I was sitting in a packed conference room at Brandon Hall 2025 when Brad Jayne, Senior Manager at Pepsi, dropped a statement that made the entire room pause:
"Leaders today are asking really great questions… but senior leaders fail to be transparent with the answers."
Heads nodded. People scribbled notes. A few exchanged knowing glances.
Because we’ve all seen it happen.
During a reorg, a shift in strategy, or a major change, leaders ask:
What’s the plan?
Who is impacted?
How do we help people navigate this?
Yet, too often, senior leadership teams hold back the real answers—out of fear, uncertainty, or because they simply don’t know how to communicate through change.
We say things like:
“We’re working through it.”
“We don’t have all the details yet.”
Teams see through that.
That’s why Brad’s statement hit so hard. We talk about transparency all the time, but when it matters most, we hesitate to deliver it.
And then, the conversation took a sharp turn.
Just as I was thinking about this, Bernard Hampton, Head of Academy at Bank of America, took the mic.
He shared how AI and Virtual Reality are transforming leadership training, allowing leaders to practice handling high-stakes situations in immersive, distraction-free environments.
That’s when it really clicked. We’re not just failing to be transparent through leadership change, we’re also failing to be transparent about one of the biggest transitions upon us: AI.
Here’s what we need to be addressing about AI, leadership, and the future of work.
The AI Transparency Gap—What We’re Not Saying Out Loud
Here’s the reality: AI is already replacing jobs. We don’t like to say that part out loud.
Instead, we sugarcoat it:
"AI will help us work smarter.”
“AI will support, not replace, people.”
“AI won’t replace your job- people who use AI will.”
But let’s be honest. Some leadership functions that once required humans now don’t. AI is assessing skills, tracking leadership effectiveness, and even coaching employees. AI-driven hiring tools are making decisions about who gets interviewed and promoted.
And here’s the biggest leadership challenge ahead:
If AI is changing the way we train leaders… what happens when it starts changing who gets to be a leader in the first place?
Leadership, AI, and the Future of Work—How Do We Adapt?
At Brandon Hall 2025, I saw both sides of AI’s impact on leadership.
The Optimistic View: AI is helping organizations develop more adaptive, agile leaders by personalizing learning, tracking development, and reducing bias.
The Reality Check: AI is also shifting power dynamics, determining who gets opportunities, what skills matter, and where human leadership still fits in.
The companies that will thrive in this AI-driven world aren’t the ones resisting AI. They’re the ones that:
Leverage AI to enhance leadership—not replace it.
Train leaders to communicate with the same clarity and confidence as AI does.
Are radically transparent about how AI is changing work, so employees can adapt, not panic.
The Real Leadership Test: Will We Adapt or Avoid?
I left Brandon Hall 2025 with one realization:
The real risk isn’t AI taking jobs. The real risk is leaders failing to guide their people through AI-driven change.
We need to be honest about what AI is doing to leadership and the workforce, equip leaders with both digital fluency and human-centered leadership skills, and not just ask great questions, but start answering them with clarity, honesty, and action.
AI isn’t the enemy.
But how we introduce it into leadership development and the workplace could determine whether we build trust or break it.
The organizations that thrive won’t just be AI-enabled. They’ll be AI-conscious, AI-ethical, and AI-transparent.
So here’s the real question:
Is your organization preparing leaders for AI-driven change or just hoping they’ll figure it out?
