The augmented leader

AI will not replace leaders. But leaders who use it well will likely start replacing those who don’t The question is shifting. From “should we use AI?” to “how to lead well alongside it?” I like Wharton professor Ethan Mollick’s book Co-intelligence, which frames AI not as a tool you operate but as a colleague you work with.

Building on that, I have found it helpful to simultaneously think about how much you use AI, and how much human judgment is required. That gives four postures: 1.⁠ ⁠Stuck — low AI, low judgment. Manual and standing still while the world moves on. 2.⁠ ⁠Craft — low AI, high judgment. Wise, but it doesn’t scale and it tires the leader out. 3.⁠ ⁠Reckless — high AI, low judgment.

Fast and fluent, but the thinking has been outsourced. The most dangerous quadrant, because it looks like progress. 4.⁠ ⁠Augmented — high AI, high judgment. Machine speed with high human wisdom. The goal. In my experience the bigger risk is not that leaders use AI too little. It’s that they quietly slide into “reckless”, letting a confident answer stand in for the hard question. AI can get you to an answer faster.

Only you can decide if it’s the right question. Which of these four postures are you leading from today? And where is your team most at risk of slipping into “reckless”?