A leader’s first steps
If you lead a team in a business or organisation, talk of AI will almost certainly have come your way. It’s here, and it’s happening.
But one of the honest questions we often hear in our work with leaders, when it comes to change, is, “Where do I even begin leading on AI in our business?”
Maybe you’ve read that question, and you realise you’re not the only one asking it. Cue a sigh of relief. Yet, whether by design or just by virtue of your position, you may have been handed the unhelpfully vague job of ‘driving AI development’. And now, the AI baton is weighing heavily.
To help you, Thrive’s founders (Charlotte and Dan) have put together ‘Seven principles for leading on AI’. It’s OK, you’re not about to read a tech and tools blog! This is the prompt you need to do what you do best: getting the best out of your team by communicating and leading brilliantly. Enjoy.
Viewing the change in the context of your experience
Whatever baton you’ve been handed, you care about your team to lead them through it. It’s your role to bring everyone through the transition, and change always comes – it wasn’t so long ago we were grappling with the hybrid shift right? Facilitative leadership, duty of care doesn’t change, but we’ve seen brilliant leaders massively overwhelmed by the idea of needing to know the exact direction to take with AI. It’s a sense of missing out or falling behind.
Why are we seeing this, and can you relate?
Firstly, AI hasn’t rendered you or your skills redundant. No way! Your ability to lead is more important than ever. The problem is, you’re navigating something that’s moving at a pace no one can keep up with, and filtering endless noise, moving goalposts, and bold (often AI-written) claims of ‘supercharged productivity’.
Ultimately, you just want to get it right, look after your team, and protect your business in this period of change. Take heart and read on, as these leadership principles will help you lean into the safety your experience brings.
1. Know your role (it’s not to have all the answers)
Whether you feel ready or not, AI is now part of your team’s world. Some people are curious. Some are experimenting. Some are hoping it will make life easier. Some are worried about what it means for their role.
Your job isn’t to have the answers. It’s to guide the conversation. It’s to stay consistent. As Steve Jobs put it: “We hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.”
You don’t need to know everything. You just need to lead the people who do.
2. Relax. You’ve been here before
‘New normals’: Do you remember figuring out hybrid working policies after Covid?
When hybrid working arrived, the best leaders didn’t rush out a policy and pretend to have a perfect model ready to go. Instead, they listened and worked it out with their teams because they recognised every team is different.
Now, guess what? Those same leaders are still listening and adapting their hybrid arrangements in today’s context. Why? Because things change.
AI is in the same mould. Start the conversation, don’t ignore it, but know your best answers now will look different later.
3. Before you touch a tool, look at your people
The instinct is to jump straight to these types of questions:
- Which AI tools should we use?
- How do we stay AI compliant?
- What’s everyone else doing with AI?
We’ve been there.
But pause.
Your first steps are human ones, not technical ones. Talk to your team, listen to their concerns and hopes, build understanding in a safe space, and let people question without fear. This is the “Safe” and “Progressive” part of Thrive’s HAPPINESS Model.
Tech mistakes from rushed decisions are costly, and this way you’re more likely to avoid them. From here, identify where AI could add value and support your organisation’s goals.
4. Identify and work with resistance
Resistance isn’t a problem when you lead well. Where it occurs, it’s giving you important information.
Some team members may fear being replaced. Others may be quietly using AI already and are unsure if that’s OK. And leaders themselves will feel the same mix of curiosity and concern.
When leaders acknowledge their own uncertainty, the whole team relaxes. We see it all the time. So, create the space for honest conversations in team meetings and in 1:1s, so people feel safe enough to say what they really think.
How many times have you seen resistance or misunderstanding smoothed out just because it was voiced?
5. Prioritise psychological safety
People are thinking a lot about the possible impact of AI on their jobs.
Therefore, prioritising psychological safety is more important than ever if you want a thriving, high-performing team.
If you want people to be honest about AI, you need to make it safe to speak, which means:
- Modelling openness
- Asking balanced, objective questions
- Avoiding unproductive negativity
People can only engage with change when they feel supported – it’s the “Safe” and “Nurturing” part of our HAPPINESS Model.
6. Maintain consistent leadership
Your consistency will bring stability. Stability creates safety. Safety lets people thrive.
Changes stemming from AI make consistent leadership more important than ever. Embracing change (like with AI) and maintaining stability in your leadership can happily co-exist. That’s brilliant news for brilliant leaders.
At Thrive, we help build Facilitative Leadership. It’s perfect for managing change effectively, so why not reflect quickly on how you’re doing at:
- Listening properly
- Asking open questions
- Not interrupting
- Not jumping to solutions
- Framing the conversation
- Spotting themes
- Helping your team reach shared conclusions
And remember, Facilitative Leadership is so much easier when you remember Point 1 above. You don’t have to have all the answers.
7. Push for proper agreement (not just nods)
If you just hand out directives during change, you’ll quickly find that nodding heads don’t always mean people agree, are on board, or even understand.
Ask these questions to show your team it’s safe to ask and clarify:
- “What have we missed?”
- “What are the risks?”
- “What would make this better?”
And then embrace the silence.
People will fill it given the chance, and you can follow up individually if you need to. It’s the “Structured” part of the HAPPINESS Model, helping you find agreed ways of working that everyone gets on board with.
Remember… AI is making great leadership even more important
If leaders get this wrong, the risks are real. We’re seeing two emerging risks in their work that we’re keen for you to avoid:
- Burnout – If AI takes out low‑effort tasks, people can be left with only complex, cognitively heavy work. Look out for disengagement, mood changes, overwhelm, and anxiety.
- Disconnection – If people retreat into solo working with AI, collaboration falls, and loneliness rises. Your role is to get the best from AI and your human teams behind what you do.
We’d like to hear about what you’re seeing as well, so look at your next steps below.
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Your next steps for thriving with AI
Thrive is helping leaders navigate this new way of working, develop their teams and get this right. Like any other change leadership, the key is to assess your needs first, why they’re important, and then you can go about the next challenge of finding tools, training, etc. that fit your requirements.
We’re here to help, so get in touch if you want support to make your AI adoption effective and human.
Also, read more about Thrive’s HAPPINESS Model and our work with businesses in our article, Why workplace happiness is always the answer.