AI Readiness (3 of 3): The LEADERS Playbook for AI Success

Speaker A: AI is here. And over the last couple episodes we talked about what your organization and your team need to do to be successful. But what about you personally? That's what we're tackling today.

Speaker B: Welcome to Leadership Mindset 2.0, Practical Neuroscience and psychology to transform you from a tactical doer into a strategic leader. Here is your host, former Social Entrepreneur of the Year and coach to some of the world's top executives. R. Uh, Michael Anderson.

Speaker A: Hello, dear leader. Today I'm here for you. Enough talking about what AI will do for organizations, teams, industries, etc. The question is, how does this affect you? Because if you're not thinking about how AI is going to affect your career and your further success, you should be. Absolutely. Because everybody is. And it's so interesting in my clients. Some companies are investing in AI. They're training everybody in AI, other people. I just talked to a VP two days ago and he's like, we don't hear anything about AI. So companies are all on different spectrums here and people are on different spectrums here and people are worried, people are concerned. And we think that it's frontline people that are concerned, yet it's at the top. Just as well, 78% of CEOs say AI could cost them their job and their company's future. And that's from a global study published in May of 2026, so not a couple years ago this month. And 50% of CEOs said their job stability depends on successfully integrating AI this year. So there is a lot of pressure up and down the organization. If you're seeing a through line yet the through line to everything that we are talking about here is AI is important, but these are leadership and mindset issues and you need to make a significant change on the identity level. Here's what I mean by that. If you think about what common high level duties of a leader are, there's three different things. One is their functional area. So let's say just for illustrative purposes, that a average leader out there doesn't matter, middle manager, senior leader, whatever, a third of their job is to their functional expertise. And what I mean by functional expertise is for a cfo, this would be finance. For a marketing person, this would be marketing. For a sales leader, this would be sales, et cetera. Because when you get into a higher level leadership role, you still have to do some of your functional expertise or oversee it, what have you. So a third of it's your functional expertise. A uh, third of it is management that might be managing a project that Might be doing employee reviews, et cetera. And a third of it is leadership. That's holding a vision, holding people accountable, coaching people, et cetera. What happens is normally people are good at management and they're good at their functional elements, area of expertise. They need to be better at leadership. But as we, most of us know, normally people aren't giving enough training, support or coaching in leadership. They're just thrown in leadership positions. And so they are behind in that. So they rely on how good of a marketer or good of a finance person they are to overcome their lack of being able to coach, holding a, uh, really strong vision, holding people accountable, et cetera. Now do you know what AI is going to be really good at? AI is going to be really good at management and your functional area. So the thing if this is you or this is other leaders that you know, it's going to get good at the things that people have been relying on to make them a successful executive. And it's going to expose the people that aren't great leaders because those are the people that are going to thrive. Therefore, we need you to step up into real leadership. McKinsey did a 2026 research paper and it identified three leadership functions that are going to remain human even in fully AI augmented organizations. Here are three things AI cannot do and we don't expect it to do anytime soon. One is setting aspirations and enrolling others in them. And I'm going to tell you what these mean in real English in a second. Second is demonstrating values based judgment in genuinely contested territory. And three are designing outcomes that are nonlinear, that no model can generate on its own. Now uh, that's a bunch of consultant speak. Between you and me, what does that really mean? Here's what AI is not going to be able to do. Have a vision, hold a vision and enroll people in that vision and create an amazing culture. Second is it's not going to be good at coaching and uh, holding people accountable. I'm not talking about having a to do list. I'm talking about if people don't get things done, how to coach them so that they overcome procrastination, they do things better, et cetera. And the third is strategy is to come up with a strategy and then implement that strategy and coach people around that strategy, enroll people in that strategy. Now notice what all three of these have in common. They're not about knowing more. All these are about creating more from a creative standpoint. Creating the conditions, the directions of trust, environment which the best work can happen. That is what you need to get great at. So I'm going to give you five things. If I were a leader, if I was in your position right now, here are five things that I would do to be successful in this new age of AI. And these are five things that you can start making the change to do as well. First is get great at leading people. Yes, I'm the person that wrote leadership mindset 2.0 and helps people move to doer to leader. That's why I'm excited about this. Because you need to step up. We don't need you to be a doer anymore. AI is going to be better at you than that. We don't need you to manage all this stuff. We need you to lead. So get great at leading people. Second is become a ninja and at leading change. Because AI is going to be like constant, constant change throughout the teams and the organizations. So instead of resisting change, be awesome at change. Be the leader that brings change in. Also, you should understand change management and process re engineering. You don't have to be an expert at that, but you should understand the concepts of that because that will help you greatly in how to do this. Third is become a strategic leader. You need to develop your muscles so that you can sit in a senior leadership team and participate and be very valuable. That stuff is learnable and if you don't know how to do that, then you need help on doing that. You need coaching or you need my strategic leadership accelerator. The fourth thing that I would do if I were you is I would commit to and embrace AI. Use AI yourself in a smart way and talk about it. Employees whose direct manager actively and visibly supports AI are 8.7 times more likely to say AI has transformed their work and and C suite leaders who are deeply engaged with AI are 12 times more likely to be in the top 5% of AI performing organizations. So that's what I mean. You need to use AI. You don't have to be an expert at AI, but you need to use it and show people that you're using it. And around this know how to implement and integrate AI, know about the ethical issues, make sure people are accountable to their AI output, et cetera. There's a lot of little things that are fairly easy to learn that you need to know when implementing AI. The fifth thing is to develop expertise for making a business case around AI. This isn't just about plopping AI in anywhere. You need to know how to write a rich ROI or a business case around an AI project because that's what's missing right now is the business putting in AI projects that actually move the business forward. And you should understand this for your role and your industry because it gets more and more specific. When you can look at see what other people in the industry are doing, what other people in your roles are doing, then you can bring more to the table. So those are the five things that I would do. I would get great at, ah, leading people. I'd become a ninja at leading change. I'd become a more strategic leader, I'd commit to and embrace AI and I would develop expertise at the business case of AI because look, we are at a period of massive change. And the interesting thing about uh, the change right now is we know it's coming. If I had to bet whether AI would be something that sticks or not, I would bet a hundred percent it's going to stick. A lot of other major technological changes we've came through, we weren't really sure, but this one we're sure of. And the quicker you commit to making yourself an AI enabled leader and somebody who is going to master AI instead of being left behind, the more that's going to mean for you and your career and your success and your team and all this other good stuff. That's what I mean by everybody's talking about the technology, but it's about mindset, it's about leadership, it's about identity, it's about what you choose as a leader. So the question and your challenge for this week, dear Leader, is do you want to commit to AI? That's the first thing you got to do is you answer that question. If you do, what does that look like for you? What internal and external decisions do you have to make that are different? So the internal decision is, you know what, AI is here and I'm going to jump on board. That's the internal decision. The external decision is now that I'm on board, what do I need to do to go to move ahead on the five things that I mentioned? That is what's going to get you there. And it's not even close to too late. We are, uh, just at the beginning of this and if you do this now, in one year, in two years, in five years, you're going to say, I am so glad that I went all in in the beginning and this is a long game, so you got to go in now and you got to stick with it and it will pay dividends. As always, dear Leader, I'm here to give you the information and support you need to be successful. Not just now, but in later phases of your career. I know there's a lot out there. I know it can be confusing, but it's confusing for everybody. And if you're listening to this podcast, you are committed to your growth. And if you're committed to the growth, you can do this. I know you can. Go ahead. You got this.

Speaker C: That's it for today's episode. But I have one more question for you. Do you have an upcoming event that could benefit from a Leadership Mindset 2.0 Keynote or facilitation? What am my favorite things to do is speak and work with groups at events and leadership meetings. If you want to learn more about my speaking, go to rmichaelanderson.com speaking where you can see me on stage and inquire about bringing me in for your event. Then we can both meet in person and your team can get empowered with the latest mindset, tools and strategies.