Over the last four or five months, I’ve been working extensively with AI. Even in that short window, the landscape has evolved at a staggering pace. We are seeing a surge in tooling that connects high-powered LLMs to our daily workflows, and it has me thinking deeply about a critical question: What does leadership look like in a world of AI?
In the technology sector, most people focus on how software engineering roles will change—how engineers will use AI to automate tasks. But to me, there is still a vital human element to software engineering. You cannot sell your product to an AI, and an AI cannot sell your product for you. To understand the customer, you need a human.
As a leader, you must evolve just as much as your engineers do. Their needs, ideas, and roles are shifting. Here is how leadership must adapt to meet this moment.
1. Interpreting Complexity
The first shift is in how you interpret complexity. It is no longer just about seeing a problem and solving it. Often, an AI will go off and create something far more complex than a solution actually requires.
As a leader, your role is to help the team find the right level of complexity. You must help them understand how far an effort really needs to go to ensure the solution is supportable and effective for the long term, rather than just “generated.”
2. Framing the Right Questions
Framing the right question has always been a leadership skill, but AI makes it paramount. Because AI allows teams to solve specific parts of a problem so quickly, it is easy to lose sight of the bigger picture.
If we aren’t thinking from a customer or supportability perspective, those elements will get lost in the speed of AI-driven development. As a manager, you must ensure the team continues to apply critical thinking even as the development process accelerates. It will take time for teams to learn how to think in this new fashion, and you need to guide that transition.
3. Mentoring the Next Generation
The role of the software engineer will see a massive shift over the next five years. This creates a unique challenge for junior engineers.
Historically, junior engineers grew into senior roles by handling the “grunt work”—the smaller functions and changes that AI can now do instantly. If we automate all of those entry-level tasks, how do we help juniors grow? As a leader, you have to find new ways to develop their systems-thinking and instill confidence. You must ensure they are still learning the wisdom that senior engineers have spent years acquiring, even if the “manual” work has disappeared.
4. Empathy, Adaptability, and the “Mental Strain”
The shift to AI-driven work isn’t just a technical change; it’s a psychological one. Your team is dealing with the mental strain of changing roles and shifting identities.
As a leader, you set the tone. You need a high level of empathy to acknowledge that this is a big change for everyone. By being relatable and supportive, you can help your team take a step back, identify where the gaps are, and determine where AI makes sense—and where it doesn’t. Your goal is to help them thrive, not just survive, this transition.
5. Leading by Example: Continuous Learning
You cannot sit on the sidelines and watch your team evolve; you must evolve with them. This means using AI yourself to become more productive and capable.
I have personally been using AI for organizational skills and as a “personal assistant” to manage the flow of information. This hands-on experience gives me the foundation to help my team transition from “writing code” to “managing AI systems.” You need to be in the codebase and the tools to understand exactly what your team is going through.
6. AI Safety and Governance
Finally, leadership in this era requires a focus on safety and governance. AI is an all-powerful tool, which means someone needs to be asking the hard questions:
- Why shouldn’t an AI do this?
- How much access should this AI have?
- Do we really want AI auto-fixing things without human direction?
These are the conversations that require a leader’s judgment. We must ensure that supportability and human oversight remain at the core of our systems.
The Path Forward
The role of the manager is not going to degrade; in fact, it is going to become more important than ever. While the jobs of the people you lead will change, your role as a leader must grow to meet them.
The most powerful thing you can do right now is to adopt a mindset of continuous learning. Learn AI for yourself. Find ways to make your own job better. When you understand the capabilities of these tools firsthand, you can drive a vision that truly changes how your team works for the better.
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