Elon Musk says we have exhausted âthe cumulative sum of human knowledgeâ in AI training, echoing concerns from other AI experts that the industry has reached its peak data. Next up? Synthetic data that AI creates.
đŒ A new report found that AI could lead to as many as 200,000 job cuts on Wall Street in the next three to five years, with âroutine, repetitiveâ task jobs at the highest risk.
Up & Coming
As generative AI revolutionizes search, weâre moving beyond traditional blue links to conversational answers delivered in natural language.
While this unlocks incredible possibilitiesâlike answering complex questions or synthesizing real-time dataâit raises concerns about misinformation, copyright issues, and the future of referral traffic for publishers.
See this deep dive on the topic from Mat Honan, editor-in-chief at MIT Technology Review.