My readers know me.  I am psyched by all things AI.  I have found myself incorporating AI into my daily activities, especially when my agenda is jampacked.  I use it in Excel to analyze data, to dash off quick replies when I don’t want to strike the wrong tone and even in free writing to see if I have missed any critical points.  Personally, I have developed an app to help me remember to drink water with a little bit of gamification built in to treat myself when I hit my targets. 

In short, tasks that could take me days have been cut in half and I find myself with a more organized slate of to-do’s, sharper thinking and mentally.    Personally, I can design things to meet my specific needs in a way that an off-the-shelf app cannot.  Moreover, professionally, while I know that all the things I have to do are necessary, not all of it requires my unique expertise as an HR leader so while I can’t say I am stress free, I certainly feel calmer and more focused.  I arrive at work every day and just put one foot in front of the other to get through the day, knowing the things I can shunt through Claude or ChatGPT and those which need my expertise.

In other words, I can spend more time leading.

Talking to friends in my field and colleagues in my work environment, there are various degrees of acceptance of AI.  Some say “It’s a trend.  I am just waiting for it to die”; others say “Count me in!”   So what I am noticing is that a new leadership gap is emerging.  This gap is between leaders who have learned how to work alongside artificial intelligence and those who have not.

In the past, skills like strategic thinking, communication and business acumen formed the foundation of leadership effectiveness. N While those competencies remain important, a new capability is quietly reshaping how work gets done.   The ability to leverage AI effectively is slowly becoming a way to separate the sheep from the goats.

Consider two managers with similar experience, education, and responsibilities.  The first manager continues to approach work exactly as they did five years ago. Every report is drafted from scratch, every presentation begins in the same way and with the same structure and every email takes more and more time as that manager writes and rewrites to strike the right tone.

The second manager uses AI as a thought partner. They generate first drafts, identify patterns in employee feedback, summarize lengthy documents, explore alternative scenarios, and organize information more efficiently.

Both managers may be equally talented. Both may work equally hard.

Yet one manager is likely producing more output, making decisions faster, and creating more capacity for strategic work.

What makes this shift particularly interesting is that the greatest advantage of AI is not speed.  There are a lot of blogs out there about how AI makes you more productive because you are moving faster.  But the true value of AI lies in its ability to expand your cognitive capacity.

AI can support leaders by synthesizing information, identifying patterns, surfacing alternatives, and highlighting potential blind spots.  The naysayers might say that you are stunting your own ability to think but I would argue that the key distinction is that AI should not replace thinking.  On the contrary, it enhances thinking.  Let me be clear, the best leaders do not ask AI to make decisions for them.  They use it to explore options, challenge assumptions, and improve the quality of their judgment.  There are some things that AI cannot entirely replace and leadership, as a concept, remains fundamentally human.

AI cannot understand organizational culture in the same way a leader can. It cannot build trust with employees and it cannot navigate complex interpersonal dynamics or make ethical decisions on behalf of an organization.  What it can do is reduce the amount of time leaders spend on routine cognitive work, allowing them to focus on activities where human judgment matters most.

As AI becomes more capable of processing information, uniquely human skills become even more valuable. Judgment, empathy, ethical reasoning, influence, relationship building, and trust cannot be automated. These capabilities will increasingly distinguish exceptional leaders from merely competent ones.

So, leaders need to wake up because AI capabilities are advancing rapidly.   Everyone is already using AI in some form or fashion: employees, clients, the competition.  Everyone.   Ignoring AI does not stop its adoption; it simply increases the likelihood that others will gain advantages while you remain stationary.

At the same time, I would caution those leaders who only use AI in practical ways like only to draft emails and summarize meetings.  They use it much like some people use a computer – as a glorified typewriter.  The trouble here is that when you don’t see past AI’s basic functionalities you can fall into the trap of convenience without sufficient oversight.  You may accept outputs without adequate verification or rely too heavily on the technology for tasks that require deeper critical thinking.

Finally, I want to touch on the point of ethics and governance related to AI.  For HR leaders, broader adoption of AI raises important questions like:

·         How do we ensure managers are equipped to use AI responsibly?

·         How do we protect confidential information?

·         How do we maintain accountability when AI contributes to recommendations or analyses?

Since there are ethics and governance issues wrapped up in the use of AI organizations need clear policies regarding acceptable use, training programs that focus not only on technical skills but also on critical thinking AND leaders who understand that AI outputs require evaluation, challenge, and oversight.

To conclude, think back to when email or even the internet first came on the scene.  Several years from now, I suspect we will look back on this period much as we did when those technologies were new.   You see, what seems optional today will eventually become standard practice.  Mark my words.

Leadership has always been about helping people achieve more than they could achieve alone. Artificial intelligence simply gives today's leaders a new kind of teammate and the future will belong to leaders who understand how to combine the strengths of humans and machines. 

Until next week,
Ria Balbos Jordan
Founder, The Corner Office
Human Capital Management Thought Leader