Why Most Leaders Are Getting AI Wrong (And What It's Costing Their Teams)
Rebecca Veksler is a keynote speaker, fractional COO and CMO, and co-founder of Lumie, an AI powered health data platform. Through her consultancy RLV Projects, she works inside some of Australia's leading organisations advising on growth, operations and leadership in the age of AI. She speaks on AI and the future of work, leadership and high performing teams, and consumer psychology through Saxton Speakers Bureau.
I have watched a founder decide that AI was smarter than his entire leadership team.
Within six months, three departments worth of people had walked out the door.
This is not a hypothetical. This is something I witnessed firsthand through my fractional COO work, sitting inside a high growth business as it slowly dismantled itself from the top down. The founder was not malicious. He was not stupid. He was excited, and he was moving fast, and he had completely lost sight of the humans around him.
This is the AI adoption story nobody is telling. Not the productivity gains. Not the efficiency metrics. The human cost of getting it wrong.
And right now, across Australian businesses of every size and sector, leaders are getting it wrong at scale.
The Real Problem With AI Adoption in Organisations
Here is what I see in my fractional work, again and again. A leader discovers AI. They get excited. They start implementing tools, cutting costs, automating processes. And somewhere in that process, they forget to bring their people with them.
The result is not just disengagement. It is fear, resentment and a complete breakdown of the psychological safety that high performing teams depend on.
AI is changing how people search and discover information, but it is not replacing the need for human leadership, connection and judgment. What it is doing is exposing every crack in an organisation's communication and culture faster than any previous technology.
The businesses that are thriving in the AI era are not the ones moving fastest. They are the ones moving most deliberately, with a clear understanding of where AI genuinely adds value and where it does not.
The Cross Departmental Communication Problem Nobody Is Talking About
One of the most consistent patterns I see inside organisations navigating AI is this: the breakdown is almost never about the technology itself. It is about the gaps between departments that were already there, and that AI has now made impossible to ignore.
When a sales team starts using AI to generate leads and the marketing team does not know, you get a brand voice problem. When operations implements automation and customer support is not consulted, you get a service experience problem. When leadership adopts AI tools and does not communicate why or how to the team, you get a trust problem.
AI does not create these gaps. It reveals them. And if you do not address the underlying communication and alignment issues, no amount of technological investment will save you.
This is why systems thinking is one of the most underrated leadership skills in the AI era. Leaders who can zoom out, see the organisation as a whole, anticipate second order consequences and understand how each part of the system affects the others are the ones navigating this moment well. Leaders who cannot are the ones losing their best people.
What AI Can and Cannot Replace
Let me be direct about something. AI is not coming for your people. But it is changing what your people need to be excellent at.
The tasks that AI does well are repetitive, pattern based and data heavy. The things it cannot replicate are the things that have always separated great organisations from average ones. Judgment. Relationship. Trust. The ability to read a room. The courage to make a call when the data is ambiguous.
These are not soft skills. They are the highest order leadership skills, and they matter more now than they ever have.
What I see great leaders doing right now is using AI to create space for more human work, not less. When the administrative and analytical load is reduced, leaders have more time for the conversations, the coaching, the cultural work that actually builds high performing teams. The technology is only as good as the human strategy behind it.
The Three Mistakes Leaders Are Making With AI Right Now
Through my fractional COO and CMO work, I have a front row seat to how AI is being adopted inside Australian organisations. And the mistakes I see most often are not technical mistakes. They are leadership mistakes.
Moving without communicating. The fastest way to lose your team's trust is to implement change without explanation. AI adoption that happens to people rather than with them will always generate resistance. The solution is not to slow down. It is to bring your people into the why before you move to the what.
Optimising for efficiency and forgetting culture. Efficiency gains are real and they matter. But if the pursuit of efficiency is eroding the human connections that make your team want to come to work, you are making a very bad trade. Culture is not a nice to have. It is the thing that determines whether your efficiency gains stick or whether your best people leave and take their institutional knowledge with them.
Putting the wrong people in charge of implementation. AI adoption is a change management challenge, not a technology challenge. Putting a technically skilled person in charge of implementation without the leadership and communication skills to bring a team along is one of the most common and costly mistakes I see. The person leading AI adoption needs to understand people as much as they understand technology.
What Good AI Adoption Actually Looks Like
The organisations I have seen navigate AI well share a few things in common.
They treat AI adoption as a cultural initiative, not a technology rollout. They start with the question of what they want their organisation to feel like in two years, and then work backwards to understand how AI can help them get there.
They invest in cross departmental communication before they invest in tools. They make sure every team understands how AI is being used across the organisation, why decisions are being made, and what it means for their role.
They build critical thinking into their culture. They do not ask their people to trust AI blindly. They equip them to evaluate, question and make judgment calls. They understand that the goal is not to replace human thinking but to augment it.
And they stay close to their people. They check in. They listen. They take seriously the fear and uncertainty that AI is generating, not because that fear is always rational, but because it is real, and dismissing it is the fastest way to lose the people you most need to keep.
How to Bring Your Team Along on the AI Journey
If you are a leader navigating AI adoption right now, here is where to start.
Have the conversation before you make the change. Before you implement any new AI tool or process, tell your team what you are doing and why. What problem are you solving? What does it mean for their roles? What will stay the same? Clarity is the antidote to fear.
Map your cross departmental dependencies first. Before you automate any process, understand how it connects to every other part of the organisation. Who else is affected? Who needs to be consulted? Where are the handover points that need human judgment?
Identify your change champions. Find the people in your organisation who are curious about AI and give them a role in the adoption process. Peer to peer advocacy is far more powerful than top down mandates.
Separate the hype from the reality. Not every AI tool will transform your business. Some will save you an hour a week. Some will create more problems than they solve. Approach adoption with genuine critical thinking, not FOMO.
Measure the human metrics, not just the efficiency metrics. Track engagement, retention and team sentiment alongside productivity. If your efficiency is up but your culture is suffering, you are not winning.
Frequently Asked Questions About AI and the Future of Work
How is AI affecting leadership and teams in 2026? AI is changing what leaders need to be excellent at, shifting the focus from tasks that can be automated toward the human skills that cannot be replicated: judgment, communication, trust building and cultural leadership. The leaders navigating this well are using AI to create more space for human work, not less.
Why are teams resistant to AI adoption? Resistance to AI is almost always a communication and trust issue, not a technology issue. When people feel that AI is being done to them rather than with them, when they are not told why decisions are being made or what it means for their roles, fear and resentment are the natural result. The solution is to bring people into the process early and honestly.
What is the biggest mistake leaders make with AI? Moving without communicating. Implementing AI tools without explaining the why to your team, without consulting the departments affected, and without building the critical thinking culture that allows people to engage with AI thoughtfully rather than fearfully.
How does AI expose cross departmental communication gaps? AI accelerates every process it touches. When departments are not aligned, that acceleration makes the misalignment visible faster. A sales team using AI generated outreach that does not match the brand voice the marketing team is building creates an immediate and obvious problem. AI does not create these gaps, it reveals them.
What skills will leaders need most in the AI era? Systems thinking, emotional intelligence, cross departmental communication, the ability to manage change and the judgment to know when to trust AI and when to override it. These are the skills that cannot be automated and that will define the difference between leaders who thrive and those who struggle.
What does Rebecca Veksler speak about regarding AI and leadership? Rebecca Veksler speaks on AI and the future of work, leadership and high performing teams, and the practical reality of AI adoption inside organisations. Drawing on her fractional COO and CMO work inside Australian corporates and high growth businesses, she delivers keynotes, workshops and facilitated sessions for leadership teams, HR and people and culture audiences. She is represented by Saxton Speakers Bureau.
Rebecca Veksler is a keynote speaker, fractional COO and CMO, and co-founder of Lumie, an AI powered health data platform. She works with global brands through her consultancy RLV Projects and speaks on AI, leadership and consumer psychology through Saxton Speakers Bureau. To enquire about bookings, visit rebeccaveksler.com