Disruption today is not only technological or economic; it is existential. Industries collapse, new models rise, identities fracture. For many executives, the challenge is not only strategic but personal: Who am I in a world where my industry no longer exists as it once did?
Existential philosophy helps us face this reality. Jean-Paul Sartre argued that “man is nothing else but what he makes of himself.” Kierkegaard described the vertigo of possibility. Viktor Frankl reminded us of the freedom to choose our response. These insights are not abstract musings. They are survival skills for leaders navigating disruption.
Clayton Christensen, the late Harvard professor, framed disruption in strategic terms. His Innovator’s Dilemma showed how established firms fail when they cling to past models and ignore new entrants. Yet Christensen also reflected on life beyond business. In How Will You Measure Your Life? he urged leaders to ask not only about growth but about meaning. Disruption, in both markets and lives, forces these questions.
Authentic leaders embrace disruption as opportunity for reinvention. Indra Nooyi did this at PepsiCo by shifting toward “Performance with Purpose,” aligning business success with health and sustainability. Paul Polman at Unilever rejected short-term profit obsession and rebuilt the company around sustainability and long-term value. These were not mere strategies but existential choices about what kind of companies they wanted to lead.
Herminia Ibarra, in her work on identity and leadership, notes that authenticity is not static. Leaders must experiment with new selves as contexts change. Existential leadership is precisely this: the courage to reimagine identity in response to disruption without losing integrity.
The alternative is denial. Leaders who cling to outdated models, insisting on certainty when none exists, accelerate their decline. Kodak ignored digital photography. Blockbuster dismissed streaming. Their failures were not just strategic but existential — a refusal to accept freedom and responsibility in the face of change.
Existential leadership means confronting disruption not as threat but as possibility. It is to face the anxiety of freedom and still choose. It is to admit, “The map has changed, but I can still navigate.” It is to remind people that while industries may collapse, meaning can be created anew.
The future belongs not to executives who resist disruption but to existentialists who transform it into purpose.