The meeting ended twenty minutes ago, but Sarah is still sitting at her desk, staring at her monitor.
Three of her best people stopped by her office this week with the same look on their faces — that mix of Anxiety and unasked questions that she knows all too well. They’ve heard the company is “evaluating AI solutions.” They’ve read the headlines. They’ve seen the LinkedIn posts. And now they want answers from their manager.
The only problem? Sarah doesn’t have any.
No rollout date. No policy. No clear directive from the top. Just a vague memo about “exploring opportunities in emerging Technology” and a quarterly all-hands that’s still six weeks away.
If that scene sounds familiar, you’re not alone. Right now, in companies across every sector — healthcare, Finance, manufacturing, professional services, you name it — leaders at every level are caught in that same uncomfortable gap between the noise of AI and the silence of official direction.
Here’s the thing: how you show up right now, before the answers exist, matters more than you think.
Think about how a good ship’s captain operates in a storm. They don’t wait for the skies to clear before they talk to the crew. They don’t pretend the waves aren’t real. And they don’t — if they’re worth their salt — disappear below deck and leave people guessing.
What they do is this: they tell the crew what they know, what they don’t know, and what they’re doing about it. They keep people focused on the task at hand while staying alert to what’s developing around them.
AI is the storm right now. And your team is watching to see how you handle the wheel.
A 2023 Pew Research Center study found that 52% of American workers say they feel “more concerned than excited” about the growing use of AI in the workplace. That anxiety doesn’t disappear when a leader stays quiet — it grows. It fills the silence with rumors, worst-case assumptions, and the kind of low-grade dread that quietly drains morale and productivity.
Your silence reads as avoidance. And avoidance is expensive.
This is where a lot of well-meaning managers trip up. They wait until they have everything figured out before they say anything. That instinct makes sense — nobody wants to speculate, spread misinformation, or walk back a promise later.
But here’s what I’ve noticed over the years: your team isn’t expecting you to have a crystal ball. They’re expecting you to be honest.
There’s a big difference between these two statements:
“I can’t really say anything about AI right now.”
“Here’s what I know, here’s what I don’t know yet, and here’s what I’m doing to get us better information.”
The first shuts a door. The second opens a conversation.
According to a 2023 McKinsey study on organizational transformation, employees who feel informed during periods of uncertainty are four times more likely to report being engaged — even when the news is incomplete or imperfect. People can tolerate ambiguity. What they can’t tolerate is feeling invisible during it.
Hold a team conversation. Not a polished town hall with a scripted deck — a real conversation. Start with something like: “You’ve probably heard the word AI come up a lot lately. I want to talk about it openly because I think you deserve that.” Then be straight with them: here’s what leadership has shared, here’s what we’re still waiting on, and here’s the kind of input I’ll be looking for as we learn more.
That’s not weakness. That’s the job.
One of the most useful things a leader can do right now is help their team think clearly — not optimistically, not pessimistically, but clearly.
AI coverage in the media tends to oscillate between two extremes: it’s either going to automate every job on the planet by Thursday, or it’s glorified autocomplete that can’t be trusted to write a thank-you note. Neither extreme is especially helpful to the people sitting on your team wondering if their role will exist in three years.
The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report (2023) estimated that while AI could displace around 85 million jobs globally by 2025, it’s also projected to create 97 million new roles in areas like data analysis, AI oversight, and human-machine collaboration. The story isn’t elimination — it’s transformation. That nuance matters, and it’s worth sharing.
Think of it like this: when GPS first became widespread, a lot of people thought map-reading was dead. In reality, what changed was who needed to do the manual navigation and when. The skill didn’t disappear — the context shifted. Most jobs touched by AI will look similar. The work will shift, not vanish.
That doesn’t mean the shift is painless or that everyone will land perfectly. It means the conversation deserves more nuance than the headlines typically offer. Be the leader who brings that nuance.
Here’s what nobody tells you about leading through uncertainty: your team is one of your best resources for navigating the uncertainty.
The people doing the daily work often have the sharpest instincts about where AI could genuinely help and where it would create chaos. They know which tasks feel repetitive and ripe for automation. They know which parts of the job require a human touch that no algorithm is going to replace anytime soon.
When leaders treat AI adoption as something that gets decided above and handed down, they miss a real opportunity — and they breed resentment. When they say, “I’d Love your input on this as we figure it out,” they build trust and get better information.
This isn’t a suggestion to run leadership by committee. It’s a recognition that good decisions get made with better data, and your team has data you need.
A Harvard Business Review analysis on change adoption found that organizations where frontline employees were involved in shaping technology changes saw adoption rates 30% higher than those where changes were imposed top-down. Involvement isn’t just nice — it’s practical.
Start a simple conversation: “As we think about where AI might fit in our work, what are the things you’d most want to protect? And what’s the stuff you’d gladly hand off if you could?” You’ll learn things that matter. And they’ll feel like partners, not passengers.
Uncertainty about how work gets done doesn’t have to mean uncertainty about why.
When everything around your team is shifting, the most stabilizing thing a leader can do is keep pointing back to the constants — the values, the mission, the kind of culture you’re committed to regardless of what tools are in the stack.
Think about it this way. When a restaurant switches from a gas stove to an induction cooktop, the best chefs don’t panic. They learn the new equipment because the goal — preparing great food for the people they serve — hasn’t changed. The how shifts. The why stays put.
Your team needs to hear that from you. Not as a pep talk, but as a genuine reorientation: “Here’s what we’re about, and that isn’t going anywhere. The tools we use may evolve. How we treat each other and our clients won’t.”
That’s not wishful thinking. That’s leadership providing the anchor when the current is moving fast.
Finally — and this one’s important — resist the urge to position yourself as the person who already has AI figured out. You probably don’t. Most people don’t. And that’s okay.
What your team needs isn’t a manager who pretends to be an AI expert. They need a leader who models curiosity, who’s willing to say “I tried one of these tools this week and here’s what I noticed” or “I’ve been reading about how other companies in our space are handling this — want me to share what I found?”
Learning out loud does a few things at once. It gives people permission to be curious rather than afraid. It signals that the leader is paying attention. And it creates a culture where exploring new tools feels less like a threat and more like a team sport.
The IBM Institute for Business Value’s 2023 AI study found that the single biggest predictor of successful AI adoption in an organization wasn’t the technology itself — it was leadership behavior. Specifically: leaders who engaged transparently and modeled learning created environments where teams adapted faster and with less friction.
You don’t need to be ahead of the curve. You need to be on the curve — and visibly working it.
If your team had to describe how you’ve shown up during this AI moment — not what you’ve said, but how you’ve shown up — what would they say?
Are you the captain who’s leveling with the crew and keeping everyone focused on the task at hand? Or have you gone quiet, hoping the storm passes before you have to address it?
Neither AI nor your team’s questions about it are going anywhere. The leaders who navigate this well won’t necessarily be the ones with the best AI strategy. They’ll be the ones who led with honesty, invited the people on their team into the conversation, and remembered that uncertainty — handled well — is actually one of the places where trust is built most powerfully.
That’s not a technology problem. That’s a leadership opportunity.
If this is the kind of challenge you’re wrestling with right now — how to show up for your team when the road ahead isn’t clear — that’s exactly what we dig into together in Coaching. You don’t have to figure this out alone. Book a free 20-minute discovery call and let’s talk about what your team needs from you right now.
Or if you want to take stock of where your leadership stands today, the free Leadership Assessment is a great place to start.
I’d love to hear your take — how are you approaching the AI conversation with your team? Drop a comment or shoot me a note.
The post When Nobody Knows What’s Coming: How to Lead Your Team Through the AI Storm first appeared on Servant Leadership Coaching | Practical Leadership Development | Doug Thorpe.
