Leadership culture is about to decide who thrives in the AI economy and who quietly burns out.
Automation will accelerate, roles will reshape, and the workday experience will keep stretching.
But the organisations that win won’t be the ones with the flashiest tools. They’ll be the ones where leadership culture builds psychological safety, speeds up learning, and channels uncertainty into purposeful action.
If there haven’t been enough labour market shifts, it is set to transition again. And in this saga, AI plays a key role. According to Microsoft, managers now say AI aptitude could rival experience.
Three Significant Labour And Hiring Trends Shaped By AI
Microsoft and LinkedIn identified three significant labour and hiring trends shaped by AI.
(1) Employees want AI at work—and they won’t wait for companies to catch up.
Work has accelerated faster than employees can keep up.
- 68% of people struggle with the pace and volume of work.
- 46% feel burned out
- Over 60% of working time is spent on emails, chats and meetings.
- 41% of leaders expect to redesign business processes from the ground up, with AI, within the next 5 years.
As Microsoft and LinkedIn’s study puts it:
”People are overwhelmed with digital debt and under duress at work, and they are turning to AI for relief.”
(2) For employees, AI raises the bar and breaks the career ceiling.
- 55% of leaders are concerned about having enough talent to fill roles in the year ahead.
- 45% of professionals fear that AI will take their jobs.
- 66% of leaders say they wouldn’t hire someone without AI skills.
- 71% say they’d rather hire a less experienced candidate with AI skills than a more experienced candidate without them.
- 77% of leaders say that, with AI skills, the early-career talent will be given greater responsibilities.
What stands out in this study, too, is how leaders miss the value of developing their existing people.
- Only 39% of people globally who use AI at work have gotten AI training from their company.
- Only 25% of companies are planning to offer training on generative AI this year.
(3) The rise of the AI power user—and what they reveal about the future.
Power users are regular AI users, at least several times a week at work, saving more than 30 minutes a day.
And, according to this study, it’s also paying off:
- 92% of the power users say AI makes their overwhelming workload more manageable.
- 92% say AI boosts their creativity.
- 93% admit AI helps them focus on the most important work, feel more motivated (91%), and enjoy work more (91%).
How do you become a power user of AI? Developing new habits.
68% of power users frequently experiment with different ways of using AI. And this differentiates them from others who are not seen as power users. The power use of AI means, for example:
- Keep trying for the perfect response from AI
- Researching and trying out new prompts
- ”Bookending” their day with AI; starting the day with it and getting ready for the following workday
- Brainstorming and problem-solving with AI
- Analysing information and insight
- Interacting with customers
Why Leadership Culture Is The Competitive Edge Now
What I find very interesting is that leadership culture plays a significant role in empowering the use of AI.
According to the same Microsoft and LinkedIn study, power users are empowered by a different kind of organisation.
- AI power users are 61% more likely to hear from their CEO about the importance of using generative AI at work.
- 40% more likely to hear from the leader of their department.
- 42% more likely to hear from their manager’s manager.
- AI power users are 53% more likely to receive encouragement from leadership to consider how AI can transform their function.
McKinsey estimates that 60–70% of work activities are technically automatable over time, adding trillions in value when organisations redesign work around them.
That’s productivity, but it’s also an enormous pressure. People need clarity, safety and meaning to adapt quickly.
At the same time, change fatigue is a real performance risk. Gartner data shows it’s now a top concern; when fatigue spikes, commitment and retention drop. Leaders can’t “push through” this with dashboards. They need to calm the system, not just speed it up.
Beneath it all is trust.
The Edelman Trust Barometer finds widening trust gaps and workplace polarisation, but also a mandate: employers are still seen as uniquely trusted to lead.
Your leadership culture either closes that gap or widens it. And, that’s why it must become the enabling “operating system” with human connection at the forefront.
The Neuroscience Behind A Resilient Leadership Culture
Google’s Project Aristotle found the number-one predictor of high-performing teams was psychological safety: the experience of being able to speak up, admit mistakes, and learn in public.
Amy Edmondson’s work shows the same: safety accelerates learning, which accelerates performance. This is exactly what AI-era organisations need. Leadership culture is how safety becomes habit, not a slide.
It’s a fact that AI use is surging, but without leadership clarity and norms, the “infinite workday” expands, and burnout follows. Again, tech is not the barrier; leadership culture is.
What great leadership culture looks like in practice
- Safety before speed. Leaders narrate uncertainty, invite dissent, and normalise iteration.
- Meaning before metrics. Teams are shown the why behind changes, not just deadlines.
- Capability before capacity. You invest in the skills that make change possible (sense-making, storytelling, decision hygiene) before adding more initiatives.
- Consistency before campaigns. People experience the same leadership standards across teams, not pockets of excellence.
- Story before software. You align language, rituals and decisions so the culture story is coherent with the strategy.
Strategy Won’t Save You If Leadership Culture Contradicts It
PwC’s Strategy& shows “coherent companies” (strategy anchored in distinctive capabilities) grow 3× faster and are 2× as likely to be above-average in profits.
Unfortunately, coherence lives or dies in our daily (leadership) behaviours.
When leaders communicate one thing and model another, you create friction, not focus. Leadership culture is how strategy becomes lived reality. And, it’s not the same thing as organisation or company culture! Especially, when dictated in staff workshops about ’fun at work’.
Becoming A Story-Driven Business: The Fastest Path To A Stronger Leadership Culture
A story-driven business doesn’t use stories as decoration; it uses them as an alignment system that makes leadership culture visible, teachable and repeatable:
Shared narrative = shared focus
Leaders communicate a clear arc: Where we’re going, why it matters, what changes, what stays sacred. This reduces anxiety and boosts voluntary adoption of change.
Meaning bridges the trust gap
In low-trust climates, employees respond to leaders, not logos. Story-driven leadership restores credibility by connecting purpose to performance with human examples, not slogans.
Leaders become guide-characters
Leaders shift from “announcers of change” to “navigators of change,” modelling the curiosity, candour and courage they expect from others.
Employee advocacy becomes a natural part of employer branding
When people can feel and retell the company’s story in their own words, you don’t need to “activate” them. They already are active in sharing the story forward.
Strategy turns into behaviour
Using story frameworks (like our Magnetic Employer Branding Method™), teams translate strategy into weekly moments: how we decide, prioritise, recognise, and recover.
That’s leadership culture in motion.
Bottom line
Leadership culture is now your strategy’s force multiplier, or its failure mode.
AI will keep raising the tempo. Your story, safety and standards will determine whether people sprint with you or stall out.
If you’re ready to turn AI-era anxiety into purpose, belief and confident execution, become a story-driven business. It’s the most pragmatic way to evolve as a leader and quickly develop your leadership culture.
It’s really all about what, how and why you communicate with your people.
Contact me when you are ready to learn if becoming a story-driven business is the solution to accelerate your path to a more smashing future!
