I’ve just returned from a business trip that took me from Washington, D.C. to New York — two cities that, like London, frame the modern story of ambition, enterprise, and influence. What unites them is that they are all places where many leaders are grappling with the consequences of change — economic, political, and cultural — and searching for what resilience looks like in a new era. Amid that shared sense of transition, one question kept surfacing: does the Special Relationship still matter? It’s a partnership that has endured the big questions of the past, but one that now needs new answers for the future.
That search for renewal was front of mind in a recent debate my colleague Matt Carter and I took part in — a conversation that feels newly urgent. Once the unshakeable bond between two nations that rebuilt the world after war, it’s now an institution fighting for its relevance on both sides of the Atlantic. As The Washington Post recently reported, the proportion of Britons saying there isn’t a “special relationship” with the U.S. any more has doubled in a single year.
Perhaps that tension reflects the wider world we’re operating in — what might come to be known as the Era of Me. It’s an age when institutions of every kind, from governments to global brands, are being tested by the same question: what does this mean for me?
The Bully Pulpit International (BPI) Resilience research — a transatlantic study of how trust, leadership, and change shape brand strength across the U.S., U.K., and Europe — captures this shift with startling clarity. We live in a world defined by fragmentation, economic anxiety, and misinformation. People no longer seek out the news; they wait for it to find them. Reputation is increasingly shaped not by what people read, but by what scrolls past in their feeds and, for many, the stories they read are believable. In our research we tested 46 different types of corporate criticisms against 171 different companies and, on average, most saw the attacks as credible. In this environment, leadership faces a new test. It’s not enough to communicate; you have to connect. It’s not enough to react; you must anticipate. And it’s not enough to stand for something — you have to show what you stand for, consistently and credibly.
The numbers are sobering. Over half of people in the U.S. and U.K. (52%) say they don’t trust brands to do the right thing — and one in five have no trust at all. In such a climate, resilience is no longer a luxury; it’s the licence to operate.
What the BPI data also reveals is that the most resilient organisations share one defining characteristic: they are led by people who care about something beyond profit. Leadership that invests in employee wellbeing, contributes to community, and constantly embraces change creates resilience that no marketing budget can buy.
Resilience, then, isn’t about standing still and surviving disruption. It’s about moving through it — stronger, smarter, and surer of your purpose. Whilst in Washington D.C. my colleague Matt Carter reminded the audience at a POLITICO panel event of the famous Alfred Wainwright quotation (he of the Lake District fame)– “There’s no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing”. That’s the metaphor for all communicators right now. Brands should expect storms, prepare and ensure they’re dressed for the climate on both sides of the Atlantic.
And that brings us back to the Special Relationship. It has endured not because of nostalgia, but because it has always found ways to adapt — from shared security to shared innovation, from political alliance to economic partnership. What makes it special is not the past it preserves, but the future it prepares.
For high-growth businesses, that lesson could not be more relevant. Every scaling business is managing its own network of special relationships — with customers, investors, employees, and the wider world. The ones that thrive are those that nurture trust, communicate with conviction, and treat resilience as a living strategy, not a safety net.
In an era where trust is fractured and change is relentless, business leaders are a vital part of rebuilding the connective tissue that holds society together. The Special Relationship endures because it proves that collaboration still counts — and that resilience is built through connection, not command.
