Strategic Imperative: Transforming Leadership
Current state: Three interdependent and cascading factors
1. There is enormous pressure to improve productivity[Bank of Canada 2025].
And, AI and Agents and other tech appear to hold the promise of doing much more, faster, and better.
2. Technological advances – and by that I include AI and Agentic AI – are happening very swiftly.
Change is no longer episodic. It no longer has start and end dates. It is constant. Change IS the Status Quo.
3. The ROI of AI “isn’t there”.
Less than 13% of AI implementations provide their intended results within a year and Leadership is feeling the strain.
The reasons stated are multiple. [McKinsey State-of-Organizations 2026], [Deloitte Ai-ROI the paradox of rising investment and elusive returns.]
One of the most compelling, for me, is the ‘human factor’.
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”
Old leadership models need a refresh.
Old delivery models and “Change Management” philosophies no longer fit. (CM is in quotations because, I’ll argue, we cannot “manage change”. We can, however, increase the likelihood and ease of adoption. My preference is enthusiastic adoption.)
Team members, those complicated creatures, are adopting AI erratically, or not at all. Throwing more CM at the “problem” isn’t solving it.
“A New Style of Leadership is a Strategic Imperative
. . . that intentionally unleashes the potential in the workforce”
According to the reports A New Style of Leadership is a Strategic Imperative:A “human-centred” leadership that builds trust, psychological safety, embeds organization-wide ‘radar’ with 1) the ability to identify and evaluate opportunities and, 2) the engaged flexibly to adapt and adjust.
Leadership that intentionally unleashes the potential in the workforce, increasing retention, improving decision making and resilience.
Because Change is Constant, work environments must be places where:
“Each team is a system. . . and part of a larger system of systems. . . and each team member is alert for possibly exciting potential opportunities – to be explored, evaluated, tested and possibly seized/ built on”
Each Team is a “system”, “ecosystem”, or “organism” consisting of great diversity, and part of a larger system of systems
Everyone on the team is aware, alert, valued for their capability and potential
Each team member is active “radar”- bringing in information that might be risks, opportunities or idea sparkers – from their perspective
Each team member (on every team) is alert for possibly exciting potential opportunities – to be explored, evaluated, tested and possibly seized/ built on (that enthusiastic adoption: seeing and seizing opportunity)
A Leadership that creates the culture and environment and embeds some of the practices of Change Management into the team culture: Each team member is Aware, and each team member has the Desire to be an active part of the future.
How does your organization ensure that each leader within the organization shifts?
With leadership transformation that builds these team cultures or environments WITH the team - at every level of the organization.