We spend a lot of time talking about the future of work. Artificial intelligence,  automation, new skills, productivity and transformation.

But perhaps one of the biggest questions about the future of work has very little to do with technology:

What kind of leadership will people need as work itself continues to change?

It is a question I have been thinking about for some time because, throughout my career, I have seen leadership from very different angles: in corporate environments, consulting, volunteer leadership, communications and working with teams at different stages of their careers. And one lesson continues to come back to me:

Leadership is rarely defined by the title someone holds, it is defined by how people experience that person. 

Leadership is behaviour before it is a position

John Maxwell famously describes leadership this way:

“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.”

I have always liked that idea because of the middle part: goes the way.

Leadership is not simply knowing what should happen or telling others what to do. People watch what leaders do, particularly when things become difficult.

Do they listen?

Do they admit when they do not know something?

Do they take responsibility when something fails?

Do they give others room to contribute?

Do they behave according to the expectations they set for everyone else?

Maxwell has also written about leadership as influence rather than position. That distinction matters. A title may give someone authority, but it does not automatically give them trust, credibility or followership.

Those things are earned through behaviour.

And in flatter, more collaborative workplaces, influence increasingly comes from many directions. Leadership can emerge from the newest employee in a meeting, the colleague who challenges an assumption, the volunteer who takes ownership of a problem or the person who helps a team remain grounded during uncertainty.

Leadership is no longer reserved for the person at the top of the organizational chart.

The best leaders are not always the people with the answers

One of the ideas from Brené Brown’s work that has stayed with me is the shift from being a “knower” to being a learner.

Brown writes about cultures where being the person with the answer becomes associated with leadership. The unintended consequence is that other people stop contributing because they believe they are not senior enough, experienced enough or entitled to challenge the established view.

Her alternative is simple but important: replace the need to be right with the desire to get it right.

That distinction may matter more now than ever.

The speed of change means no leader can realistically be the expert on everything affecting an organization. Technologies change. Customer expectations evolve. New generations enter the workforce. Skills that were highly valuable five years ago may look very different five years from now.

The leader who believes leadership means always knowing can quickly become the bottleneck.

The leader who remains curious creates space for learning.

That requires a degree of humility: asking questions, listening to people closer to the problem and being willing to say, “I don’t know yet.”

Those words do not weaken leadership.

Used appropriately, they can strengthen it.

The Canadian workplace is already changing

This is not a theoretical conversation.

Recent Statistics Canada research shows how quickly artificial intelligence is entering Canadian workplaces. Generative AI use among workers nearly doubled during the study period, increasing from 17% in September 2024 to 30% in July 2025.

Organizations are adapting as well. Among Canadian businesses planning to use AI over the following 12 months, 49.8% expected to train their existing employees to use it.

What we found equally interesting is that 41.9% expected to develop new workflows after adopting AI. Technology may be driving the change, but organizations still need people to rethink how the work gets done.

That statistic caught my attention.

Because behind every technology implementation is a human transition.

Someone has to learn a new way of working.

Someone may wonder whether their experience still matters.

Someone may worry about what automation means for their role.

Someone will make mistakes while learning.

And someone needs to create an environment where people feel able to ask questions rather than pretend they understand everything.

This is where leadership becomes deeply human.

Compassion is not the opposite of accountability

There is sometimes an assumption that compassionate leadership means avoiding difficult conversations, lowering expectations or trying to keep everyone comfortable.

I see it differently.

One of Brené Brown’s most memorable principles is:

“Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind.”

Clarity and compassion can exist together.

In fact, good leadership often requires both.

People deserve to understand what is expected of them. They deserve meaningful feedback. They deserve to know when something is not working, but they also deserve the opportunity to learn, respond and improve.

Avoiding an uncomfortable conversation may feel easier in the moment, but ambiguity rarely helps the person on the receiving end.

Compassion therefore does not mean removing accountability.

It means treating the individual with respect while addressing the issue clearly.

That creates something increasingly valuable in organizations: trust.

Your people are your first audience

Those of us who work in communications spend a great deal of time thinking about audiences.

Customers. Members. Stakeholders. Media. Partners. Communities.

But leaders have another audience that is sometimes overlooked:

their own people.

Employees and teams experience an organization’s values long before external audiences see its campaigns.

You can communicate that people matter externally, but employees will judge that promise against their everyday experience.

You can speak about innovation while punishing mistakes.

You can promote collaboration while decisions remain concentrated among a small group.

You can celebrate inclusion while the same voices dominate every conversation.

The gap between what an organization says and what its people experience eventually becomes visible.

That is why internal culture is not separate from reputation.

It is part of reputation.

And leaders communicate culture every day, often without saying a word.

Growth has to be intentional

Another idea I keep returning to is intentional growth.

We often talk about professional development as though it happens naturally with time.

It does not.

Experience can teach us, but only if we reflect on it.

And I think some of the most important learning happens when things do not go as planned.

For me, the first question should not be: Who made the mistake?

It should be: What happened, what can we learn from it, and what can we do better next time?

That means listening before judging. It means investigating what happened, looking at the different perspectives involved and understanding whether the issue was about an individual decision, a process, unclear expectations or perhaps the way the team was working together.

Sometimes the outcome is a better process.

Sometimes it means revisiting working guidelines or creating more clarity around roles and responsibilities.

And sometimes it means recognizing that responsibility is shared.

I believe this is an important part of leadership because pointing fingers may identify a person, but it does not necessarily solve the problem.

Looking at a situation from a learning perspective gives the team a much better opportunity to improve.

Of course, shared responsibility does not mean that individual accountability disappears. People still need to take ownership of their decisions and actions. But accountability should also come with curiosity.

• What could we have done differently?
• Was there enough clarity?
• Did people have the information or support they needed?
• Is there something in the process that made the problem more likely to happen?
• What should we change so we do not repeat the same mistake?

This is also where self-awareness matters.

• What behaviour do I default to under pressure?
• Do I listen before reaching a conclusion?
• Do I encourage people to explain what happened honestly?
• Do I create enough space for people to challenge the way we are doing things?
• When something succeeds, do I recognize the people who made it happen?
• And when something goes wrong, do I look only at the individual involved, or also at the environment, processes and decisions around them?

The leaders I find most compelling are not necessarily the people who have made the fewest mistakes.

They are often the people who know how to turn mistakes into better decisions, better processes and better ways of working.

The future may make human leadership more valuable, not less

As technology becomes better at generating information, analysing data, creating content and automating routine work, I suspect the value of distinctly human leadership will increase.

Machines can process information, they cannot build genuine trust, they can identify patterns and they cannot replace the feeling of being seen, supported or believed in by another person.

They can help us make decisions, but they cannot take responsibility for the culture in which those decisions are made.

That remains our work.

Perhaps the leaders who will matter most in the next phase of work will therefore not be the ones who compete with technology by trying to know everything faster.

They will be the ones who know how to create environments where people can learn faster, contribute more freely and navigate uncertainty together.

Leadership has never really been about having the most impressive title.

• It is about influence.
• It is about behaviour.
• It is about connection.

And increasingly, it may be about protecting and strengthening the human qualities that no technology can automate.

 

Article Reference: 

• Statistics Canada. “Workplace artificial intelligence use: A profile of sociodemographic and job characteristics.” Insights on Canadian Society. June 17, 2026. Source
• Statistics Canada. “Analysis on expected use of artificial intelligence by businesses in Canada, third quarter of 2025.” 2025. Source
• Brown, Brené. “The Courage to Not Know.” February 13, 2020. Adapted from Dare to Lead. Source
• Brown, Brené. “Clear Is Kind. Unclear Is Unkind.” October 15, 2018. Adapted from Dare to Lead. Source
• Cole, Mark. “Five Tools for Communicating Vision.” John Maxwell, November 15, 2019. This article attributes the quote “A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way” to John Maxwell. Source