Leading in the Age of AI Superpowers

As I read OpenAI’s recent announcement about their new jobs platform and certifications, I kept thinking about what it means to be an elite leader in today’s workplace.

Here’s the reality: every employee now has access to tools that multiply their output, speed, and creativity. With AI, an individual can produce in a day what used to take a week.

That changes the game for leaders.

When everyone has “superpowers,” the leader’s role isn’t to keep up, it’s to keep the team aligned. A single engineer can now generate pages of analysis before lunch. A marketer can draft five campaign angles in an afternoon. Measuring productivity by volume no longer makes sense. What matters is whether all that output is headed in the same direction.

And here’s the risk: without alignment, AI doesn’t just make people more productive. It makes them more productive at going the wrong way. Misalignment compounds faster than ever.

But the opportunity is just as powerful. When a team shares a vision, owns their work, and trusts one another, AI becomes rocket fuel. Progress that felt impossible last quarter can become achievable next week.

That’s why the fundamentals of leadership don’t disappear in an AI-powered world. They matter more than ever. The faster the pace, the more important it is to ground your team in three anchors:

• Shared Vision – Everyone must answer, “What does winning look like?” the same way.

• Ownership – Leaders can’t be in every decision anymore. Each person has to act with confidence.

• Trust – Without trust, speed turns into chaos. With it, speed becomes momentum.

The technology is here. The leverage is real. But it’s still humans leading humans.

The leaders who thrive won’t be the ones chasing technical shortcuts. They’ll be the ones creating alignment, ownership, and trust, so their teams can harness AI’s power without losing their way.

— Jeff