Leadership in an Age of AI

How to remain fearlessly human

Paul Redmond

• Publisher: Trotman
• Year: 2026
• Print ISBN:
  9781911759294
• eBook ISBN:
  9781911759300
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Management
• Index: Business

'The greatest risk of AI isn't that machines become more human. It's that leaders become less so ... Read this book before that happens.' Alex Depledge Leadership is being rewritten by algorithms — and many managers don't even realise they're disappearing. Across every sector, AI now analyses performance, allocates work, and increasingly decides who gets hired, promoted or sidelined. As leaders grow dependent on polished machine outputs, a quiet leadership vacuum is emerging. Studies warn that "AI-assisted decision delegation" is leaving managers sidelined, while employees become disempowered and disengaged, unsure who — or what — is really in charge. This is not progress. It's abdication. Leadership in an Age of AI argues that when machines take over the mechanics of management, human leadership becomes more, rather than less, critical. Yet, many leaders, especially middle managers navigating multigenerational teams, feel overwhelmed, under-equipped or reduced to box-ticking. With Millennials managing Boomers on one side and Gen Z on the other, traditional management theory simply hasn't kept pace with reality. Drawing on global research and real-world case studies, this book shows why the leaders of the future will win not through optimisation, but through the qualities no algorithm can replicate: creativity, connection, courage and conscience. It offers practical tools for leading ethically with data, managing AI-powered teams, and building trust in an environment where technology is everywhere but true leadership is rare. Fearlessly human leaders: • Turn uncertainty into opportunity • Prioritise meaning over metrics • Build trust where data can't. Clear, actionable and unapologetically human, Leadership in an Age of AI is the essential guide for anyone who wants to lead — and stay human — in a world increasingly run by algorithms.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Tables and figures
• About the author
• Acknowledgements
• Foreword
• Prologue: The oracle and the algorithm
• Introduction: Leading in an age of unlimited intelligence
• 1 The day the internet learned to think
• 2 The end of work as we knew it
• 3 When the machine outsmarts the boss
• 4 You are not an algorithm
• 5 Fearlessly human leaders
• Afterword: The leader who lived to tell the tale