Leadership Imperatives in an AI World

In this article, the Dean of Western University’s Ivey Business School offers reflections on what business leaders should do as AI embeds itself in our day-to-day working lives. This article offers timeless advice because it is about how businesses should adapt in the face of technological change. Externally, leaders have a strategic imperative to create and maintain a distinctive value proposition in the face of strong AI-enabled forces for convergence. Internally, leaders have a moral imperative to ensure that workers continue to have worthwhile, meaningful jobs in an increasingly algorithm-controlled working environment. To ensure their organizations remain competitive, leaders need imagination, unreasonableness (the capacity to believe they are right and everyone else is wrong), and imperfection (i.e., authenticity). It is essential for leaders to ensure humanity remains in the workplace and, based on self-determination theory, this article suggests that autonomy, belonging, and competence should be emphasized. The AI revolution poses a possible schism between consciousness and intelligence, which creates risks for society in terms of inequality and a loss of social cohesion. As this article argues, leaders have the agency and responsibility to prevent this from happening within their organizations. Their job is to recouple consciousness and intelligence, ensure there is a human quality to their products and services, and safeguard the features of work that make it worth doing.