Why experienced leaders need to rethink how they work and lead their people in the age of AI
“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage. ”
When I was just starting out, I spent many hours of my studies and early legal career in the law library, searching for cases that supported my client's argument. That ability to problem solve was the skill for which I was being trained.
Today, there are AI legal tools that can find those cases and develop possible arguments in seconds. Looking back, there are moments when I wonder whether all those arduous hours in the library were a waste of time.
Leaders are being hired for different skills
Recently, while attending the Australian Institute of Company Directors' Essential Director Update, one speaker referred to how the CEO of Quantum Rise’s hiring has changed. His company previously looked for people who could solve problems. Now it places greater value on people who can define the problem, work effectively with AI and assess whether the proposed solution will deliver the right outcome for the client.
I think this is an uncomfortable shift for many leaders, because our professional identity can become closely tied to our expertise and ability to solve problems. Leadership researcher Herminia Ibarra calls this a ‘competency trap’. She found that successful professionals often keep doing what brought them success, even when their roles require something different.
Learning to let go
The kind of adjustment required of leaders now reminds me of when I moved into senior leadership. I had to learn to stop being the person who solved every problem. My role was to help my team understand the problem, be clear about what we were trying to achieve and assess whether their proposed solution met the client’s needs.
It took me a while to accept that I didn't have a monopoly on good ideas. I had to learn to let go of how they solved the problem and assess whether it gave us the outcome we needed.
I think leaders face a similar adjustment with AI. Of course, a convincing way to solve a problem given by AI still needs to be checked, particularly when the consequences of getting it wrong are significant and senior leaders remain accountable.
Adaptive Stability helps us make the shift
Leaders need the mindset to question established ways of working, the flexibility to experiment with unfamiliar approaches and the foresight to recognise which capabilities they will need next. They also need resilience, because it takes courage to face the fear of their expertise being less valuable and keep going when an early attempt goes wrong.
I don't know how quickly this shift will happen in every organisation, but I do know that leaders who wait until the new skills are essential will have missed valuable opportunities to practise them.
Where you could start:
Change one part of your own work first. Choose a task where you usually provide the answer, and practise defining the problem and exercising judgement over what AI gives you.
Work out where people and AI agents can work together. Involve your team in deciding what AI can do, what requires human judgement and who is accountable.
Review what you value in your people. Consider whether your hiring and promotion practices recognise curiosity, judgement and adaptability. These are important skills needed to work on today's solutions.
As for those hours in the law library, I actually don't think they were wasted. I learned how to question an argument, recognise what mattered and exercise judgement, and those are the very skills I draw on when I use AI today.
Which of the skills that have made you successful might you need to use differently as AI changes how work gets done?
