- November 7, 2025
- Posted by: Justin Prince
- Category: Applied Technology
Jim Collins once said that great companies are “Built to Last” — not because of short-term innovation, but because of enduring vision, values, and discipline. In Good to Great, he reminded us that success comes from getting “the right people on the bus” — and then leading them with clarity and purpose.
Fast forward to today, and there’s a new kind of team member on that bus. One that’s fast, capable, and increasingly influential in how we work and decide.
Artificial Intelligence.
And while many organisations are racing to adopt AI, most are still treating it like a linear, one-dimensional tool — a calculator with better language skills.
That’s the paradox.
We’ve built systems with extraordinary intelligence, yet still engage with them transactionally: “Do this task for me.”
When instead, AI has the capacity to be a four-dimensional, relational partner — one that helps us understand, interpret, and build context; one that learns and problem-solves alongside us over time.
A recent post on LinkedIn got me thinking about this — and it hit me that AI doesn’t need different leadership.
Having built my own AI and spent years working on organisational change projects, it suddenly struck me that the same principles that drive great human leadership apply equally to AI.
Just like people, AI performs best when it’s given structure, clarity, and context — when it understands not only what needs to be done, but why it matters and how success will be measured.
In organisations, we build frameworks of purpose, values, and communication so teams can collaborate and grow. AI needs the same kind of scaffolding: clear prompts, relevant information, examples, and ongoing dialogue that allow it to align with our intent and improve over time.
In other words, AI doesn’t just respond to instruction — it responds to leadership.
Leadership for AI vs. Leadership for People
Jim Collins taught that enduring organisations align around a clear sense of purpose — the “why.” Jocko Willink’s Extreme Ownership expands that idea into practice: leaders must take total responsibility for outcomes, communicate intent, and ensure understanding at every level.
Leading AI requires the same fundamentals — purpose, clarity, and accountability — just expressed differently.
When you look closely, the parallels are striking:
1. Purpose & Direction
- For People: Leadership starts with mission, vision, and values — the why, what, and how that define success.
- For AI: It begins with clearly structured prompts that articulate the goal, intent, and desired outcome.
2. Structure & Context
- For People: Organisations use frameworks, roles, and responsibilities to create alignment.
- For AI: It needs background content, examples, and reference material to understand expectations and build relevance.
3. Communication & Development
- For People: Conversations, feedback, and coaching turn direction into capability.
- For AI: Iteration, refinement, and conversation achieve the same — continuous learning through feedback.
Connecting Leadership Purpose to Action
The purpose of leadership — whether human or digital — is to create the conditions for performance.
It’s not about control; it’s about clarity. It’s not about tasks; it’s about trust. And it’s not about managing outputs; it’s about enabling outcomes.
For people, that means turning vision into shared goals, giving feedback, and nurturing accountability. For AI, it means translating purpose into precise prompts, building context through examples, and guiding performance through iteration and review.
In both cases, leadership transforms intent into action. Purpose gives direction. Action gives it life.
The New Skillset: AI Leadership
This is what AI leadership looks like in practice:
- Be intentional — know what you want and why it matters.
- Build context — provide examples, tone, and background data.
- Iterate openly — treat each output as feedback, not failure.
If you’re unsure how well you’re leading your AI, ask yourself the same questions you’d ask of a team:
- Do I give it context before I give it a task?
- Do I define what success looks like?
- Do I build on past conversations rather than starting from scratch?
Using AI doesn’t remove the need for leadership — it demands more of it. Those who can lead both humans and machines with vision, context, and accountability will define the next generation of high-performance teams.
From Orders to Outcomes
If you want better results from AI, stop treating it like a transaction. Start leading it like a talented team that thrives on clarity and feedback.
Because AI doesn’t need more commands — it needs your leadership.
In Collins’ world, enduring success came from disciplined people, disciplined thought, and disciplined action. In the age of AI, it will come from disciplined interaction — the ability to lead intelligent systems with the same vision and relational clarity we expect from our best people.
As Jocko Willink might put it, “There are no bad teams, only bad leaders.” And that now includes your digital ones.
What do you think? Are we teaching leaders how to lead AI — or just how to use it?
#AI #Leadership #FutureOfWork #PromptEngineering #DigitalTransformation #E3Leadership