The Mindsets Leaders Need as AI Accelerates the Pace of Business

This article was originally published in Harvard Business Review

AI is accelerating business transformation at an unprecedented pace. Leaders aren’t keeping up.

In a Potential Project survey we conducted of more than 100 CHROs and heads of talent and learning across global organizations, a mere 25% of respondents expressed confidence that leaders in their organizations—all the way up to the C-suite—can effectively lead in an AI-driven world. Only 32% feel that their leaders can sustain performance at the level required for today’s complex environment. We also heard that the biggest constraint on performance is not skill or technical knowledge; it is inner qualities—the mindsets that determine how leaders respond to change and pressure. One executive at a large technology company said, “The question isn’t strategy—it’s how leaders stay present in the noise.” Another pharmaceutical executive shared, “The mindset of welcoming challenge is what will matter most.”

These executives are right. Skills and content knowledge can become outdated as soon as the next wave of AI emerges. And we have seen in our client work that key leadership skills such as strategic planning, execution excellence, and domain expertise are transforming. According to Deloitte’s 2026 Global Human Capital Trends, seven in 10 business leaders say their primary competitive strategy over the next three years is to be fast and nimble. The new leadership playbook is about adapting quickly, responding under pressure, and thinking creatively.

This is where mindsets come in. Adopting new leadership behaviors for new realities means focusing on the beliefs, assumptions, biases, and experiences that drive how leaders interpret and respond to the world around them, no matter where they sit in the organization. It’s in this inner realm where change needs to happen. If you don’t address mindsets when trying to move at today’s pace, it can feel like driving a car on a new road when the wheels are out of alignment. Despite significant effort to steer forward, the vehicle keeps drifting back toward old paths. When mindsets shift and align, new behaviors become easier to sustain—and easier to evolve as the environment changes.

Mindset Shifts in Action

Not all mindset shifts are created equal when it comes to adapting to the sped-up and often upended world that AI has created. Based on our ongoing research at Potential Project, alongside our work with leaders in global companies across industries and sectors, here are three shifts that we see as paramount for performance in this moment:

From Certainty to Clarity

It is easy to say, “embrace uncertainty,” but it’s a tall order in reality. Leaders are often conditioned to reduce uncertainty as quickly as possible—to solve it, control it, or plan their way through it. It’s hard to turn off the problem-solving, answer-producing engine that has been running for years.

But pursuing certainty and clear answers in an uncertain environment is a recipe for overwhelm, fragmented attention, and burnout. The chief people officer of a global technology company shared with us that, in her opinion, too many leaders are “burrowing.” She said, “They are so overwhelmed that they are just putting their heads down, doing what they have always done, and hoping they will somehow get by.” In today’s business reality, a burrowing mindset is understandable, but it is not helpful.

The alternative is to pursue a clarity mindset in which the goal is a clear mind rather than clear answers. With this mindset, leaders let go of the solving impulse and find the spaciousness to see what matters most, recognize the signal within the noise, and act with greater precision. A clarity mindset helps leaders to operate within and above the storm rather than feeling lost in it.

One way you can train your mind for clarity is to state your intentions before you start a task or meeting. In that way, your attention is guided by purpose rather than other impulses. For example, before every important meeting or decision, you can ask yourself: “What really matters most?”

From Expertise to Exploration

AI is reducing the competitive advantage of deep expertise and years of experience. This can be difficult for leaders to relinquish. It can feel like your hard-earned portfolio of knowledge has suddenly lost value, along with your place at the table as expert and mentor. Many leaders question, “If I have to let go of that, what do I do instead?”

One answer is curiosity—which is a mindset oriented towards open questions over fixed answers and experimentation over the tried-and-true. Equally important is a mindset of critical thinking—the ability to explore one’s own assumptions, blind spots, and patterns of reasoning; e.g., what is influencing me, what am I ignoring? If the premium on domain knowledge is declining, the value of openness and intellectual exploration continues to rise.

One global financial services company we work with is under pressure to create more tailored customer experiences. Yet many of its leaders believe that “risk equals reprimand”—a mindset shaped by years of succeeding in a highly regulated industry where caution and precision were rewarded. The challenge is not to abandon their risk orientation but to hold it more lightly. A mindset of curiosity is helping the leaders to lean into “smart” risk-taking and to stay open to experimentation and new possibilities even when this feels unfamiliar and uncomfortable.

One practice the team is adopting is to ask bigger questions—to notice the typical questions that arise during decision-making and to challenge themselves to ask different, broader, or more provocative questions that open new possibilities.

From Emotional Control to Emotional Insight

As AI reshapes work, leaders are operating in increasingly emotional environments—marked by uncertainty, anxiety, and rising states of disconnection. Yet many leaders remain uncomfortable engaging directly with emotional dynamics at work. In Potential Project’s research, only 12% of leaders rate themselves as highly skilled at navigating emotions effectively, and only 10% of employees said the same of their leaders.

For many leaders, emotional detachment has long been associated with professionalism. However, this control orientation blocks access to the valuable signals that emotions can provide. Emotions can signal critical organizational dynamics—resistance, disengagement, lack of alignment, loss of trust—that data alone may miss. Leaders who develop a mindset of emotional intelligence, which is to say greater fluency with emotional information, are better equipped to navigate difficult conversations, build trust and connection, and navigate complexity with greater steadiness.

One of our professional services client is dealing with rising anxiety about how AI will reshape roles and careers in the organization. Many leaders initially avoided conversations about those fears because they felt unable to alleviate them—and uncomfortable with the emotions those conversations might surface. But emotional avoidance often deepens disconnection. When the leaders let go of the belief that emotions need to be controlled and embraced the reality that humans are emotional beings, they became more willing to deal directly with employees’ concerns.

One of the senior executives decided to open up a town hall for direct conversations regarding the team’s concerns about AI-related job loss. Even though he could provide neither total clarity nor comfort, he acknowledged the group’s anxiety directly which built a sense of community.

How Leaders Can Begin

Because mindsets often operate below conscious awareness, shifting them requires deliberate attention to notice and then interrupt one’s default reactions. We recommend getting started with four simple and practical actions:

1. Pause: Very simply, stop and notice what automatic reaction or response is coming up for you in a situation. For example, it could be a desire to make a decision quickly or an impulse to place blame somewhere.
2. Perceive: Notice what thoughts or emotions are arising, such as fear of being seen as underqualified or annoyance at having to clean up someone else’s project. Perhaps you can even name some of the assumptions and biases beneath them.
3. Pivot: Experiment with a different interpretation or response, even if it feels uncomfortable or unfamiliar. Perhaps an impulse towards blame gets replaced with greater curiosity about what happened.
4. Practice: Repeat these small shifts. Over time, you will see new patterns strengthen. These are new mindsets taking root.

Leaders are at risk of falling behind as AI accelerates, but that doesn’t have to be the reality. Everyone has the potential to be adaptable, innovative, and curious as the world shape-shifts around us. But this requires looking inside at your inner workings and having the courage to unlearn patterns and rework long-held assumptions. Mindsets can shift. It’s up to you to see the power they hold and the new paths they can unlock.

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