AI Isn't Taking Your Job. Leaders Who Use AI Are

AI anxiety, particularly FOBO (Fear of Becoming Obsolete), affects 75% of employees concerned AI will make jobs obsolete. Nearly 55,000 U.S. job cuts were directly attributed to AI in 2025. The Five Irreplaceable Skills Framework (Colby Morris) addresses this through: doubling down on human capabilities AI cannot replicate, becoming the translator who interprets AI output for specific contexts, owning your point of view, actually learning basic AI competency (one tool, one task, one week), and building relationships that create value beyond tasks. Workers who feel employers invest in skills are 5.3 times more likely to feel jobs secure.

Episode Description

Stop worrying about AI taking your job. Start worrying about leaders who know how to use AI taking your job.

Nearly 55,000 U.S. job cuts were attributed to AI in 2025. Seventy-five percent of employees are concerned AI will make their jobs obsolete.

In this episode, you'll discover:

→ What AI actually can and can't do in leadership

→ The Five Irreplaceable Skills Framework for staying valuable when AI handles tasks

→ Why avoiding AI makes anxiety worse, not better

→ The one-task, one-week method to start learning AI

The future isn't about competing with AI. It's about becoming the kind of leader AI can't replace.

The Five Irreplaceable Skills Framework (Colby Morris)

Skill 1: Double Down on Human Capabilities Focus on what AI cannot replicate: relationship building, emotional intelligence, conflict resolution, reading subtext, and navigating office politics.

Skill 2: Become the Translator Take AI's output and translate it into actionable decisions based on your specific context, culture, and political realities.

Skill 3: Own Your Point of View AI provides options; leaders make calls and stake their credibility on decisions.

Skill 4: Actually Learn to Use AI Pick one AI tool, one regular task, spend one week learning it. Build competency one task at a time.

Skill 5: Build Relationships That Matter When AI handles tasks, relationships become the differentiator. Invest in trust and connection.

When to Apply This Guidance

Use this framework when:

• Experiencing anxiety about AI's impact on your job security
• Your organization is implementing AI tools and you're unsure how to adapt
• You're spending most time on tasks rather than people
• You're avoiding AI rather than learning it
• You need to differentiate your value beyond what AI can automate

Diagnostic Questions

• What percentage of your day is tasks versus people?
• If AI handled 80% of your tasks, what would make you irreplaceable?
• Are you learning AI tools, or waiting for someone else to figure it out?
• Have you picked one AI tool and one task to start learning this week?

Resources Mentioned

Research Cited:

• Ernst & Young (EY) AI Anxiety in Business Survey - 75% believe AI will make jobs obsolete, 65% anxious about AI replacing their jobs
• Challenger, Gray & Christmas - Nearly 55,000 U.S. job cuts attributed to AI in 2025
• ADP Research Today at Work 2026 - Workers who feel employers invest in skills are 5.3x more likely to feel jobs secure
• Resume Now surveys - 63% say AI will make workplace feel less human, 43% know someone who lost job to AI

Key Concepts:

• FOBO (Fear of Becoming Obsolete) - Anxiety about skills degrading and becoming irrelevant

About The Things Leaders Do

The Things Leaders Do is a leadership podcast hosted by Colby Morris, Founder of NXT Step Advisors. The show provides practical, immediately actionable leadership tools for leaders at all organizational levels, with episodes designed as 20-30 min

• Colby's LinkedIn Profile
• NXTStepAdvisors.com

Transcript

AI Anxiety And The Real Threat

SPEAKER_00 0:00

People first leadership. Actionable strategies, real results. This is Things Leaders Do with Colby Morris.

Phobo And Why It Feels Personal

Tasks AI Automates First

The Human Skills AI Cannot Do

How Avoiding AI Makes It Worse

Five Strategies To Stay Irreplaceable

Turning AI Fear Into An Edge

Closing Challenge And Next Steps

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Look, stop worrying about AI taking your job and start worrying more about leaders who know how to use AI taking your job. Because the threat isn't really the technology. The threat is the manager in that office next to you who's figured out how to 10x or productivity while you're still avoiding it. But let's be honest about what's happening. AI is replacing people. Nearly 55,000 US jobs were cut directly attributed to AI in 2025. Companies are making decisions to eliminate positions because AI can do the work cheaper and faster. And this isn't theoretical, it's it's happening. Now here's what's also true. The people losing their jobs first are the ones whose entire value was in tasks that AI can now handle. And the leaders who are surviving this shift, they're the ones who figured out how to do the things AI can't. So the real threat isn't just AI. Okay, it's it's being the leader whose only value is in the work that AI does better. And right now, 75% of employees are concerned that AI will make certain jobs obsolete. 65% are anxious about AI replacing their jobs specifically. And according to Ernst Young's AI Anxiety and Business Survey, three out of four workers look at artificial intelligence and see a threat to their livelihood. But here's what's what's really keeping people up at night. It's not the fear of getting laid off next quarter. It's something therapists are actually calling phobo, the fear of becoming obsolete. Not, you know, will I have a job next year? But more along the lines of like, will I matter in five years? And therapists are seeing this anxiety show up in sessions more and more. One clinical psychologist in New York says the most common fear he hears is a fear of becoming obsolete, not losing your job, but becoming irrelevant. Your skills degrading in real time, falling behind faster than you can catch up, watching the window to stay relevant, close while you're still trying to figure out what relevant even means. And look, the statistics back up the anxiety. 43% of workers report knowing someone who lost their job because of AI. This isn't some distant future scenario. It's your colleague, your friends, maybe someone at your company. But here's what they're not telling you. The leaders who are thriving right now aren't the ones avoiding AI. They're the ones who figured out how to use it without losing what makes them human. Today I'm talking about phobo, the fear of becoming obsolete, why the anxiety you're feeling is real and justified, and what AI actually can and can't do in leadership. The skills that make you irreplaceable, and how to adapt without losing your mind. Because the future isn't about competing with AI, it's about becoming the kind of leader AI can't replace. Hey leaders, this is Colby Morris, and you're listening to the Things Leaders Do podcast. Today, as always, about 30 minutes of leadership tools, tactics, things that you can use today. And today we're tackling, you know, AI anxiety, what actually threatens your job security and how to stay relevant without panicking. There's no fear-mongering in this one. No AI is going to save us all nonsense. Just real talk about how to navigate this without spiraling. All right. So let's talk about what's actually happening. You're watching AI do things that used to take you hours. You're seeing it right. Emails, you can analyze data, create presentations, summarize documents. And every time it does something well, you feel a little more expendable, right? Like maybe your job isn't as complex as you thought it was. Or maybe you're more replaceable than what you wanted to believe. You open Chat GPT for the first time, asked it to do something that normally takes you an hour, and it did it in like what, 30 seconds? And your first thought wasn't, wow, this is amazing. It was, oh no. Because if a robot can do it in 30 seconds, what takes you an hour? What exactly have you been doing for the last 10 years? And the statistics aren't helping. 75% of employees think AI will make certain jobs obsolete. 63% say AI will make the workplace feel less human. 57% say AI reducing human skills will be the biggest workforce issue in 2026. It's like watching your job get automated in slow motion while everyone around you pretends it's fine. You know, don't worry, AI is just here to help. Meanwhile, AI just wrote your quarterly report better than you would have, and it didn't even need coffee. So yeah, the anxiety is real. You're not making this up. People are actually losing jobs to AI. Companies are making the decision to cut positions because math works out better with fewer humans and more software. It's not just anyone. Okay, the jobs being eliminated first are the ones where the entire value was in tasks. Tasks that AI can now handle. If your job is write reports, well, AI can do that. If your job is analyze this data and summarize it, AI can do that. If your job is take these inputs and produce this output, yeah, AI can do that too. But if your job is build relationships and make those relationships to navigate complex problems while reading the subtext and making judgment calls in ambiguous situations, well, you're in a better position. The leader down the hall who figured out how to use AI, they're not your enemy. They're just the canary in the coal mine showing you what adaptation looks like. Because when your company realizes that Jessica can do the work of three people because she figured out how to use AI effectively, and you're still doing things the old way, manually writing emails like it's 2015, spending two hours on a presentation that AI could draft in five minutes. Well, they're going to make a choice. And it's probably not the choice you want. This isn't about technology replacing humans in some abstract sense. It's about companies making economic decisions. And right now, well, the economics favor people who know how to work with AI. And right now, a lot of leaders are in denial. They're just pretending AI isn't happening. Okay, they're they're avoiding it because it feels overwhelming. They're waiting for it to settle down before they engage with it. Like AI is just a phase. Like it's it's going to get bored and wander off to bother someone else. I'll just wait till they figure out the bugs. Yeah, cool. While you're waiting, your competition is learning. And your company is doing the math on how many people they actually need. Meanwhile, the other leaders are experimenting. They're figuring out what AI can do well and what it can't. They're becoming way more productive while you're still manually doing tasks that could be automated. You're over here crafting the perfect email for 45 minutes while Jessica just had AI draft 12 of them and then went to lunch. And that gap, it is widening every single day. Here's what one worker told his therapist. It feels like the universe is saying you're no longer needed. Not our company is downsizing, not you're not doing a great job, but you are no longer needed. The universe is basically sending you a cosmic pink slip. Thanks for your service. We've decided to go in a different direction. And that direction is robots. That's the existential fear. That's phobo. The fear that your skills, your experience, your your judgment, all of it is just becoming irrelevant. And look, for for some roles, that fear unfortunately is justified. If your entire proposition is doing tasks that AI now does better and faster, yeah, you should be concerned. That's real. But for most leaders, it it doesn't have to be true because AI can do a lot of things, but it can't do everything. And the leader who understands the difference, who knows what to automate and what to protect, those are the leaders who are going to be okay. My question is, are you going to be one of them? Or are you going to be the person still formally formatting you know spreadsheets in 2027 where everyone else has moved on? All right. Let's talk about what AI cannot do. Because this is where the anxiety starts to calm down if you actually pay attention. Again, AI is really good at tasks, but it's really bad at judgment. It can analyze data faster than you ever could. It can spot patterns, it can generate content, it can automate repetitive work. It can write a memo that sounds like it came from a real human, sometimes a little too real, a little too corporate, a little too per my last email. But you know what? It can't read the room. You know that moment in a meeting where you can tell everybody's nodding, but nobody's actually bought in? Where the energy shifts, but but you know you need to change your approach. Where someone says, sounds good, but their body language is screaming, absolutely not. Yeah, AI cannot do that. AI would look at the meeting and think everything went great. Everyone said yes, high engagement scores. Meanwhile, you know that nothing's actually going to happen because nobody was really on board. AI can't navigate policy office politics. It can't build trust. It can't have a difficult conversation with a struggling employee and actually make them feel supported instead of attacked. It can't mediate a conflict between two team members who think they're both right. Can you imagine? AI, Sarah and Marcus are fighting again. Have you tried turning them off and back on again? AI can write you a performance review. It can generate all the right phrases, shows initiative, demonstrates leadership potential, would benefit from continued development and strategic thinking. But it can't deliver that review in a way that actually motivates someone to improve. It can't read the person's reaction and just on the fly. It can't sense when someone's about to cry and know how to handle that moment. AI can draft a strategy document, but it can't sense when the room isn't bought in and pivot the approach. It can't tell when your boss is skeptical, even though they're not saying it. It can't read the subtext. And business? Yeah. It's basically all about subtext. AI can give you data, lots of data, more data than you ever wanted. Charts, graphs, dashboards that make you feel like you're piloting a spaceship. But it can't tell you which data actually matters in this specific situation with these specific people in this specific culture. You know what AI really can't do? It can't care. It can't sit with someone who's going through a hard time and actually be present. It can't notice that your top performer has been off lately and check in. Hey, sir, you seem a little distant this week. Everything okay? AI would just flag the productivity drop, you know, recommend corrective action. Sarah's output decreased 12% this week. Suggest performance improvement plan. Cool. That'll definitely make her feel better. It it can't build the kind of relationship where people trust you enough to tell the truth. Where they'll come to you when they're struggling, where they'll they'll give you the heads up when something's about to go sideways. And that's the stuff that actually makes leaders irreplaceable. Research shows that workers who feel their employees are invested in their skills are 5.3 times more likely to feel their jobs are secure. Not workers who have the most technical skills, workers who feel invested in. And AI can't invest in people. It can't make someone feel valued, it can't make someone feel seen. It can send an automated thank you for your hard work message, but you know how that feels. Like getting a birthday card from your company's HR system. Happy birthday. We value as an employee. Thanks, robot. I feel so special. Here's what AI is: it's a really powerful tool. Like a calculator for your brain. A calculator didn't make accountants obsolete. It made them more effective and more efficient. It freed them up to do higher value work instead of spending all day doing math by hand and with one of those giant adding machines that probably cause carpal tunnel. AI is the same thing. It can handle the task. You, you know, but you have to handle the judgment, the context, the human stuff, the reading the room stuff, the the knowing when your boss says interesting idea, they actually mean absolutely not, but I'm too polite to say it stuff. The problem is that too many leaders think their value is in the tasks, the emails they write, the reports they produce, the presentations they create. And if that's all you're doing, well, yeah, you should be worried because AI can do all that. But it won't complain about being in back-to-back meetings. So if your value is in your judgment, your relationships, your ability to navigate complexity, your understanding of people, well, you're in a much better position. Okay, the leaders who are most at risk right now are the ones who've been coasting on tasks. The leaders who are going to be okay are the ones who've been investing in the stuff AI can't replicate. So the question is obviously, what have you been investing in? Okay, here's the uncomfortable truth. Most leaders are making this worse by avoiding AI entirely. They're scared of it, so they just pretend it doesn't exist. They're waiting for someone else to figure it out first. They're telling themselves they'll learn it eventually when they have the time. You know, right after they clean out their inbox and finally organize their desktop files from 2019. Meanwhile, the gap between them and the leaders who are learning is getting wider every single week. And here's the kicker: the anxiety doesn't go away by avoiding it, does it? No, it gets worse. It's like ignoring the check engine light. It doesn't magically fix itself. It just means you're going to be way more surprised when your car breaks down on the highway. Because every day you don't learn how to use AI is another day you fall behind. Another day the leader next to you gets better at using it. Another day your skills become less relevant. Another day that Jessica's lapping you. Think about it. When email became a thing, there were people who just refused to learn it. I'll just have my assistant print out my emails and I'll handwrite responses. That's how we've always done it. Yeah. How did that work for them? They looked increasingly ridiculous until they finally had to learn email anyway, except you know, now they were five years behind everyone else and still typing with two fingers. When smartphones became standard, there were executives who refused to get one. I don't need to be reachable 24-7. If someone needs me, they can call my office. Cool. Except everyone else adapted and they looked increasingly out of touch, like the person still using a flip phone in 2023. It makes calls just fine. Sure it does, Dad. AI is the same thing. Except it's moving faster, like way faster. And the leaders who are avoiding it are creating their own obsolescence. Not because AI is automatically replacing them, because they're refusing to adapt while their companies are looking for ways to be more efficient. They're volunteering for irrelevance. Here's what 66% of consumers believe unemployment is going to rise over the next year. That's the highest level in a decade. People are scared, and rightfully so. But the workers who are going to be okay, they're not the ones hiding from AI like it's a monster under the bed. They're the ones learning how to use it. They're figuring out which parts of their job AI can handle so they can focus on the parts that actually matter. They're using AI to handle the grunt work, the email drafts, the meeting summaries, the first pass data analysis, so they can spend more time on strategy, on relationships, on the high-value stuff. The stuff that requires a human brain that's had coffee and can read subtext. And they're not waiting for their company to train them because only 38% of workers feel fully supportive in AI-driven workplace changes. Most companies are just as confused as you are. Your company's AI training is probably going to be a webinar where someone shows you how to log into Chat GBT and then says, okay, good luck with that. And then they'll send you a survey asking if the training was helpful. So you've got two options. Wait for someone to teach you or teach yourself. And the leaders who are teaching themselves, they're the ones who are going to survive this. They're the ones who won't be shocked when the layoffs come, and everyone who didn't adapt suddenly has a lot of free time. Look, I get it. That it feels overwhelming. There's a new AI tool like every week. Actually, there's multiple tools every week. Everyone's talking about prompts and models and training data and tokens, and you're just trying to figure out where to start. One person tells you to use Claude. Another swears by Chat GPT. Someone else is yelling about Gemini. It's like the streaming wars, except instead of deciding which shows to watch, you're deciding which robot to make do your work. But you don't need to become an AI expert. You don't need to understand how large language models work. You don't need to know what a transformer architecture is. I mean, I really don't either. You just need to become competent enough that you're not the person everyone's working around. The person who doesn't know how to use the tools everyone else is using. The person who's still doing everything manually while everyone else moved on. Start with one task, one thing you do regularly that takes time, and figure out if AI can help with it. Maybe it's summarizing meeting notes. Maybe it's drafting first versions of emails. Maybe it's analyzing data. Maybe it's creating presentation outlines. Maybe it's It's brainstorming ideas instead of staring at a blank page for 30 minutes. Pick one thing. Learn how to do it with AI. And then pick another. You don't have to do it all at once. Okay. You just have to start. You have to stop being the person who proudly announces, I don't, I don't do that AI stuff. Like it's some kind of badge of honor. Because the gap between I'm learning and I'm avoiding is the gap between staying relevant and becoming a liability. Between being Jessica and being the person wondering where Jessica went. All right. So how do you actually become irreplaceable in an AI world? Let me give you five specific strategies. Not three, not be more productive or other vague advice that sounds profound but means nothing. Actual things you can do starting today. First, double down on the human stuff. The things AI can't do. Relationship building, trust, emotional intelligence, conflict resolution, difficult conversations, the messy, complicated, uncomfortable human interactions that make work actually work. If you're spending most of your time on tasks, writing emails, creating reports, analyzing data, you know, spreadsheets, PowerPoints, you're in the danger zone. Because AI can do all that. And it won't passive aggressively sigh while doing it. But if you're spending most of your time on people, coaching, mentoring, building relationships, navigating politics, creating alignment, reading between the lines, you're in a better position. So audit how you spend your time. How much of your day is tasked versus people? If it's mostly tasked, you need to shift, like now. Use AI to handle the task faster so you can spend more time on the people stuff. That's the whole point. Let the robot write the first draft of the email so you can spend that hour actually talking to your team. Because here's the thing AI can write an email, but it can't know that sending that email right now would be terrible timing because your team just got bad news and they need space, not another request. That's judgment. That's humanity. That's what keeps you valuable. Second, become the translator. AI is great at generating information. It's terrible at knowing what information actually matters. It'll give you everything, okay? All the data, all the options, all the possibilities. It's like asking for restaurant recommendations and getting a list of every restaurant in a 50 mile radius sorted alphabetically. Technically, helpful. Practically, useless. You know what's valuable? Being the person who can take AI's output and translate it into something useful for your specific context. AI can give you, you know, 10 options. You're the one who knows which option will actually work with your team, with you know, your your company culture, your boss's preference, your company's constraints, your budget, your timeline, and the politics you're navigating. AI doesn't know that option three looks great on paper, but your boss hates that vendor. AI doesn't know that option seven would require buy-in from a department that's currently not speaking to your department. AI doesn't know that option two is technically feasible, but culturally impossible. That judgment, that context, that institutional knowledge that lives in your head and nowhere else, that's what makes you valuable. So don't compete with AI on the information. You'll you'll lose. It has access to more information than you'll ever have. Compete on interpretation, on knowing what actually matters, on being the person who can make sense of the chaos. And then third, own your point of view. AI can, again, it can give you the data. It can give you the analysis, it can even give you recommendations, it can tell you what other companies did. It can show you best practices, it can generate a perfectly formatted strategic plan. But it can't have a point of view. It can't stake a position and defend it. It can't say, here's what I believe we should do and why, and I'm willing to bet my credibility on it. AI is very good at here are some options. It's very bad at we should do this one. That's what leaders do. They synthesize information and they make calls. They look at everything and say, based on all this, here's what I think. And then they own it. So use AI to gather information faster. Use it to analyze your options, use it to generate scenarios, but own the decision, own the strategy, own the vision, own the here's what we're doing and here's why. Because a person who says, I've looked at all the data, I've considered all the options, I've talked to the team, and here's what I think we should do. That's leadership. That's leadership. And AI can't do that. AI can't take responsibility, it can't be accountable, it can't stand in front of a board and defend a decision. But you can. All right. Fourth, actually learn to use AI. Okay, this is the one everyone's avoiding, but you can't focus on the human skills and pretend AI doesn't exist. You actually have to learn how to use it. And I'm not talking about becoming an AI expert. Okay, I'm not talking about understanding machine learning or neural networks or any of that technical stuff. I'm just talking about basic competency, being able to use the tools that are already available. So here's what I want you to do: pick one AI tool, just one. Chat GPT, Claude, Gemini, doesn't matter which one, just pick one and commit to learning it. Then I want you to pick one task that you regularly do that takes time. Maybe it's writing emails, drafts of emails, maybe it's summarizing meeting notes or creating presentations or outlines, or even just brainstorming ideas. Spend one week, just one week, using AI for that one task. Figure out how to write prompts that get useful output. Experiment with different approaches, okay? Learn what works and what doesn't. Yeah, you're gonna feel awkward at first. You're going to get bad results. You're gonna wonder if if you're doing it wrong. Hey, that's normal. That is learning. But by the end of the week, you'll be better at it and you'll have saved yourself hours of time. And then get this pick another task and then another. Okay. Build the muscle. And here's the key: don't try to use AI for everything all at once. That's overwhelming, and you'll quit. Just one task at a time, one week at a time. Slowly expand what you're comfortable automating. Because here's the reality: the leaders who are thriving aren't the ones who know everything about AI. They're the ones who are willing to be beginners, who are willing to experiment, who are willing to look dumb for a little while so they can be effective later. You don't need to be an expert. You just need to be competent enough that AI makes you more productive instead of more anxious. Start small. Start now. One task, one week. And then, fifth, I want you to build relationships that matter. The leaders who are going to survive this aren't necessarily the ones with the best technical skills. They're the ones with the best relationships. Because when layoffs happen, and they're happening, the people who get protected are often the ones who are connected, the people who have built trust, the people who have made themselves valuable beyond just the tasks they complete. The people everyone wants to keep around because work is better when they're there. So invest in your relationships with your team, with your peers, with your boss, with your network, with people who will remember you when it matters. Be the person people want to work with. Be the person people trust. Okay, be the person people go to when things get complicated. The one who makes you know meetings less painful just by being in them. Because when AI can do the task, the thing that keeps you employed is the relationships, the trust. The I don't know exactly what value they bring, but I know things work better when they're here. And you can't automate that. Okay. AI can't build trust by having coffee with someone. It can't read the room in a crisis. It can't be calm and when everything's falling apart. That's human. That's you. That's valuable. All right. Let's flip this whole thing. Because yes, AI is scary. Yes, there's real risk. Yes, people are losing jobs. Yes, 55,000 people got laid off because of AI last year, and that number's probably going up. But there's also an opportunity if you're willing to see it. Right now, most of your competition is paralyzed. They're anxious. They're avoiding AI like it's going to judge them. They're hoping it goes away or that someone else figures it out first. They're waiting for the right time to learn. Spoiler, there is no right time. There's just now and too late. Which means if you actually engage with it, if you learn how to use it effectively, you have an advantage. Think about it. If AI can make you significantly more productive and your competition is still doing things the old way, you just became more valuable and more relative to them. If you can use AI to handle all the grunt work and focus your time on strategy and relationships, you just became more effective than most leaders in your organization. You're getting more done in less time while everyone else is stuck in the weeds. If you can figure out how to use AI without losing the human touch, you've positioned yourself well. You're the person who has both the efficiency and the empathy. The gap between leaders who adapt and leaders who don't is going to be significant. And it's widening every day. Every single day you're not learning is a day others are getting further ahead. So you have a choice. Okay, you can be on the side that adapts or the side that gets left behind. You can be the person who figured it out, or you can be the person talking about the good old days when we did real work. And here's the thing: the leaders who adapt now are going to have a head start. They're going to figure out the best practices while everyone else is still figuring out how to log in. They're going to develop these skills while everyone else is still in denial. They're going to position themselves as the people who know how to navigate this. And the leaders who wait, they're going to be playing catch up for years. They're going to be the people taking introduction to AI courses in 2028 that everyone else took in 2025. So yeah, phobo is real. The fear of becoming obsolete is legitimate. I'm not telling you to stop being anxious. The anxiety is rational. But obsolescence isn't completely out of your control. You have agency here. You can become obsolete when you stop learning, when you stop adapting, when you decide that the way you've always done things is good enough. When you say, I've been doing it this way for 15 years and it's worked fine. Cool. So did the person still using a flip phone. It worked fine. Right up until it didn't. And so stay relevant when you keep evolving. When you figure out what's changing and how to navigate it, when you invest in the skills that actually matter, when you're willing to be uncomfortable for a while because that's what learning feels like. AI isn't your only threat. Stagnation is a threat. Complacency is a threat. The belief that you can just coast while you on what you already know, that's a threat. And the antidote to stagnation is curiosity, experimentation, willingness to be a beginner again, to be the person who doesn't know all the answers, but it's figuring out anyway. Stop hiding from AI. Stop pretending it's not happening. Stop waiting for someone else to figure it out first. Stop telling yourself you'll deal with it later. And start learning. Start experimenting. Stop waiting for someone else to figure it out. Okay. Because the future favors leaders who adapt, the leaders who can blend AI's efficiency with human judgment, the leaders who can automate the task while protecting the relationships, the leaders who can use technology without losing their humanity. And you can be one of them. You just have to choose to be. I want to thank you for listening. If your organization is struggling with AI adoption, leadership development, and a changing landscape, or helping your team adapt without losing what makes them human, I'd love to help. I'd love to connect with you on LinkedIn, or you can check out my website. Both those links are in the show notes. And hey, if this episode helped you think differently about AI, would you do me a favor? Subscribe to the show wherever you listen to the podcasts and leave a review. The reviews are what really helps the word get out there, and we can help more leaders become better leaders faster. And remember, keep learning, keep adapting, and keep being the kind of leader AI can't replace. And you know why? Because those are the things that leaders do.

SPEAKER_00 36:48

Thank you for listening to Things Leaders Do. If you're looking for more tips on how to be a better leader, be sure to subscribe to the podcast and listen to next week's episode. Until next time, keep working on being a better leader by doing the things that leaders do.