AI is Exposing the Truth: Leadership is a Dying Skill
We don’t talk about this enough:
There are plenty of people with “leader” in their title.
But ask their teams to name five they genuinely trust? Crickets.
Companies love to redraw org charts and declare alignment.

Meanwhile, employees are quietly bracing for the next round of layoffs.
🔹 Fear doesn’t build alignment. It builds silence.
🔹 Real leadership isn’t about control, it’s about trust.
🔹 And trust isn’t something you demand. It’s something you earn.
🟣 Leadership is a skill and it’s getting rare.
According to McKinsey, only 25% of employees say their leaders model the behavior they want to see in others.
And Gallup reports that just 11% of employees strongly agree their leaders communicate effectively.

If we’re missing communication, we’re not leading, we’re just managing dysfunction politely.
⭐ Listening when it’s inconvenient
⭐ Admitting uncertainty without losing direction
⭐ Challenging outdated processes, even when they’re legacy favorites
⭐ Holding a vision through quarterly cost-cutting
⭐ Modeling empathy when the pressure is to perform
Soft skills aren’t soft anymore. They’re survival skills.
They’re the infrastructure of trust. And without trust, nothing scales,not innovation, not adoption, not culture.

🟣 In the age of AI, this becomes even more urgent.
🔹 AI doesn’t fix broken cultures. It broadcasts them.
🔹 It surfaces silos, magnifies mistrust, and puts power dynamics under a microscope.
🔹 If your people don’t believe in the mission, the model won’t matter.
📉 62% of employees say poor leadership is the top reason they would quit their job.(Source: DDI Global Leadership Forecast)
Let’s not kid ourselves:
• Layoffs might impress the spreadsheet. But they often break the mission narrative.
• Leadership is the act of making sure your people still believe, even when things are hard.

🟣 If you want AI to transform your business, you don’t need more tools.
You need more leaders with integrity, emotional intelligence, and the courage to walk the floor and engage,not just rewrite the strategy deck.
What does real leadership look like in your world? Let’s get honest about it.