The development of AI places new demands on leadership. It is not only about implementing technology, but about developing strong judgement capable of handling complexity, change, and resistance.
AI forces us to rethink how we preserve human direction at a time when technology plays an increasingly significant role in decision-making processes. Therefore, AI is not only about data and efficiency, but equally about competence development, leadership skills, ethics, responsibility, and human judgement.
At Mannaz, we work to develop leadership capabilities that balance the human and the technological, ensuring that AI becomes an amplifier of human innovation, empathy, and creativity – not a replacement.
“Mannaz has more than 50 years of experience in creating effective leadership development. We are very much in our element when it comes to designing learning experiences and facilitating competence development,” says Marianne Egelund Siig, CEO of Mannaz – and elaborates:
“We can therefore contribute solid teaching expertise and learning formats to help advance AI competence efforts.”
Leadership in the future will not only be a human leading a human, says Julie Ekner Koch, Head of Mannaz Digital. The future of leadership will be an AI-augmented leader communicating with an AI-augmented employee.
“When assessing an employee’s readiness to carry out a specific task, leaders must increasingly consider AI as a natural supplement to the employee’s performance – which means we are, in fact, talking about hybrid leadership, where only part of the employee’s capabilities are human,” says Julie Ekner Koch.
This new reality requires leaders to develop additional competencies – in particular, the strategic judgement needed to assess in which processes AI is relevant.
To make these distinctions, leaders need to strengthen their technological understanding and stay tuned in to where AI development is heading, including the new opportunities to optimise organisational processes with AI.
“There is no one-size-fits-all for which organisational processes make sense to automate,” says Julie Ekner Koch – and continues:
“When we advise and run AI workshops for our clients, we hear that some employees use AI in almost all processes, while others – for example legal professionals – choose to take tasks back after a trial period, because they otherwise spend too much time quality-assuring the AI output. This means leaders must prioritise tasks for their employees and analyse organisational processes and their potential optimisation with AI. Without this, employees are left unclear about what AI can actually be used for.”
To support employees through AI-driven transformation, leaders must be able to navigate and create direction in a technologically shifting landscape. This requires upgrading their own capabilities – and perhaps also a willingness to be more uncertain and exploratory than most leaders are comfortable with.
“Another essential leadership capability for successful AI-driven change processes is the ability to create a high degree of psychological safety. There must be room to experiment and to dare to fail – to try things out and learn along the way. This is only possible if we let go of the expectation that everything must be perfect from the start.
At the same time, new digital possibilities can create fear and uncertainty about current jobs and tasks. AI transformations require both strong momentum and empathy from leaders: the ability to handle uncertainty, create psychological safety around the development, and at the same time move the organisation forward in its AI journey.
In many ways, this is classic change management – yet with a new element: a technology that evolves at a pace we have never experienced before. We must create a foundation of safety with space for concerns and reflection. Awareness of AI’s biases and pitfalls – combined with forward-looking enthusiasm about the changes and new opportunities, even though none of us can yet grasp the full scope and potential of AI,” says Marianne Egelund Siig.
Through the partnership in Digital Dogme, Mannaz commits to actively contributing to the development of future AI competencies. Through knowledge sharing, leadership training, facilitation of competence building, and the development of new concepts, Mannaz aims to ensure that both leaders and employees are equipped to leverage AI’s potential.
At Mannaz, we have worked both on transforming our own processes and advising others in their digital transformation:
Internally, we have automated administrative tasks such as proposal writing, meeting coordination, and research, freeing up time for more value-creating activities. Our own data show that our consulting business has become 20% more efficient in proposal development and presentation preparation with the help of AI. In our course business, automation has significantly reduced parts of administrative time.
Most importantly, Mannaz delivers courses and workshops that help leaders and employees understand and apply AI in practice. Our course “Boost Your Work with AI” focuses on helping leaders and employees assess the usefulness of AI in their specific processes – and then implement it.
“We see that some employees view AI as support that frees up time for core tasks, while others are more sceptical. Therefore, we address these concerns in our courses, for example through a focus on data security, prompting techniques, agent-based solutions, and source criticism. This competence boost is needed broadly across the Danish business landscape,” says Julie Ekner Koch, Head of Mannaz Digital.
The AI Competence Pact places people at the centre of digital transformation, which aligns with Mannaz’ vision of making a difference – “Move what matters” through the potential in all of us. We aim to contribute to a broad, democratic uplift of competencies so AI becomes beneficial to society as a whole – across industries, regions, and educational levels.
This is a societal task in which Denmark must not only keep up, but take active leadership in technological development. Only through responsible and forward-looking leadership can we ensure that AI creates value and is used safely. This requires collaboration between businesses, the public sector, and the education system – and this is where Mannaz contributes both AI expertise and a strong role as sparring partner and facilitator.
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