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As organizations embed artificial intelligence into business operations, the demands on leaders are changing. Todays teams arent made up of people alonetheyre increasingly hybrid, with humans and AI working side by side. This shift has profound implications on how decisions are made, how roles are defined, and how trust is built. Simply put, as the world changes, leaders need to change, tooand fast. To succeed, leaders must adapt their approachrethinking how they structure teams, develop talent, communicate change, and build cultures of continuous learning. Those who do will unlock new levels of agility and innovation. And those who dont will pay a steep price. Unsure where to start? Here are five essential leadership shifts to make now in order to lead effectively in an era when yesterdays playbook no longer applies. 1. STRUCTURE FOR SHARED INTELLIGENCE, NOT JUST SHARED TASKS Leadership today isnt about controlits about enabling collaboration between people and intelligent systems. As AI agents become more capable and autonomous, leaders must influence human behavior and how AI operates within the team. That means defining when AI leads and when people intervene, ensuring AI decisions are understandable, and creating clear escalation paths. The goal isnt to micromanage AIits to design environments where humans and machines both contribute. By investing in the core operating processes and relational dynamics of team performance, youll turn your AI players into an all-star team. Ask yourself: How can I lead effectively when Im not the onlyor even the smartestagent in the room? 2. RECALIBRATE HOW YOU LEAD WHEN AI JOINS THE TEAM If you want people to engage with AI, you need to treat it as an active tool, not a passive teammate. Start by understanding where agents can add value. Assign AI agents clear roles and embed them into workflows where their strengthsspeed, scale, and pattern recognitionamplify human capability. The real challenge isnt humanizing technologyits humanizing the experience of those working alongside it. That requires that people feel trusted and includednot sidelined or replaced. It means involving them in shaping AI deployment, providing hands-on, practical training, and recognizing their uniquely human strengthslike empathy and creativityas vital to success. AI raises the bar for human critical thinking, decision-making, and accountabilityand thats where true value emerges. Done right, AI becomes a catalyst for confidence, collaboration, and culture. Ask yourself: Am I fully leveraging the complementary strengths of humans and machineswhile keeping the human experience at the center of it all? 3. BUILD YOUR LEADERSHIP MUSCLE The roles and responsibilities of leaders that made their organization successful in the past are different than whats required going forward. Leaders must demonstrate the courage to author an ambition that is less about protecting the past and more about creating the new. With generative AI expected to impact over 40% of working hours, leaders must unleash the confidence of their employees while enabling their accountability, connection, and judgment. Develop employees with self-awareness and relevant experiences to grow into the future leaders you need. Ask yourself: Am I embracing the nature of change as a moment to accelerate my ambition, foster greater connection, and ensure that my people fluency matches my tech fluency? 4. LEAD WITH LISTENING, NOT ASSUMPTIONS AI adoption isnt being held back by fearbut rather by misaligned perceptions between leaders and employees. Accenture research shows that 94% of employees believe they can learn the skills needed to work with AI, yet only 5% of organizations are reskilling their workforce at scale. At the same time, C-suite executives say lack of skills is a large barrier to scaling AI. This isnt just a resourcing gapits a disconnect in how each group perceives the problem. To close the gap, leaders must start with active listening. Explain why AI matters. Offer training thats practical and ongoing. And create space for experimentation, feedback, and learningespecially when it doesnt go perfectly the first time. Ask yourself: Are you investing the time truly required to shape AI strategy through listening and conversation with the people expected to drive it? 5. BECOME AN ARCHITECT OF CONTINUOUS CHANGE AI is accelerating. Your culture needs to evolve just as quickly. Yet, Accenture research shows only 25% of leaders believe their teams are prepared to embrace change. Just 42% of employees feel confident in their ability to keep up. This is not a workforce gapits a leadership opportunity. Start with a narrative that excites others about the possibilities while acknowledging the uncertainties. Embed co-learning into daily work. Encourage safe experimentation. And model the behavior you want to see: When leaders are curious, open to feedback, and transparent about their own journeys, others follow. Ask yourself: Am I creating the right conditions for, and to work with, emergent and iterative transformation? LEAD THE FUTURE BEFORE IT LEADS YOU Leadership in the age of AI isnt about having all the answers. Its about showing up differentlylistening harder, adapting faster, and being brave enough to rewire the workplace. The tools are changing. The core principles are not. Empathy. Trust. Vision. These are still the anchors of great leadership. Whats different now is whereand with whomyou practice them. The future of impactful leadership isnt human or AI. Its human and AIworking better together.
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Hello and welcome to Modern CEO! Im Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week this newsletter explores inclusive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from the pages of Inc. and Fast Company. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up to get it yourself every Monday morning. In the summer of 2000, moviegoers flocked to see Gladiator and Mission: Impossible II, Finlands Nokia was the leading maker of cellphones, and American telephone companies Bell Atlantic and GTE completed their $52 billion merger. They changed the entitys name to Verizon Communications. Im not big on writing about company anniversariesto me they seem like the corporate equivalent of Hallmark holidays. However, as a business journalist in the late 1990s and early 2000s, a big part of my job was to chronicle the regulatory and technological changes that led to the formation of Verizon 25 years ago. Ive interviewed all of Verizons chief executives, going back to its original co-CEOs, Chuck Lee and Ivan Seidenberg. And I wanted to speak to current CEO Hans Vestberg about the state of telecom today and how hes positioning the company for its next 25 years. Making a big request For Vestberg, who became CEO in 2018 and led the companys launch of its fast, low-latency 5G wireless technology, that means future-proofing the business by investing in its network. In 2021, Verizon pledged more than $52 billion to acquire wireless airwaves auctioned by the U.S. government. (For context, Verizons annual operating revenue last year was about $135 billion.) Vestberg says the purchase sets the company up to deliver products and services well into the next decades. I promise you, 25 years from now, we are going to be the leading telecom company in this country, he says. To do that, he says, you need spectrum, or radio frequencies for wireless communications. Vestberg says the board of directors supported his massive spending request. Our board is committed to think long-term, he says. Investors have been less enthusiastic. The companys stock price is about $42 a share, roughly where it was trading in early 2021, when it agreed to buy the spectrumand the company underperformed the broader market in that time frame. An investment in the future Vestberg notes that today, phone calls and text messagesthe main applications for wireless phones when Verizon was born 25 years agorepresent about 3% of the networks total usage. Nearly half of the usage is for streaming movies, games, and other digital fare. He says he believes the capacity and design of Verizons network will allow the company to accommodate new technologies that will flow over its airwaves and fiber. Im here to manage the legacy of my predecessors and see that this company continues to be the number one in everything were doing in this market, he says. Future-proofing your business How are you future-proofing your company for the next 25 years, and how do you get your board, investors, employees, and others to support your plans? Send me examples of your strategiesId love to share your stories in a future newsletter. Read more: birthday bashes LinkedIn turns 20: An oral history of an unlikely champion 50 stories celebrating the 50th anniversary of the moon landing 4 pitfalls to avoid when navigating corporate anniversaries
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On a recent flight home to Cincinnati, I found myself in a Wi-Fi pickle. Delta was offering free in-flight Wi-Fi for all SkyMiles members, but only after logging in through a web page. That created an obstacle for connecting my recently-acquired retro gaming handhelds, which dont have web browsers onboard. With no access to Deltas login site, I couldnt get them online to track my gaming progress. Quite the first-world problem, but after a bit of searching, I found a solution: Using my Android phones personal hotspot feature, I could relay Deltas Wi-Fi to any nearby device without having to go through a login page. Even with my phone in airplane mode, I was able to set up the hotspot and get my gaming handhelds online. It turns out that Windows PCs, MacBooks, and many Android phones can share a local Wi-Fi connection this way. I wish Id known about this earlier, because it can be useful in all kinds of scenarios:. Youre paying for hotel, in-flight, or cruise ship Wi-Fi, but each device connection costs extra. Youre using a guest Wi-Fi network that limits the total number of devices you can connect. Youve brought a Fire TV Stick or other streaming device to use in a hotel room, but the guest Wi-Fi network has a login page that your device cant navigate. In all of these situations, relaying the Wi-Fi connection from a phone or computer provides a workaround. To the network, it just looks like youre connecting one device, but in reality youre distributing it to your other devices as well. This story first appeared in Advisorator, Jareds weekly tech advice newsletter. Sign up for free to get more tips every Tuesday. A personal hotspot refresher When you set up a personal hotspot on your phone, it effectively becomes a tiny wireless router, with its own network name and password. You can join this network from your other devices, and theyll use your phones internet connection to get online. Typically, youd use a personal hotspot to extend your phones cellular connection to laptops, tablets, or other nearby devices when Wi-Fi is unavailable. If your wireless plan supports hotspot use, its a great alternative to device-specific data plans (like those pricey iPad plans the major carriers love to push on unsuspecting customers). But with the in-flight Wi-Fi pickle I mentioned above, connecting to cellular wasnt an option. My phone was in airplane mode with cellular disabled, and theres no cell reception at 10,000 feet in the air anyway. Instead, I used the same personal hotspot feature to share Deltas Wi-Fi connection with my gaming device. That allowed me to get online even though that device couldnt log into Deltas network on its own. Side note: If youve never used your phones personal hotspot feature before, I suggest giving a try: On iPhones: Head to Settings > Cellular > Personal Hotspot. From here you can turn on the hotspot and look up or change the networks password. (The Wi-Fi network name will be the same as your phones name, set under Settings > General About > Name.) On Android: Instructions vary by phone, but look for Settings > Network & Internet (or Connections) > Hotspot & Tethering. You can set both the network name and password from this menu. With personal hotspot turned on, your phone should appear in the Wi-Fi menu on other devices, so you can connect with whatever password you set up. Just remember that hotspot mode puts a strain on your phones battery, so turn it back off when youre not using it. Setting up the relay Wi-Fi sharing is buried inside Samsungs hotspot menu To relay a Wi-Fi connection, youll need a compatible Android phone, Windows laptop, or MacBook. (Sadly, the hotspot feature on iPhones only works with cellular data; it cant share local Wi-Fi connections.) To see if your Android phone is compatible, try turning on your personal hotspot and Wi-Fi at the same time. If your phones top status bar shows both the hotspot and Wi-Fi symbols, any devices you connect to the personal hotspot should route through Wi-Fi instead of your cellular network. (You can also test this by turning on Airplane Mode before enabling the hotspot.) On Samsung phones, you should also head to Settings > Connections > Mobile Hotspot and Tethering, tap on the words Mobile Hotspot, then tap the Password field. Hit the Advanced button at the bottom, then make sure Wi-Fi sharing is turned on. If you cant use your phone to relay a Wi-Fi connection, try sharing from your laptop instead: Windows 11: Head to Settings > Network & internet > Mobile hotspot. Set a password under the Properties heading before turning the hotspot on. MacOS: Head to Apple Menu > System Settings > General > Sharing, then click the i next to Internet Sharing. Turn on the Wi-Fi toggle, set your network name and password, then turn Internet Sharing on. Wi-Fi sharing in Windows 11 Wi-Fi sharing in MacOS Just like the personal hotspot feature on phones, your laptop will create a small Wi-Fi network for connecting your devices, and theyll share whatever internet connection the laptop is using. Keep this in mind next time you run into an overly restrictive guest Wi-Fi network, whether its on dry land or not. This story first appeared in Advisorator, Jareds weekly tech advice newsletter. Sign up for free to get more tips every Tuesday.
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