AI and Organizational Culture

AI leadership means guiding all employees through change—supporting early adopters hungry to innovate, while engaging resistors who fear being left behind. Success depends on direct, human-centered leadership: one-on-one conversations, trust-building, and practical support, not just training programs or re-orgs.

AI Leadership – Fiona Passantino, 26 MAR 2025

Taking on AI Transformation

In the end, AI leadership is all about supporting and inspiring the people in your working community. Taking on AI transformation is a big ask of everyone. No exceptions, everyone will have to work harder, learn new things, change some old habits and likely undergo a reorganization.

What is the impact of all of this on the average worker? Will AI-empowerment make her feel empowered or lost, out of control, full of anxiety and dread? Will having her own internal model assistant make her job easier, faster and more interesting? How much time will she need to invest in her own learning, and what company support can she count on? Does she believe that she will be sent on early retirement if she fails to adopt AI along with her 20 years-younger colleagues who bathe in this stuff every day of their lives? Will she feel a deeper sense of connection with the company, her colleagues, her customers, with the adoption of AI or alone, disconnected and automated? Will her role become more or less interesting, and will she be doing more of what she signed up for, or less?

Literally every single person in the organization will need to be studied. As with any change, some people will learn and use the new tools and be excited to learn more, happy to help their colleagues.

Within any working community undergoing upheaval, there will be 10% who are resistant to change, any change, no matter what it is. Within this group, most will be passive resistors; not signing up for the training due to procrastination, disinterest or by just being “too busy”.

Some will be active resistors, spending 90% of their cognitive load on resistance, fear, frustration. Trying to dissuade leadership into taking a particular path, and will give up before even trying despite their belief that they may likely lose their jobs by staying the course. The 10% of the information that makes it into their brains will never be enough to keep up with the others.

How does the AI Leader understand this distinction in her community, and support everyone, according to their needs and ambitions? Practically, there will always be a certain segment of the organization that will never change, or change minimally, and no amount of incentivizing or task re-arranging will help them. This could be the group that stays analogue; the one that helps the similarly analogue customers or takes on non-AI roles. This could be the group that moves towards softer, more people-focused roles in the organization.

The other end of the spectrum is where the early adopters are found. How does the AI Leader give this 10% the room they need to grow? The ones that study LLMs in their spare time, try new solutions, scan the horizon for trends and ideas. Likewise, frustrated that the organization is moving too slowly, too timidly. This group will eventually tire of babysitting their slower colleagues and will yearn to expand their own horizons. Potentially your most valuable group of employees, the ones at highest flight risk when the headhunter comes calling for the startup FinTech down the street.

The first, best thing the AI Leader needs to do to cultivate this skillset is to not focus-group it nor feasibility test it nor external efficiency consultant it. This is about you being present, spending time with your people – one to one, one to many, many to one. Talking, asking, feeling, sensing, pushing, explaining, convincing, inspiring. Absorbing information on a Human level, not gathering data, to see where you are.

The 10% at the back of the pack, fighting against change, reminds us of where we’ve been. They hold the memory of the organization, rooted in its history and legacy. They embody the values of consistency, stability and the Human experience. The 10% fighting to change represent the future. They embody the values of flexibility, innovation, adaptability and the Human-AI experience. They remind us of where we’re going.

These two groups bookend the solid middle, and that’s the company you have, which is only as good as its whole. You cannot re-org your way to innovation; the cost is too high. The AI Leader needs the whole company; you invest in the ones you have.

Balancing the full range of Human personalities, types, strengths and weaknesses, and leading them all requires creativity, imagination, compassion and strength. Leadership in the AI Age requires as much – or more – Human skills than before. Intuition, instinct, listening and trust. There is no model in the world that can do this for you.

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