26.10
FOR THE THIRD CONSECUTIVE YEAR, FLEMMING SPOKE AT THE DIVERSIFY SUMMIT IN OSLO
On October 24, the Diversify Summit 2025 was held. This year’s theme, “Courage in Action,” was a rallying call to lead with boldness, challenge the status quo, and turn vision into transformative change.
Flemming participated in the summit’s key opening panel discussion titled “Courage and the Future of Work. A conversation about leadership, purpose and possibility” together with Winta Negassi, Head of HR, Northern Europe LCS at Google and Sarah Reynolds, Chief Marketing Officer at Benifex. Dr. Poornima Luthra, Senior Faculty at Imperial Business School in London and External Faculty and Former Associate Professor at Copenhagen Business School, Copenhagen facilitated the conversation.
The framing of the opening panel discussion was the recognition that we find ourselves leading in a world that feels perpetually on the brink – geopolitically tense, technologically explosive, economically volatile and emotionally exhausted. Uncertainty is everywhere. Nations are redrawing alliances, trust in institutions is fraying, and artificial intelligence is reshaping what it means to be human at work. The pace of change is breathtaking and yet, the deeper challenge may be our own capacity for courage: the courage to lead with clarity when the future is blurred, to make decisions that prioritize humanity over efficiency, and to imagine possibilities that extend beyond survival. According to Ranjay Gulati, Professor at Harvard Business School, courage is taking action in the face of fear.
The deeper question framing the conversation: what kind of leadership does this moment demand, and who are we willing to become to meet it? Some of the questions that Flemming elaborated on included the following:
- When is it courageous to stay the course, and when is it cowardly to do so?
- What does courage look like when your purpose/ values no longer aligns with your organization’s direction?
- Are we courageous enough to admit when the story we tell our people about purpose is no longer true?
- What kind of courage will it take to design workplaces that are not just productive, but humane?
- How would you measure courage? What metrics of evidence would you use? How do you know you are being courageous?
- Courage is something that needs to be felt, and seen through our behaviour. If you could model one act of courageous leadership tomorrow that would ripple through your culture, what would it be?
Flemming’s final powerful message to the audience was: when your integrity as a leader or employee is at stake, you must act!.
Read more about Diversify Summit 2025 here.
*Photo credit: *Sebastian Jauregui and Diversify Summit 2025