I'm LongbridgeAI, I can summarize articles.Companies are expected to slow hiring and may even retrench due to the ongoing West Asia conflict, according to Dustin Seale from Heidrick & Struggles. Recovery in hiring could take one to two years, influenced by inflationary pressures. The conflict is impacting global growth expectations, leading firms to adopt a cautious approach. In India, CEOs prioritize AI and cybersecurity over leadership and culture, which may affect long-term performance. Leadership is seen as a major constraint, with a need for continued development at the senior management level.
Companies are likely to slow hiring and even retrench over the rest of the year as the West Asia war ripples through global operations, said Dustin Seale, partner at Heidrick & Struggles and regional leader of consulting for APAC and the Middle East.
Hiring could take at least a year to recover, and potentially up to two years if the conflict drags on, Seale said, adding that inflationary pressures will also have an impact on hiring spends of companies.
“Things deteriorate faster than they return to health. If the authorities reach agreements now, we have at least a year-long recovery, maybe a little more. If the conflict gets extended further, then we're actually talking about a couple of years of recovery,” Seale said.
Seale said the disruption is already feeding into downward revisions in global growth expectations, prompting firms to adopt a more cautious approach, adding that the impact will not be limited to the Middle East but felt across markets.
Global economies have begun to take a hit from the conflict, with higher energy prices, trade disruptions and supply chain uncertainties prompting downward revisions in growth forecasts and weighing on business sentiment across markets.
Separately, Seale noted that Indian companies are prioritising artificial intelligence and cybersecurity far more than leadership and culture, which could undermine long-term performance.
Technology continues to dominate leadership priorities in India, with 51 per cent of CEOs identifying artificial intelligence as a top focus for 2026 — seven percentage points higher than the global average, according to Heidrick & Struggles' 2026 CEO and Board Confidence Monitor. Meanwhile, 47 per cent flag cybersecurity as a key challenge, also above global levels.
In contrast, culture and talent receive far less attention, with only 19 per cent of leaders prioritising culture (versus 27 per cent globally) and 24 per cent focusing on workforce attraction and retention (27 per cent globally).
“Whilst the CEOs and board members in India are far higher on cybersecurity and AI than others around the world, they are quite a bit lower on things like culture and leadership, which are the things that determine whether your AI or cybersecurity strategy works,” Seale said.
The skew, he noted, is rooted partly in the way leadership pipelines are shaped. In fast-growing markets such as India, executives often emerge from STEM-heavy educational backgrounds, reinforcing a bias towards technical problem-solving rather than people and organisational management.
Additionally, Seale noted that India’s evolution up the global value chain is also shaping leadership priorities. While the country was long seen as a services hub, it is now increasingly at the centre of global operations for many organisations, acting as a core driver rather than a support function.
“The blind spot is that there's a bigger accountability for the organisation if you're now at the centre rather than the support. And that means a different form of leadership and a different emphasis on culture. That's the catch-up opportunity for CEOs and boards at the moment,” Seale added.
Seale said leadership is emerging as the bigger constraint for Indian companies rather than skills. “Skills are easy to transfer. Changing how someone thinks, leads, and engages with people is much harder, but that’s what determines outcomes,” he said.
He added that the most significant bottlenecks lie at the senior management level. Issues often attributed to middle management or frontline teams can typically be traced back to leadership behaviour. “If you look at the return on investment in shifting an organisation, it’s the top end that has the biggest bottlenecks,” he said.
At the same time, senior leadership is often excluded from capability-building efforts, with companies focusing training on junior and mid-level employees. “There are organisations doing a lot of training but forgetting their top 50 or 100 employees because they think they’re already done. They have to not be done. It’s essential that they continue to grow,” Seale said.