How to Develop a Leadership Mindset for the AI Age – Top 3 Skills

In the Age of AI, the definition of success is rapidly changing. In the Industrial and Information Ages, success was obtained and defined by predictability, conformity, and productivity. 

But, what got you and your organization here is not what is going to get you where you’re going next. In the Age of AI, the definition of success is rooted in creativity and innovation.

Efficiency is being replaced by effectiveness. Burnout by spaciousness. And conformity by creativity.

Those that continue to lead in the old ways will end up reacting to the innovation of the market leaders. The leaders, teams, and organizations that thrive in this age will be the ones driving that change, rather than reacting to it. 

To be at the forefront and drive that change as a leader, you must build your capacity (and your teams’ capacities) to embrace ambiguity, foster creativity, and harness the power of diverse perspectives.

Let’s dive deeper into these Top 3 skills essential for navigating the Age of AI:

1. Build your capacity for change.
2. Shift conformity into creativity.
3. Allow innovation to emerge from the tension of diverse viewpoints.

Skill #1: Build Your Capacity for Change

The leaders, teams, and organizations that will thrive in the Age of AI are those that drive change rather than react to it. 

So how do you build your capacity for change?

You first need to notice when your nervous system gets into a state of fight or flight due to the industry disruption around you creating ambiguity and unpredictability. 

Your nervous system has been trained from a young age to look for stability and predictability. To try to “fix” ambiguity by “figuring out” solutions and “forcing” action rooted in past experiences and solutions. Yet, innovation won’t arise from those 3 F’s. 

Innovation arises in the discomfort and tension of the space, unknown, and ambiguity. It arises in “awareness” of your auto-pilot urge to escape the discomfort, gentleness and self ”acceptance” without judgment of that urge, and slowing down to “align” to a more consciously aware, creative choice. These are the 3 A’s.

So, in those moments, instead of reacting and trying to get everything to look nice and neat, you only have one priority: self-regulation. If you’re feeling like your external conditions need to change in order for you to feel confident, safe, and in your power, that’s not the time to act. It’s in those moments you can shift from reacting to your environment, to driving the change in it. 

There are many ways to do this, and it’s usually a combination of:

1. Regular, proactive breath, meditation, and movement practices designed and proven to retrain your nervous system to be calm in these “storms” of anxiety, fear, panic, etc. 
2. In-the-moment simple techniques that the mind will often dismiss as too simple: 5 second inhales and exhales into the belly, rubbing the kidneys to help them and the adrenals calm the body and relax fear, going for a vigorous walk, putting your feet in the grass, etc. 
3. Long-term exploration of the roots of your auto-pilot patterns that were built into your neurology over time, normally starting in childhood to navigate a world that told you conformity was safe and uniqueness unsafe. That predictability was valuable and valid, while unknowns were too risky. 

But often, the mind decides it’s too busy “figuring out” the solution to slow down, regulate, and prioritize shifting your internal state. “There’s no time for that! We have to figure this out!” is it’s likely habitual pattern.

Yet, what your mind can’t see when wrapped up in the auto-pilot pattern is that the highest-leverage solution will arise from a calm, clear, confident internal state. When reacting to external conditions and out of fear or anxiety, in the long term, this will create unnecessary effort and stress.

A more elegant solution is always available when you take responsibility for shifting your internal state before acting, instead of acting to create results that will make you feel better.

And the leaders that prioritize this in the Age of AI are those that will drive the change that others react to. Especially when you’re not clear what the next product launch should be, where the next client is going to come from, when you’re not clear how to navigate the changing circumstances of the market, etc.

This leads us to Leadership Skill #2 for the Age of AI:

Skill #2: Shift Conformity into Creativity

The reason it’s so hard to be the one driving change rather than reacting to it is because, if you’re like most people who grew up in the Information Age, you were taught to conform and suppress your creativity at a very young age. 

This was because your parents, caretakers, teachers, etc. believed that’s what was best for you to create financial stability, physical safety, and validation from society. Having navigated the Great Depression as well as World Wars that greatly impacted economics, this was very true for them. And came from care and love. Or perhaps you navigated those times yourself. Either way, the collective momentum of conformity and self-suppression in order to succeed has been building since at least the 1700s.

And now: AI.

AI can accomplish many time-consuming tasks that you previously would have worked hard, long hours and earned points for being “productive”, what was so valued and rewarded in the Information Age. Those that worked the hardest were those that were most rewarded. 

No more.

Now, it’s those that are the most creative and innovative that will be the most rewarded. This isn’t a time to make excuses to reduce your workforce and use AI to make roles “redundant”. 

That is short-sighted

This is a time to upskill yourself and your team. This is a time when the burnout, overwhelm, stress, and mental health issues plaguing much of the workforce (perhaps you) can finally have a reprieve. This is a time when you can empower yourself and your workforce to unravel learned patterns of conformity and self-suppression and get comfortable in spaciousness.

In effectiveness over efficiency.

In summary, it’s no longer about how much you can get done, but how quickly you can use AI to replace productivity and create space to reduce burnout, no longer sacrificing your creative spirit in order to get stuff done.

The way you unravel these patterns of conformity is by using the 3 A’s defined above and building that into your culture. 

Notice when anxiety rises, when anger rises, when your team is struggling with ambiguity and asking you for clarity. Open the floor for a discussion about this, to bring these auto-pilot patterns to awareness and expression, about all the fears that come with not having a clear measure of success to aspire to.

Help shift the measure of success to how creative and innovative they can be – just how much they can fail forward. This goes against everything they’ve learned up until now, and it takes gentle persistence and living it by example to shift. 

This leads us to Leadership Skill #3 for the Age of AI.

Skill #3: Allow Innovation to Emerge from Diverse Perspectives.

Building on the first two skills, this one naturally follows. When there’s a culture of self-regulation, taking responsibility for one’s emotional state, self-awareness, ambiguity, and creativity, then a group can allow the tension of the unknown to ring loudly at the intersection of all the diverse, creative perspectives that exist within the group. There is so much latent genius and wasted potential that can unlock when healthy tension is allowed. 

Through a culture of curiosity, innovation can emerge from the healthy tension of diverse, sometimes disparate, perspectives and ideas. And magic can happen. 

As the team looks for the emergent properties of the collective genius instead of shooting down differing perspectives, that’s when the lightning hits. The innovations possible from one person’s unique creativity pale in comparison to the innovations possible from a group all operating in their unique creativity.

That’s why it’s so important to build capacity to search for the emergent properties like a detective, using AI to accomplish the day-to-day essentials in more effective ways. 

When various backgrounds, life experiences, challenges, perspectives, cultures, and choices are allowed full expression, the pool of ideas that innovation can arise from is much larger. 

And from a larger pool rises exponential growth.

There’s a reason that the particular group of people surrounding you was attracted to the same mission that you were. There’s a natural intelligence wanting to break through the patterns of conformity. You just have to allow it to rise. 

The unique genius, the unique innovation, that ONLY your unique group of people can come up with. 

THAT is how you drive change.

Conclusion

So, what is the unique innovation that wants to emerge from within you? From your team?

What’s in the way of it? 

It’s key to slow down and explore these questions. How can you utilize AI to create space in your day-to-day so you can do this? 

So that you can then create environments, spaces, and trainings to help your team do the same?

What will you choose to do each and every day to build your capacity for change, creativity, diverse perspectives and innovation? What small choices? Can you commit to no longer acting out of reaction and fear? Can you create space to soften and generate safety from within in those moments? 

It starts within you. You’ve got this. 

And if you need support, I’m here for you. I’ve been supporting Executives, Founders, and Entrepreneurs – and their teams – for over a decade to build this skillset. Feel free to send me a message. I’d love to hear from you.