Leadership Development Series: Your AI Strategy Needs Strong Leaders

Some are shoving AI down people's throats (yes, leaders have literally used those words). Others are paralyzed, waiting for the perfect strategy. And most are somewhere in the gray area—rolling out Copilot while employees quietly use their "side AI friend" for the real work.

Here's what we're seeing: the same companies that struggled to develop managers before AI are now expecting those same managers to lead people through an AI transformation.

The math doesn't add up.

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The Leadership Debt We've Been Ignoring

Think about your first-time managers. In the best cases, they get auto-enrolled in a manager 101 program the day they're promoted. Six months, maybe a year of cohort-based learning covering the basics: one-on-ones, expectations, performance management.

But here's what's more common: individual contributors who were stellar at their jobs suddenly find themselves managing people by doing their work for them. Because that's the comfortable space. They never learned the difference between managing tasks and leading people.

Now we're asking these same managers to navigate AI adoption, manage teams using AI, and somehow become the change agents for transformation. Without fixing the foundation first.

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What AI Actually Demands from Leaders

The leaders who are succeeding right now aren't the ones with the most sophisticated AI strategies. They're the ones who can:

• Navigate ambiguity (because nobody has the AI playbook figured out yet)

• Ask questions that uncover what their teams actually need

• Coach people through uncertainty instead of providing all the answers

• Pick a direction and move, even without perfect information

Sound familiar? These are the same skills we should have been teaching managers all along.

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The CFO Question That Changes Everything

Here's the reality check happening in boardrooms: CFOs are asking where the AI ROI is. Companies invested heavily, but the productivity gains aren't showing up on spreadsheets yet.

We're heading into what one of our conversations called "this really mucky area of disillusionment" before AI becomes normalized. The leaders who can guide their teams through this period, who can maintain confidence while acknowledging uncertainty, will determine whether AI initiatives succeed or become expensive mistakes.

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Starting Where You Are

The companies getting this right are being intentional about carving out time for leadership development. Not just for new managers, but for experienced leaders who are reading books but don't have a frame of reference for what good leadership development looks like.

One VP told us recently: "I would love some development. I'm reading books, but I don't know if that's good or not. I need a frame of reference outside my company."

These are smart, accomplished people who recognize they need to grow. The question is whether their companies will invest in that growth or assume they've "got it figured out" because they've been leading for years.

Your AI transformation is only as strong as your leadership foundation. Fix the foundation first.

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This is the first part in a four part series on Leadership Development by Oxygen. We'll be releasing the next part each Wednesday, so stay tuned!