I have taught leadership courses for decades where my students often have to answer a simple question: What is the difference between being a leader and being a manager? There is never one correct answer, but many people describe leadership as being more strategic and management as being more tactical. AI has the potential to impact both roles, although probably not in the same way. As AI becomes better at organizing information, improving efficiency, and recommending next steps, it naturally strengthens many of the responsibilities managers perform every day. Becoming a stronger leader has always required something different. Leaders develop perspective over time by building knowledge, questioning assumptions, recognizing patterns, and making decisions when there is no obvious answer. If AI increasingly delivers answers before people build that depth of understanding for themselves, organizations may become much better at producing efficient managers than strategic leaders. That is problematic because companies compete on innovation, adaptability, and good decisions, all of which depend on strong leadership.
Why Leaders Develop Differently Than Managers
How does someone actually develop into a leader? I don’t think that happens because people suddenly reach a certain position or accumulate enough information. It develops over years of building knowledge, solving problems, and seeing enough situations to recognize something they probably would have missed much earlier in their careers.
After interviewing thousands of executives, entrepreneurs, researchers, psychologists, and business leaders, I have had the opportunity to ask many of them how they approached difficult decisions. Their answers were all different, but they had something in common. The knowledge they relied on had been built over many years. They drew from previous jobs, conversations, books, research, mentors, successes, disappointments, and experiences that accumulated throughout their careers. That process helped them recognize patterns and ask better questions. I think that process has always been an important part of becoming a leader.
When I interviewed Stella Collins, cofounder and Chief Learning Officer at Stellar Labs and author of Neuroscience for Learning and Development, she explained that people often confuse receiving information with learning. AI can provide information in seconds. Learning still requires reflection, experience, and enough time to understand why something worked in one situation but failed in another. Reading a summary can help someone understand a topic. Building enough knowledge to recognize when that summary is incomplete takes much longer.
I see the same thing in my own work. Research from my dissertation on emotional intelligence still influences projects I work on today. Interviews from my radio show continue to help me develop ideas for Forbes articles years after those conversations took place. I might be writing about curiosity and suddenly remember something a CEO said years ago. Other times, a psychologist’s comments help explain a leadership challenge. Those connections were never planned. They happened because knowledge continued to build over time. I think leaders develop in much the same way.
Why AI May Change How Leaders Develop
I use AI every day because it saves me an incredible amount of time. I also know that the first answer it gives me is rarely the end of my research. More often than not, it sends me looking for another source, another opinion, or another question. That is where much of the learning still takes place.
When I interviewed entrepreneur and New York Times bestselling author Josh Linkner, we talked about innovation, and he explained that original ideas come from continuing to explore after most people believe they already have the answer. Leadership develops in much the same way. Throughout my interviews, the leaders who impressed me the most were willing to keep asking questions long after everyone else was ready to move on.
That is where I see a possible unintended consequence of AI. Managers benefit immediately because AI helps them complete many of the responsibilities they already have. Leaders benefit too, but leadership has always depended on building enough knowledge to recognize when an answer deserves another question. If employees become accustomed to receiving conclusions before they build that understanding for themselves, organizations could gradually develop people who become very good at managing work without developing as many people who naturally grow into strategic leaders.
Another issue deserves more attention than it receives. AI responds to the assumptions built into the prompt. If those assumptions are weak, the answer often builds on them. One of the easiest ways to improve the quality of AI’s responses is to ask it where your thinking could be wrong, what assumptions deserve another look, or what someone with a completely different viewpoint might say. Those questions often produce much better discussions than simply asking AI for an answer.
How Organizations Can Continue Developing Leaders
Leadership development may need to become more intentional than it has been in the past. Teaching employees how to use AI effectively is important. Teaching them how to think alongside AI may become even more important.
One approach is to have people work through an issue before opening AI. Ask them how they reached their conclusion, what information they relied on, and what assumptions they made. After AI responds, compare its recommendations with the team’s thinking. The discussion should focus less on whether AI was right and more on why the answers were different. Those conversations help people build the kind of thinking that organizations expect from leaders.
Organizations may also want to take another look at what they recognize and reward. AI is going to help almost everyone become more efficient. Efficiency alone is unlikely to distinguish future leaders. Employees who ask thoughtful questions, challenge assumptions respectfully, connect ideas from different disciplines, or recognize opportunities others overlook may create even greater value as AI becomes part of everyday work. Those are also many of the same qualities organizations have traditionally looked for when identifying future leaders.
Why The Future Still Needs Leaders
AI is one of the most valuable business tools I have seen during my career, and organizations should absolutely embrace it. The opportunity is making sure it becomes more than a productivity tool. Managers and leaders have always played different roles, and organizations need both. AI is likely to strengthen management first because efficiency is exactly what it was designed to improve. Leadership develops over a much longer period of time through learning, experience, curiosity, and the ability to recognize that the first answer is not always the best one. Organizations that continue creating opportunities for people to build that depth of understanding while taking full advantage of AI may be the ones that develop both stronger managers and stronger leaders.
