Posted on: 10/06/2026

Thought Leadership

AI promises unprecedented efficiency, but it also raises a critical leadership challenge. In this thought-provoking article, Juliette Alban-Metcalfe explains why advances in AI create the strongest business case yet for human-centred leadership, culture and change readiness. For HR and OD professionals, this is not a threat but a long-awaited opportunity to drive meaningful, strategic change.

By Juliette Alban-Metcalfe - CEO at Real World Group

Human Intelligence in an AI World – the moment HR & OD have been waiting for There has never been a more challenging time in which to work in HR & OD. We are trying to help organisations move effectively through an increasingly disrupted world where technological change, particularly developments in AI, work practices such as hybrid and remote working, global threats to stability and political changes are ever-present and seemingly speeding up. One way of looking at this is to be daunted about the day-to-day job of helping leaders reshape their focus and hopefully get up to speed with what they need to be doing to help their teams continue to perform under these conditions while our own budgets shrink. This would, however, be missing a trick. The very same situation can be seen as a huge opportunity for HR & OD to finally get the support, funding and impetus behind the changes we’ve always known are essential but never had such a strong business case for as we have today.

There is potentially no end to what AI can do to help improve efficiency across organisations. It can improve workflows, create content or code and complete everyday tasks at a fraction of the speed it would take a human being. It can write emails, summarise documents, analyse data and so many other things that mean people no longer need to waste time on a great many analytical and everyday tasks.

As an example, a large-scale government study demonstrated an impressive range of calculations for what just using Microsoft Copilot more often could do for the NHS. Among the many statistics quoted was a calculation that AI-powered administrative tasks saved NHS employees on average 43 minutes per day, equating to 5 weeks per employee annually, and effectively millions of pounds of savings . At a time when, across the public sector, budgets are being increasingly squeezed, there is no option but to embrace whatever efficiencies we can gain from AI, or risk the very existence of these organisations.

One of the most exciting things about AI is how it can free up employees’ and leaders’ time allowing for both to engage in more meaningful work and for leaders to finally have the space to be strategic – something that has been a major challenge for so long in an increasingly complex and demanding world.

Even more than before, with both AI and hybrid working, traditional command-and-control approaches are likely to be exposed as entirely inadequate. It just doesn’t work when teams are enabled to be smarter through technology and when the teams are not physically there, but need to be genuinely judged by results not presenteeism. The challenge (and opportunity) that we need to support leaders with is described very well by Andrew J. Scott from London Business School who said, “As machines get better at being machines, humans have to get better at being more human.” Essential is that leaders continue to build cultures of change readiness in their teams, something that is the essential foundation for surviving and thriving through today’s disrupted era.

McKinsey research describes 3 critical roles for leaders that generative AI can never master:

1. Setting the right aspiration—and enrolling others to own it

2. Demonstrating judgment—aligning choices to values

3. Identifying and developing your high potentials.

They talk about the future of HR as even more strongly emphasising “employee engagement, development, satisfaction, and productivity; more fluid allocation of skills to the most value-adding tasks; and a greater emphasis on human-centric leadership.” 

Enlightened HR & OD professionals have long been frustrated by challenges such as securing sufficient investment in building leadership and management skills, change being treated as episodic when we know full well it’s constant, and the top team not appreciating how essential it is they examine their role in creating the right culture for the organisation. None of this shift in culture to a more uniquely human leadership culture can happen without the support and role-modelling of our most senior teams. This presents another opportunity for us to persuade our Executives just how essential it is that they reflect on how well they set the tone for an organisation that focuses on supporting, coaching and enabling others, rather than telling them what to do.

Taken as a whole, there has never been a more compelling business case than now to secure budgets that allow for culture, leadership and team development in the ways we’ve always known would be transformational. Let’s grab this opportunity and not allow it to pass us by.

1. Major NHS AI trial delivers unprecedented time and cost savings - GOV.UK
2. Building leaders in the age of AI (McKinsey)
3. New operating model for people management
   
   
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