The Human Edge

The world as we know it is fracturing. Shifting political norms, social fragmentation and our inexorable progress towards peak AI are fuelling what researchers expect to be a decade of disorientation. Leaders must evolve if they are to remain competitive and innovative throughout this change.

According to Dr Sandra Peter, futures strategist, Associate Professor at the University of Sydney and director of Sydney Executive Plus, the social and technological challenges of the coming decade will call for leaders with distinctly human skills.

As part of her academic research at Sydney Executive Plus, Dr Peter interviewed over 70 Australian and global leaders from organisations as diverse as IBM, NewsCorp, Opera Australia and the public sector to identify key challenges of the coming decade.

The resultant 2025 Skills Horizon report found curiosity to be the single most important leadership trait for the years ahead.

By asking the right questions, nurturing innovation, building relationships with diverse groups, and actively seeking out new knowledge about a broad range of topics, the best leaders will drive teams to make sense of complexity and work together towards better outcomes for all.

“There’s no doubt that disorienting times call for critical thinking, problem-solving, creativity and the ability to communicate effectively,” Dr Peter says. 

“To lead and succeed through the next decade, leaders need to learn new skills, unlearn old ones, and remain curious. Lifelong learners with open minds are at an advantage in the future.”

Going on the AI offensive

Lifelong learning is one challenge. The speed of change is another. 

Business adoption of AI tools has exploded in the past year, with 84 percent of knowledge workers in Australia now using AI at work.¹

The hype around generative AI has become so great that across the global economy, a majority of CEOs now say they would invest in AI regardless of economic conditions.²Yet even among the believers, many are still unprepared with the World Economic Forum finding 88 percent of executives excited about the potential of AI, but only half of those actually ready for the change.³

But despite the promises of AI, implementation of the technology is still in its early days. To date, most business applications of AI have focused on discrete tasks, with 5 in 8 AI-enabled businesses confining these tools to just one or two functions.⁴

While AI has so far been developed by technologists for specific tasks like writing, designing, monitoring and organising, its true potential will only be unlocked by generalists: business leaders who can combine technological literacy with the human edge.

The most successful leaders will be those who are able to use creativity, curiosity and what Dr Peter describes as “humanities thinking” to help apply AI more widely across their businesses.

“Digital technology such as AI can no longer be understood as just tools for certain problems or tasks,” she says. “Rather, it’s best viewed as general-purpose infrastructure for rethinking work, processes and business models.

“Creating animated headshots is cool but it’s often the ‘boring AI’ that can benefit your organisation most. Boring might include using your own data to train algorithms for tasks specific to your organisation. For example, the use of Gen AI to make services more accessible for broader stakeholder groups and increase inclusion, or as a cybersecurity tool or to transform processes. Boring is good for business.”

A growing number of businesses across the economy have rolled out company-wide AI training in the past year, in hopes of developing the skill sets needed to truly embed the technology into their processes.

According to Dr Peter, there is no time for passivity. Now is the time for business leaders to be going on the offensive by becoming AI fluent in order to truly reap its benefits for their teams.

“Because AI moves and changes fast, the big thing is being AI-ready, not AI-reactive,” she says. “In the near term, a lot of investment will go into upskilling teams and helping them become AI fluent.

“It’s about playing offence. When it comes to AI, and tech more broadly, forget about faking it. Understanding and experimentation build confidence. From there, you can use AI as a versatile tool to amplify your strengths and lift productivity. If you invest the time to upskill, AI can be a booster instead of a blocker for you, your team, and your business.”
This Insights piece is part of series titled ‘A New Age of Work’, created by Lendlease in partnership with TEDxSydney. See more.  

¹Microsoft, LinkedIn (2024), Work Trend Index 2024. https://news.microsoft.com/en-au/features/ai-at-work-is-here-now-comes-the-hard-part/ 

²KPMG (2024), KPMG 2024 CEO Outlook. https://kpmg.com/xx/en/our-insights/value-creation/kpmg-global-ceo-outlook-survey-2024.html

³World Economic Forum (2024), ‘AI is changing the shape of leadership’. https://www.weforum.org/stories/2024/05/ai-is-changing-the-shape-of-leadership-how-can-business-leaders-prepare/

⁴McKinsey (2024), ‘The state of AI in early 2024’. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/quantumblack/our-insights/the-state-of-ai

This Insights piece is part of series titled ‘A New Age of Work’, created by Lendlease in partnership with TEDxSydney. See more.