The Future of Leadership Isn't Less Human

Earlier this year, a video from a college graduation started making the rounds online.

An executive from an AI-focused company stood at the podium giving a commencement speech to graduating arts and humanities students. At one point, she started talking enthusiastically about how artificial intelligence is the next industrial revolution.

The students booed. Loudly.

What made the moment viral, though, was her reaction. She seemed genuinely surprised. Almost caught off guard by the idea that a room full of newly graduated young professionals weren’t excited to hear the word “AI.”

We watched as two very different experiences of the future collided in real time. One side was talking about innovation and acceleration. The other was sitting there trying to figure out whether they still had a place inside the future being described.

A lot of commentary afterward framed the reaction as fear of technology or resistance to change. That explanation feels too simple.

Most young people already use AI constantly. They use it to brainstorm ideas, summarize long-winded emails into three bullet points, and figure out whether the random collection of hot sauce packets, a can of corn, and a pack of ramen in the fridge can somehow become dinner. The answer is usually yes.

Which means the negative reactions to AI run deeper than the tools themselves.

The Fear Is Not About Technology—It’s About Not Mattering

What many people are reacting to is the feeling that conversations about the future of work are increasingly centered around efficiency, automation, and profitability while feeling less grounded in the human reality of living through that change.

AI has incredible potential. We are already seeing it accelerate medical breakthroughs, expand accessibility, reduce repetitive work, and open creative possibilities that once required enormous resources. Much of this is exciting in ways that genuinely matter.

But many of the loudest conversations around AI right now are not actually about making human life richer, more stable, or more meaningful. They are about productivity. Scale. Cost reduction. Speed. Doing more with fewer people.

People notice that.

Especially younger professionals entering industries where entry-level work is already shifting, creative work can feel increasingly devalued, and the traditional pathways people once relied on to build experience and confidence are becoming less clear.

In some industries, the work once handed to interns or junior employees so they could learn, struggle, and ask questions is increasingly being automated before newer professionals ever get the chance to practice it themselves.

What happens to growth when the kinds of work people once used to experiment, make mistakes, and develop judgment start disappearing or radically changing? What happens to creative identity when the work someone spent years developing can suddenly be replicated in seconds? What happens when people begin to feel like the parts of themselves they worked hardest to build are becoming harder to measure and easier to replace?

These are not irrational fears. They are human questions.

Leadership Still Shapes the Future of Work

Scholar and sociologist Ruha Benjamin often challenges the idea that technology is somehow neutral or inevitable. The future is shaped by human choices, human priorities, and human imagination. Who gets considered while that future is being built matters.

That perspective feels especially important right now because so many conversations about AI focus on capability while avoiding a more uncomfortable question:

Who still feels visible inside the future being described?

The leaders people trust right now are the ones willing to sit inside that question instead of rushing past it. The ones willing to acknowledge that people can feel curious and uneasy at the same time. Excited and exhausted. Hopeful and skeptical.

People notice when conversations about AI focus entirely on reducing labor and increasing output. They also notice when leaders talk about reducing burnout, creating accessibility, protecting learning opportunities, or giving people more space for meaningful work.

Human Growth Was Never Meant to Be Efficient

The new workplace reality creates a different kind of leadership responsibility.

As AI reshapes or removes some traditional entry-level work, leaders need to think more intentionally about how people actually learn and grow in the first place.

People develop judgment slowly. By trying things, getting something wrong, being part of difficult conversations, asking awkward questions, and sometimes being trusted with something before feeling fully ready for it.

It develops from sitting with uncertainty long enough to form your own opinion and understanding before asking AI for ideas.

Mentorship rarely moves quickly. Creativity is often messy. Confidence develops through practice, conversation, uncertainty, and support. Some of the most meaningful professional growth happens in moments that are difficult to measure and impossible to automate cleanly.

A lot of younger professionals are trying to figure out where that line is in real time. When does AI support growth? And when does it quietly replace the kinds of struggle, experimentation, and repetition that help people build confidence in their own thinking?

There is no universal answer yet. That ambiguity is part of what makes this moment feel so psychologically strange.

The Leadership Question AI Cannot Answer

Technology will continue changing the way work happens. The question is not whether AI belongs in the workplace. The question is what kinds of learning, mentorship, creativity, and human development leaders will make room for alongside AI.

Because people are still trying to figure out how to grow inside systems that are changing faster than many of the old pathways for growth were designed to handle.

And people are paying attention to what leaders continue to value while everything else changes around them.

Publisher’s Note: Lara Dollens would like to acknowledge and thank Martha Lawrence and Lucy Dannewitz for their editing support and assistance with this post.