Artificial intelligence is no longer a “future trend.” It is embedded in today’s workflows and already reshaping tomorrow’s business models. For leaders, the question is not if AI will change their work but how they will adapt their leadership to harness it.
The challenge is to strike the right balance: using AI as a productivity tool today, anticipating how it will transform industries tomorrow, and developing the leadership competencies required to guide people through the shift.
How AI Is Driving Productivity Gain Today
In the present, AI is primarily a productivity enhancer. Tools like Microsoft Copilot, ChatGPT, and Jasper are already automating routine tasks—from drafting reports and summarizing meetings to generating first-round creative content. HR teams use AI chatbots to answer policy questions and onboard new hires, while companies like Unilever rely on AI-driven video interview platforms to filter candidates quickly.
These use cases free leaders and employees from repetitive work, allowing them to focus on strategic thinking, customer engagement, and innovation. They also highlight AI’s role as a partner, not a replacement: the human leader remains responsible for judgment, context, and empathy.
TOMORROW: AI Transforming Business Models and Roles
If today’s AI is about productivity, tomorrow’s AI is about transformation. Generative and “agential” AI systems are already moving beyond task automation toward role replacement and business model reinvention.
- In customer service, AI agents are handling not just FAQs but complex problem resolution once reserved for humans.
- In finance, AI is autonomously reconciling accounts and producing regulatory reports.
- In journalism, AI is drafting articles that rival human speed and accuracy—forcing publishers to rethink value propositions.
**These examples foreshadow an era where entire functions—entry-level legal research, basic coding, even parts of medical diagnostics—may be led by AI agents.**
The implication for leaders is profound. Tomorrow’s organizations will be flatter, with fewer repetitive roles and more emphasis on creativity, ethics, and complex problem-solving. Leadership will be less about supervising tasks and more about navigating uncertainty, guiding transitions, and reinventing business models in real time.
What AI Demands of Leadership Competencies
AI requires leaders to integrate new competencies into their style—without losing the timeless human qualities that inspire trust. Three stand out:
1. AI Literacy
Leaders don’t need to be coders, but they must understand how AI works, what it can and cannot do, and how to question outputs. PwC and other firms are already training executives in AI literacy so they can engage critically with data scientists and regulators.
Yet here’s the tension: the people who are most comfortable with technology are not always the ones with the strongest people skills. Great engineers or data scientists may master the technical side of AI but struggle with empathy, communication, or cultural sensitivity. The future of leadership requires a fusion of both—technical literacy and human connection.
2. Empathy And Human Judgment—With AI As A Support
AI cannot feel, but it can help leaders who find empathy difficult. Sentiment analysis tools can scan employee surveys or Slack channels to surface hidden frustration or burnout signals. Meeting assistants can flag when one person dominates a conversation, prompting leaders to invite quieter voices. AI-driven well-being dashboards can highlight workload stress across teams, giving leaders data to act compassionately even if empathy isn’t their natural strength.
In this way, AI acts as an empathy amplifier: it provides clues and context leaders might otherwise miss. The most effective leaders will use those signals not mechanically but as openings for human connection.
3. Ethical Stewardship And Trust-Building
A 2023 Gartner survey found that 60% of employees fear AI will monitor them unfairly. Leaders must set clear boundaries, communicate transparently, and ensure employees feel valued as humans, not just data points. Ethics is no longer a “nice to have”—it is central to trust in AI-enabled organizations.
Integrating AI Into Leadership Styles
So how should leaders weave AI into their leadership style in practice?
- Analytical leaders can use AI to expand their data lens, while still applying judgment and storytelling to make insights actionable.
- Relational leaders can let AI handle administrative load, creating more bandwidth for coaching and connection.
- Visionary leaders can lean on AI scenario modeling to explore bold futures while ensuring that human values anchor innovation.
- Leaders less skilled in empathy can use AI cues—like mood analysis, workload trends, or communication prompts—to guide them toward more compassionate responses.
As Matt Strain talks about in his podcast the unifying principle is authenticity. AI should enhance who you already are as a leader, not distort it. It should give you more time to be present, more insight to make wise choices, and more bandwidth to practice empathy—even if that’s an area where you’ve traditionally struggled.
Head, Heart, and Algorithm
Leadership has always required balancing head and heart. AI supercharges the head—delivering scale, speed, and predictive power. However, as the article “Ethical Leadership in the Age of AI” by Udaya Chandrika Kandasamy (2024) discusses, it cannot replicate the heart: the empathy, intuition, and ethical compass that define trusted leadership.
What AI can do is provide the signals and support that help even the most technically minded leaders lead with greater humanity.
The leaders who thrive in this new era will not be those who adopt the most AI tools, but those who integrate them seamlessly into their personal style—authentic, ethical, and empathetic. AI may drive productivity and transform industries, but only leaders who learn to combine tech fluency with human sensitivity will ensure transformation benefits people as much as performance.