AI Agent & Copilot Podcast: Why AI Adoption Is a Leadership Problem, Not a Tech Problem

Are you part of an organization that recently rolled out AI and you're struggling to see that user adoption rise or the ROI or maybe you're about to embark on this journey in your organization? Well, if you're in any of those two circumstances or anywhere in between, you're not alone. Nearly every business I encounter around the globe is struggling with the same exact thing and there are a lot of themes that I see and why we're not seeing this. And it brings together this whole idea that of a new series on this podcast, I'm calling AI Success, starts with leadership success. And today is episode one on that maybe eight, nine or ten episodes series. So stick around and learn more about the things that I'm seeing, the things I'm feeling and some challenges for you as a leader in your organization because that adoption is breaking down, not because of technology. It's because of people and today we're going to talk about it. Well, hello there and welcome to another episode of AI agent and co-pilot podcast brought to you by the fine folks at dynamic communities, for users by users and I am your host of this episode, Sean Dorbert, vice president at SA Global, writer and contributor to lifehacks 365.com and a huge AI and co-pilot enthusiast. And I want to welcome you to episode number one in a mini series. I'm titling AI success starts with leadership success and we are going to break down some ways that businesses are failing to launch and also ways to reset. So from this episode to the very end, I encourage you to join along. Feel free to reach out and share your insights as well, either in the show notes below or you can email me at Sean D at SA Global.com or contact me through my personal website, lifehacks 365.com. As I said, this series is called AI success starts with leadership success and it's built for leaders, VPs, directors, practice leaders, transformation leaders, which means you don't have to have people report to you to be a leader. Don't forget that I'm talking to you too. But those are the people who are just suddenly own AI, right? Whether they're asked to do that or not. And if you've brought, if you bought AI in one way or another, rolled it out and quietly wondered why it's not changing the world for you or at least you're not seeing much yet, you've come to the right place. Let's talk about what actually is happening inside organizations. Leaders bought AI expecting productivity, a change in the bottom line efficiency, the return on their investment. But here's what didn't change. How work gets reviewed. How or how decisions are made. What good actually looks like. Those things did not change. We introduced AI into organizations and then asked people to use it in the exact same leadership system. So what were you really expecting to do? Teams hesitated because they don't quite see exactly what the benefit's going to be here. Not because they were resisting or they were fearful of their job or they're lazy or they don't get it. They hesitated because it felt misled, unlead. There was a risk to this whole thing. There was a risk to quality or risk to reputation. There really is no structure around this rollout and people are tasked with just going off and being curious and digging into AI rabbit holes. But then leadership's behavior never changes. So best AI is feeling optional to people and that makes it dangerous because it's a time stealer and we need to address this from a leadership level. So from a leadership level we need to address the elephant in the room. That AI adoption is not a rollout. It's not an IT rollout. It's not a training issue. It's not a training opportunity. It's a user maturity issue. AI adoption is a leadership clarity problem. Being honest, it's a cultural signal and it's also a little bit of a safety issue for people without realizing it many leaders sent mixed messages like be innovative. Just don't mess things up or use AI but don't let it change the outcomes in a negative way. Experiment but don't slow anything down. These are things that I myself have even felt recall telling myself or my team but that's just confusion. You're saying you know six seven. I don't know like whatever I guess is not even what that means. Confusion will kill adoption faster than bad technology ever will. Take it from me. I'm a systems implementer at heart and any kind of confusion will kill the adoption and the same is true here for AI because AI success doesn't start with the tool or the software. It's about leadership behavior and how we embrace this change is really going to change our culture and the way that people do things. So what actually needs to change not the tools or the licensing you don't need a better license or another enablement session goodness know or another fancy slide deck Sean don't make another one of those. What needs to change the leadership behavior. There are three basic leadership moves that make or break AI adoption that I see first change expectations before changing the tools. Identify where is AI expected and where is it optional and also clarify where is it off limits you know that IP stuff you maybe don't want some large language model. Yeah getting its tentacles on into maybe that's off limits. I don't know if leaders can't answer those three things clearly. You're confusing your team in fact you're confusing your organization's efforts with AI if you don't know those three things and you can break that down and say where is AI expected well there's some easy wins we talk about them on other podcasts but in your organization you should know where your problem areas are if you could just simply say if we could change one thing about our business what would that be and why and then see if AI can help and I think therein lies some of the challenge that without those clarifications of what the expectations are with AI where it's expected to benefit and the organization where it's optional where it's off limits. Your teams can't you teams can't make the movement they're just going to consistently go down these rabbit holes that never end. The second thing I think that organizations need to embrace is modeling the artificial intelligence used publicly leaders using AI imperfectly in the open creates psychological safety. Let me say that again leaders using AI imperfectly in the open creates psychological safety. If you practice practice practice and you do it perfectly and then you show your team and now the expectation is that they have to get it right that way every single time because this magic prompted all the stuff that creates fear uncertainty etc. Leaders waiting to be perfect can also kill the momentum because within a constantly evolving AI model it's going to be hard to build perfection in there. The teams don't need to have polished demos leaders they just need permission to learn. They need the safety to know that it's complicated even from their leader but the clarity to know where they're supposed to use it where they're not supposed to use it and where they can't use it at all. The third modeling use publicly was number two and the third is redefining success. We tend to think that success with AI adoption is that people are using it and that's wrong. I thought that myself in the beginning that's a component of success. They're not going to be successful with it if nobody's using it but that doesn't mean you're successful just because metrics show people are using it. You need to start asking questions like are decisions getting better? Is our performance improving those kind of things? Remember teams don't follow policies. You have a policy that does these things. They follow the leaders. You have to be doing that. Encouraging your team through showing them that you yourself are using it and how you use it. Have those exercises where you're embracing your own pitfalls by using the AI. You don't have to pretend that you don't use AI to fulfill your requirements of your role in a different way than you did before but you have the authority in your leader role to change how those things get done. Where's your team may not? You need to add that clarity into that conversation so teams know what they can do and what they can't do by modeling that public and then also redefining success. This topic is a sensitive one. I want to make sure to recap. I'm suggesting that I think adoption is failing. The ROI is not being seen because we're not rolling it out properly. We're not rolling it out by creating a safe space. We want chaos in our business to be balanced with stability so that we're constantly growing and strengthening our rights. muscles in the organization. And AI is certainly one of those things that can create that chaos that is a catalyst for growth, but we have to set expectations. We have to tell people where they can use it, where they might be able to use it and where they most certainly cannot use it. And we also have to make sure that we're showing our vulnerability as leaders lead from the front. Don't profess perfection. And then also lastly is making sure that we take the time to redefine or to define in some cases what success with AI looks like. Because it's not just changing the tone of an email. And if you're not defining those things, you're not going to feel the success in your AI rollout. There you have it. Think I'm wrong. I would love to hear your feedback. What else are things that make it challenging for AI adoption? Those are just three. And through this series, we're going to continue to talk more and more about it. But I also want to point out that you could certainly join me at the AI agent and coal pilot summit, which is being held March 17th to the 19th, 2026 is here. If you can believe that in Torrey Pines, Southern California, this three day event is going to be jam packed with master classes with keynotes from Donasar car. Ray Smith is coming back again. Love hearing from him. And also Bob Evans will be back to give some some of his keynote insights throughout the event. Lots of MVP's, lots of Microsoft, but most importantly, lots of real end users there who have AI struggles and they've spanned from things like end user application all through leadership. So this will most certainly be a topic there, but be sure to continue to join us in this series as we move through the next seven or eight episodes. Now, my honest take on this is this isn't about blame, but let's let's be clear. I think this the blame does land on the leaders. That's not the point of this, but that's the point of it. AI success starts with leadership success. And we have to regardless of your role, if you're an AI leader, that's somebody who doesn't have people reporting to them or someone who's got dozens of people reporting to them. The difference is that we have to own it. We have to set expectations. And most every organization, you know, so part of it is also some honest on the other side. Every organization probably bought their AI tool before they were ready. It was all the hype was driving all the excitement. We know we can't be last or we'll be last. You know, what matters now is what leaders do next. And I think that's critical because AI doesn't expose the technical gaps first. It exposes leadership gaps actually first. That's my hindsight view. That I'm sharing with you. If AI isn't working, don't audit the tools audit leadership behavior. Sean. Okay, you got it. That's my honest take. Now, that is how we're going to forever learn to evolve through this though. So I'm really excited about the series. I plan on having some special guests join us along the way for some interviews. This is the first episode in the AI success starts with leadership success. And the next episode we're going to talk about why measuring usage is giving leaders a false sense of confidence and what to think about instead. We'll break that down a little bit. If this episode resonated with you or you liked it and are enjoying it in any way, please share it with others with another lead or another leader who's navigating their AI journey right now. Thanks for listening. You can find more about me at lifehacks365.com. Feel free to email me there or [email protected]. And thank you for joining me on this episode of AI agent and co-pilot podcasts. I look forward to seeing you on the next one. [Music]