Managing People, Managing AI: Leadership Lessons

At last week’s Fast Company Innovation Festival in New York City, AI was one of the hottest topics running through nearly every conversation. And if there’s one thing that was made abundantly clear, it’s that AI is not just a workplace tool. It’s a teammate, and like any teammate, it needs effective leadership to reach its full potential. And that requires applying the same skills we use to lead people to the skills we need to lead AI.

Why AI Needs Human Managers

One theme echoed across sessions and side conversations: AI is only as good as the human behind it. Left unmanaged, AI agents can veer off course, produce flawed outputs or miss the nuance that makes ideas useful. But with proper oversight, they can accelerate workflows, uncover insights and free up time for more strategic thinking.

The comparison to immersing a new employee into your organization is especially apt. When you onboard someone new, you don’t expect perfection on day one. You give them structure, explain the context, offer feedback and patiently help them grow. The same is true with AI. Without that human input, both people and machines will flounder. But with it, they flourish.

The Overlap: People Management and AI Management

The same qualities that define great people leadership are the same that will help us manage AI well.

• Clear communication and structured writing. Great managers give precise briefs and clear instructions. With AI, clarity is everything: a well-crafted, detailed prompt often makes the difference between brilliance and gibberish.
• Feedback and patience. Coaching is at the heart of people management, and it applies to AI too. Don’t expect flawless output immediately. Review, refine and repeat. Improvement comes through cycles, not instant results.
• Vision and direction. Teams look to leaders for the “why.” AI needs the same vision. Without a defined goal or boundary, AI agents won’t make meaningful progress.
• Collaboration and partnership. Good managers don’t just dictate. They collaborate. With AI, partnership means understanding what AI can and can’t do, then combining its strengths with human insight, instinct and creativity.
• Empathy and trust. The most human skills are the ones AI will never replicate, but are still critical in getting the most out of AI agents. Empathy allows leaders to anticipate needs, inspire confidence and make responsible choices about how and when to deploy AI.

In other words, if you’re already good at managing people, you’re better prepared than you might think to lead in the age of AI.

What AI Will Never Replace

For all its power, AI will never replace the distinctly human elements that drive progress. Original vision, creativity, empathy and passion remain irreplaceable. AI can aggregate and build on what already exists, but it can’t deliver original human thought. It can process data, but it can’t look a colleague in the eye and sense what they need. It can scale outputs, but it can’t rally a team with purpose. These are the qualities that leaders must continue to cultivate, and that are even more valuable when combined with AI’s speed and scale.

The future isn’t (wo)man or machine. It’s both, working in partnership. And it’s the human element that will keep that partnership meaningful.

The Pitfalls of Moving Too Fast

Right now, too many organizations are tripping over the same mistake: rushing to adopt AI without strategy or support. In the scramble to stay ahead, leaders are skipping the very management steps that make AI valuable.

In a panel titled “Beyond the Hype: How AI and Real-Time Data Are Powering a More Consumer-Centric Future,” I was particularly struck by a statistic that Kathleen Koch, Fast Company Custom Studio, shared: less than 1/3 of companies have trained about 1/4 of their employees to use AI. That means the majority of workers are left to figure it out on their own. The result is uneven adoption, inconsistent quality and a missed opportunity to build confidence and trust through leadership communications.

Moving fast doesn’t mean skipping steps. It means doing the human work alongside the technical work: training people, creating guardrails and reinforcing culture.

What Leaders Should Do Now

Whether you’re an experienced executive or just starting out, here are practical ways to prepare yourself and your team for the adoption of AI:

• Strengthen your communication skills. The clearer and more structured your direction, the better both your people and your AI agents will perform.

• Embrace feedback, learning and progress. Don’t expect perfection at the first pass. See both people and AI as iterative partners who improve with coaching.

• Define vision and guardrails. Paint the picture of what success looks like and where the boundaries are. AI needs context, just like humans.

• Prioritize creativity, empathy and passion. These are the differentiators that make humans indispensable. Protect and nurture them.

• Make AI training universal. Don’t silo it with IT. Give everyone, from interns to the C-suite, the chance to build AI literacy and confidence.

For younger professionals, this is an opportunity like no other. In the past, management skills came later in a career. Today, by managing AI agents, even junior employees can learn and practice leadership and management earlier. For seasoned leaders, it’s a reminder that adaptability and openness are what define strong leadership in times of change.

The Bottom Line

Headlines about AI tend to focus on its speed, scale and autonomy. But the real story is far more human. Agentic AI isn’t a plug-and-play replacement for people. It’s a new kind of teammate. It needs leaders who can guide it, teach it and integrate it into workflows responsibly.

The future of work belongs to those who can both manage people and manage AI. And the secret is, the skills are the same: clarity, patience, vision, collaboration and empathy. Get those right, and AI becomes more than a tool; it becomes a force multiplier. Get them wrong, and AI is just noise.

So, the challenge I’ll leave you with is this: don’t just ask how your organization will use AI. Ask how you will lead it. Because in the end, the future of AI is only as strong as the humans who guide it.