Leading People in the Age of AI: Navigating the Brave New World of Work
by Paul Hetherington, Vistage Chair, Trustee at BRE Trust, Non-Executive Director at BRE Group
AI has stopped knocking at the door; it’s already at the table. It drafts our proposals, spots patterns before we do, and nudges better decisions in real time. For leaders, the challenge isn’t adopting AI - it’s leading people through it. That’s the focus of my Eastbourne DigiFest session: practical, humane leadership in an AI-accelerated world.
I’ll share practical tools to do just that - drawn from 25 years’ running businesses, being an Internet early adopter, chairing companies, a Vistage chair, serving as a Trustee at BRE Trust and a Non-Executive Director at BRE Group, and a consultant to ministers as part of the UK Government’s Industrial Development Advisory Board.
What AI changes (and what it doesn’t)
Speed is the new baseline. AI compresses cycles - from research to prototyping to insight generation. Leaders must compress decision latency without sacrificing judgment.
Talent remains decisive. The winners won’t be those with the most models, but those with the most adaptive teams: curious, data-literate, and psychologically safe to experiment.
Trust is non-negotiable. Data ethics, IP, and bias management are now leadership conversations, not IT footnotes.
Don’t get hung up on names, it may be AI, RPA - Robotic Process Automation, Algorithms, Scripts and Macros, Workflow Automation, or Pre-Programmed Chatbots.
Three shifts for leaders right now
1. From answers to questions
Your edge isn’t omniscience - it’s inquiry. Ask: What would have to be true for this idea to work? Where could this go wrong - and how cheaply can we test it? What can AI validate in an hour that used to take us a week? In my work with SME boards, the teams that institutionalise better questions generate better experiments - and better outcomes. Curiosity always was a business superpower, but it’s now an absolute MUST HAVE.
2. From control to clarity
AI amplifies whatever it touches. Without clarity, you get faster confusion. Set crisp guardrails:
Outcomes: the customer problem and the metric that proves we’ve solved it.
Quality: what “good” looks like for AI-assisted work (and when a human must review).
Risk: data use, confidentiality, and regulatory thresholds - especially relevant across the built environment and industrial sectors where I serve.
3. From performance management to capability building
Think skills, not roles. Everyone needs a personal AI toolkit and the literacy to use it responsibly. Practical steps:
Run “AI 101 for business value” workshops aimed at your workflows, not generic hype.
Create an internal playbook: approved tools, prompts, data dos and don’ts, and case studies.
Reward experimentation: small, reversible bets with clear success/failure criteria. first, tech smart
In boardrooms from Sussex to the UK industrial heartlands, the best leaders model calm curiosity. They talk openly about what AI can and cannot do. They invite their teams to challenge assumptions, and they pair AI’s pattern-finding with human context, ethics, and creativity. That balance is how you protect trust while unlocking performance.
A simple starting sprint
Pick one high-friction process (reporting, bid prep, customer support).
Map the steps; mark where AI could assist.
Run a 30-day experiment with a baseline metric and a human-in-the-loop check.
Share results - good and bad - so learning scales.
Why this matters now
Throughout all my advisory work, I see the same theme: productivity and competitiveness will increasingly hinge on how well leaders orchestrate people + process + AI. SMEs have an advantage - they can move faster, learn quicker, and build cultures where practical innovation sticks.
Join me at Eastbourne DigiFest
If you lead a team and want concrete tools - not jargon - to navigate AI with confidence, come along. We’ll explore real cases from SMEs, boards, and industry, and you’ll leave with a one-page playbook to take back to your business. And yes, we’ll keep it human - with a dash of humour; after all, the robots aren’t taking over your job. The leader who learns to partner with them will.
