EPISODE 30: Leading WITH AI, Not Just Through It
Welcome, welcome to the final episode of Season 3 of the podcast. This is it for 2025, and I want to close out the season by talking about something I've been reading about, thinking about, and honestly wrestling with for months now, and that's AI.
I don't know about you, but I can't scroll through LinkedIn, open a business publication, or have a conversation with a client without AI coming up. And what I'm noticing is a lot of fear. A lot of uncertainty. Leaders who aren't sure whether they should lean into AI or ignore it. Employees who are worried about what this means for their jobs, their careers, their futures.
And the fear isn't unfounded. We're watching major consulting firms like Accenture, Deloitte, and PriceWaterhouseCoopers, which have let go of about 11,000 of their junior consultants and redirected that investment into AI. We're seeing new roles emerge that didn't exist two years ago, like Chief AI Officers, which are becoming standard in tech companies and startups. The landscape is shifting fast.
What concerns me most, however, are two things. First, not enough companies are talking about this. I've spoken with several leaders who don't have access to, or even know about, the simple AI tools they have available behind their own firewalls. And second, too many organizations are treating AI like an IT rollout rather than an organizational people strategy. You can't just buy the tools, train the people, and check the box.
That approach is failing spectacularly. Also, IT shouldn't be making the decision about which AI tools should be made available to the organization, because they're not trained in how to augment leadership, enhance decision-making, and elevate innovation and growth. AI adoption isn't a technology initiative; it's an organizational strategy. It's a people strategy. And that makes it a leadership issue.
2026 is going to bring even more changes, more tools, and more disruption. So, as we close out 2025, I wanted to end this season by talking about what leaders need to start thinking about and doing when it comes to AI.
Not the technical side. The human side. The leadership side.
So, let's start with some stats you should be paying attention to as a leader.
Between 70% and 85% of AI initiatives fail to meet their expected outcomes. That's right. Despite all the investment, hype, and executive mandates, AI projects aren't delivering what organizations hoped they would. And in McKinsey's recently released 2025 AI in the Workplace report (in November), they didn't blame the technology. They didn't blame the employees. They said, and I quote: "The biggest barrier to success is not employees, who are ready, but leaders, who are not steering fast enough."
The problem isn't the tools. The problem is leadership.
And while many conversations happening around AI right now are around either the technology itself, like which models to use, which tools to buy, how to build the infrastructure, or employee training, like how to get your workforce to adopt AI or how to close the skills gap.
Don't get me wrong, both of those things matter, but they're downstream problems.
The upstream problem that people aren't talking enough about is you, the leader. How YOU show up in this moment. Whether you're leading WITH AI or just trying to survive through it.
I don't believe AI will replace people-forward leadership™, but it can amplify it when leaders know how to engage with it.
But a key problem organizations are going to have to contend with and help their people with, when it comes to AI, is trust.
According to an Accenture report, 95% of workers don't trust organizations to ensure positive AI outcomes for everyone.
So think about that. You're rolling out new tools. You're asking people to change how they work. You're telling them this will make their lives better. And almost none of them believe you.
Now, you might be thinking, "Well, that's about trust in AI." But it's not.
Not really.
Harvard Business Review published a piece earlier this year titled "Employees Won't Trust AI If They Don't Trust Their Leaders."
So this isn't about the technology. It's about you. Your people are asking themselves: Does my leader have my back? Is this going to help me or replace me? Is anyone actually thinking about what this means for MY career, MY family, MY life? In fact, I have had this exact conversation with a colleague who said her engineering finance was asking these same questions.
And if the answer to those questions is unclear—or worse, if the answer feels like no—it doesn't matter how good the technology is. People will resist. They'll go through the motions. Or they'll quietly work against it.
I've seen this play out with clients. Leaders are getting frustrated because their people won't use the tools. When I ask them, "Have you told them why they should? Have you shown them it's safe? Have you addressed what they're actually afraid of?"
Usually, there's silence.
Again, this is why I keep saying AI adoption is not a technology problem. It's a trust problem. And trust? That's a leadership issue.
Now, the data shows that leaders are actually using AI at higher rates than their teams. About 33% of leaders use AI regularly, compared to only 16% of individual contributors.
Sounds like good news, right?
Well, the problem is that using AI isn't the same as leading WITH AI.
There's a vast difference between a leader who dabbles with ChatGPT on the side and a leader who actually models what thoughtful AI integration looks like for their team.
McKinsey found that high-performing organizations—the ones actually getting value from AI—are three times more likely to have senior leaders who demonstrate ownership of AI initiatives and actively role model its use.
Three times more likely.
In other words, when leaders go first—not just in mandate but in practice—everything changes.
Think about what that could signal to your team when you show up having used AI to prepare for a meeting. When you share how you used it to think through a problem. When you're open about what worked and what didn't.
You're not just using a tool. You're modeling adaptive learning. You're showing your people it's safe to experiment. You're demonstrating that this isn't about replacement, it's about evolution.
This is what I teach. You can't ask your people to do what you're unwilling to do yourself. You cannot expect them to embrace change you haven't adopted. You can't build a culture of continuous learning if you're not continuously learning.
And let me be real—I've had to do this work myself. I've had to get curious about AI. I've had to experiment. I've had to get uncomfortable. I'm still learning. But that's precisely what this moment requires from all of us.
The Boston Consulting Group studied over 1,000 executives across 59 countries to determine what separates AI high performers from everyone else. And they found that the leaders who are winning follow what they call the 10-20-70 rule.
They put 10% of their resources into algorithms. 20% into technology and data. And 70% into people and processes.
That's 70% on the people side.
That's not what most companies are doing. Most companies flip that ratio completely. They obsess over which platform to buy, which vendor to use, and which integrations to build. They throw a training at employees and then wonder why nobody's using the tools six months later.
Here's why it doesn't work.
A study published this year found that AI adoption actually has a negative impact on psychological safety. Just introducing AI into the workplace makes people feel less safe.
Not because the technology is threatening. But because of what it represents. Uncertainty, change, the possibility that they might be left behind, or replaced.
And here's the thing—it doesn't matter if that fear is rational or not. If people feel it, then it's real. And if it's real, it will affect how they show up.
I talk to leaders all the time who say, "My people are resistant to change." But fear and resistance, while two sides of the same coin, are simultaneously two different things, and what you're most likely seeing as resistance is probably fear.
Resistance you can push through. Fear you have to address.
Have you asked your people what they're worried about? Have you created space for them to be honest? Have you shown them—not just told them—that this transition is going to support them, not abandon them?
That's the work. And it's leadership work.
But let me shift gears here, because I don't just want to talk about the problems and challenges of AI, I want to talk about the opportunities, because I believe AI can actually help make you a better people-forward leader. Not by replacing the human work, but by amplifying it.
Let me give you some examples.
Think about self-awareness, the foundation of Leader Awareness, which is at the core of everything I teach with the People-Forward Leadership™ framework. One of the hardest things for any of us to do is see our own patterns. Our triggers. Our blind spots. We all have them, and we're usually the last to know.
Well, AI can help with that. If your organization uses Microsoft 365, you may already have access to Copilot, the AI assistant built into your everyday tools. You can use Copilot Chat to literally have a conversation about a difficult situation and ask what you might be missing. You can paste in feedback you've received and ask it to identify patterns. You can describe a decision you're wrestling with and ask it to pressure-test your assumptions, to ask, "What's another way to see the situation?"
It's not replacing the inner work. It's supporting it. It's like having a thinking partner who doesn't have an agenda, doesn't get tired, and isn't afraid to push back.
Or think about developing your people. One of the biggest challenges leaders face is giving personalized attention at scale. You've got a team of ten, fifteen, or twenty people, all with different strengths, different growth areas, and different ways of learning. How do you meet each of them where they are?
AI can help you think through development paths. In Microsoft 365, Viva Learning can help you curate development paths for your people. Viva Pulse lets you send quick surveys to understand how your team is really doing, so you're not guessing. Viva Insights shows you patterns in how people are working, like who's overloaded with meetings or not getting focus time. And Copilot can help you prepare for the conversation itself by literally asking it to help you think through the right questions to ask. It can help you ask better questions, and we know the quality of your questions determines the quality of the conversation.
I'm sharing Microsoft tools here because most organizations already have the Microsoft suite of tools at their disposal and behind the organization's firewall, which means you have a higher level of privacy protection than if you used outside services like ChatGPT.
None of this replaces you. It extends you. It frees up your mental bandwidth so you can be more present, more thoughtful, more human when it matters most.
AI may provide you with options, but you navigate the complexity and own the outcomes. AI may facilitate connection by helping you find the right words, but you create authentic relationships. AI may process information, but you give it purpose. AI can suggest messaging, but you motivate and inspire action.
That's what leading WITH AI looks like. You're not outsourcing your leadership. You're augmenting it. And you're setting an example for your team while calming fears about its use within your organization.
LinkedIn's Work Change Report says that 70% of the skills used in most jobs will change by 2030. That's now less than five years away. The World Economic Forum called this "one of the largest change management exercises in history."
So, over the next 4-5 years, you'll need to help your people come to terms with these impending changes without having many answers.
First, acknowledge the uncertainty. Don't pretend you have all the answers. You don't. I don't. Nobody does. Your people respect honesty more than false confidence. You can say, "This is new for all of us. We're going to figure it out together. And I'm committed to making sure we do this in a way that supports you."
Listen, information will no longer be your leadership edge anyway. In a world where anyone on your team can pull up a summary, benchmark, or best practice in seconds, information alone is no longer enough to gain a competitive advantage. Interpretation, application, and sense-making will be your new leadership edge.
Second, create space for experimentation. People need to know it's okay to try things and not get it right the first time. That they won't be judged or punished for experimenting. Set up low-stakes opportunities to play with the tools. Celebrate learning, not just outcomes. Make it safe to say, "I tried this, and it didn't work, but here's what I learned."
Third, ask better questions. Instead of telling people how to use AI, ask them where they're stuck. What takes too long? What's tedious? What would they do differently if they had more time? Then help them see how AI might address those pain points. When AI is positioned as a potential solution to their problems, not another mandate from the top, then adoption shifts.
And fourth, watch for the signs of fear. Not everyone will tell you they're worried. Some people will resist quietly. Some will comply on the surface but disengage underneath. Pay attention. Ask how people are really doing, and create space for honest conversation. AI doesn't just reflect, it can amplify. Good organizational cultures where learning is valued will improve faster, and toxic cultures will get worse faster. AI is both a mirror and a magnifier in that regard.
Fear isn't something to overcome. It's something to address.
We are in a moment of unprecedented change. AI isn't a trend. It's a fundamental shift in how work gets done, and will continue to be. And every leader needs to explore where they are in this conversation.
Most are leading THROUGH AI. Managing the disruption. Rolling out tools. Hoping their people will figure it out.
But you have to learn to lead WITH AI. Use it yourself. Model what adaptive learning looks like, and invest in the human side AI—the trust, the safety, the development—the part that makes real transformation possible.
The research keeps showing us that AI doesn't fail because of technology. It fails because of people. And people don't fail because they're incapable. They fail because their leaders didn't create the conditions for success.
You have an opportunity right now. Not just to implement AI, but to become the kind of leader who can guide people through any change, this one and the ones we haven't even imagined yet.
That's people-forward leadership™. And it's more relevant now than it's ever been. And AI isn't replacing people-forward leaders™, it's revealing who's actually doing the work.
So as we head into 2026, ask yourself, "Am I leading WITH AI? Or am I just trying to survive through it?"
Thank you so much for spending Season 3 with me. I'm grateful for every one of you who listens, shares, and reaches out. Take some time to rest, reflect, and recharge. And I'll see you in the new year for Season 4.
Until then, keep leading people forward.
