There’s a piece of leadership advice that has been around for a long time, and one I’ve spoken about many times over the years: hire people smarter than you.

I’ve always liked the thinking behind it. No leader needs to be the best strategist, analyst, marketer, systems thinker or operator in the organisation. In fact, trying to be, or building a team that orbits around one person’s thinking, is often what quietly limits growth.

Given where we are today, I think that advice deserves an update.

Because the question in front of most leadership teams right now isn’t simply who should do the work.

It’s how the work should be done.

By a person?

By a team?

By AI?

Or, increasingly, by a combination of human capability and technology?

That shifts the conversation. And the decisions.

The pressure to “do something” with AI

In many organisations I work with, there’s a familiar tension.

On one side, boards and executives are hearing that AI will transform productivity, and there’s pressure to show progress. On the other, there’s uncertainty about what that actually means for roles, structures and the people already in the business.

So the question often arrives framed as a choice: Do we invest in people or in AI?

I suggest that’s a wrong starting point.

When the decision is framed as people versus technology, it tends to become either a cost conversation or a technology conversation. Neither gets to the heart of the situation. What leaders need to decide is what capability the organisation needs for its next stage, and how best to build it.

From allocating tasks to designing capability

Traditionally, resourcing decisions start with a list. What’s taking too much time? What isn’t getting done? Where are we stretched? What skills do we need?

Those are still useful questions. But I’d expand them to:

• What work needs human judgement, and where is it essential?
• Where does context, relationship or trust carry to an outcome?
• What could technology make faster, more consistent or more accurate?
• Where could someone with different skills, thinking or experience improve the outcome, not just complete the task?

That last question matters most I think because good resourcing has never been about adding another pair of hands. It’s about adding capability and potential. AI makes that distinction stronger, not weaker.

AI hasn’t removed the need for good people

It’s tempting to look at AI purely through an efficiency lens. If AI can draft the report, summarise the meeting, analyse the data or build the first version of the presentation, why would we need people to do it?

It’s a reasonable question. It may also be the wrong one.

A more useful question might be: What could the right people achieve if they were also using AI well?

Picture an analyst who isn’t spending days cleaning data to find a trend, but uses AI to get there in an hour and then spends their time on what the trend means for your customers, your risk profile or your strategy. Or a project lead who uses AI to handle the first draft of every status update, and puts their energy into the stakeholder conversations that actually move things forward.

They aren’t simply doing the task. They’re thinking about the outcome.

AI makes them faster, it is a tool.  Their judgement makes the work better. Their understanding of your organisation makes it relevant.

That combination is where I believe real value sits.

Hiring for what technology can’t easily replace

As AI becomes embedded in how organisations operate, the attributes we look for in people may need to shift too.

Technical skills will still matter. But so will curiosity. Decision Making . Initiative. Communication. Adaptability and Potential. The ability to question an instruction rather than simply execute it. The confidence to say, “There may another way to think about this problem.”

And most importantly, the ability to learn.

The best person for the role may not be the one who knows every system you currently run, they don’t need to ‘step into someone’s shoes’.  They may be the one who understands the outcome you’re trying to achieve, learns the tools available, and works out a better way to get there.

That’s a very different recruitment conversation, and often a different conversation about development and capability across the existing team, too.

Warning: Don’t build a team that echoes you

There’s a trap you need to consider, and it applies at every level, including the leadership table and the boardroom.

We naturally gravitate towards people who think like us, communicate like us and approach problems the way we do. It feels easier.

But easier isn’t necessarily what the organisation needs.

I’ve said for some time: having like-minded people is not always what we need; sometimes we need those with minds that complement and challenge ours.  It is one of the reasons I got certified as a chair from The Advisory Board Centre.  Independent perspectives have high value.

This becomes even more important as technology takes on more repeatable work. If everyone around the table (human or otherwise) simply confirms what leadership already thinks, you haven’t added capability. You’ve added agreement and agreement may not give you the best outcomes.

The value comes from difference:

• Someone who sees the detail others miss.
• Someone who loves systems when others love ideas.
• Someone who asks whether a process still makes sense at all.
• Someone who understands a technology the leadership team hasn’t had time to explore.
• Someone who can take a strategy and turn it into something actionable.
• Someone who can be relied on to work through the critical steps of an important process, every time.

That’s what a complementary capability looks like, is your AI adoption adding challenge or just speed.

Before you decide, look at the work

The starting point isn’t “we need to restructure” or “we need an AI strategy.”

Start with the organisation itself.

Look at where time and energy are going. Look at where work gets stuck, or bottlenecked around a few key people. Look at what repeatedly slips to the bottom of the list. And look at the capability you’ll need in two or three years, not just the tasks that need completing today.

Then ask:

• What must stay with leadership?
• What could AI assist with or accelerate?
• What needs clear human ownership and judgement?
• What could a skilled team member, internal or external, own end to end?
• Where could people and AI working together create an outcome neither could achieve as well alone?

That’s a far more useful way to think about resourcing than headcount alone.

And the leader’s role changes too

There’s one part of this conversation that’s easy to overlook.

Building smarter capability around you asks something of leaders. It asks you to let go. Not of accountability, but of the belief that because you can do something, or because it’s always been done a certain way, it should be.

It also asks for clarity. Whether work sits with a person, a team, a partner or an AI-supported process, people need to know:

• What outcome are we trying to achieve?
• Why does it matter?
• What does good look like?
• Where can decisions be made without escalation?
• When should it come back to leadership?
• What information, access and support are needed?

AI doesn’t remove the need for those conversations. If anything, I think it makes clarity more important, because unclear direction gets executed fast without the right outcomes.

Build something smarter around you

I don’t think the future of growing organisations is just about fewer people because AI can do more. Nor is it about adding people every time the workload increases.

I think it’s about being more deliberate about capability.

The right people.

The right technology.

The right work.

The right level of ownership.

And leaders who understand where their own time and thinking create the greatest value.

So perhaps the old advice deserves its update.

Don’t just hire people smarter than you. Build something smarter around you.

Because the objective isn’t more people. It isn’t even more output. It’s an organisation where people and technology are each doing the work they’re best placed to do, freeing your leaders and your teams to focus their energy where it creates the greatest impact.

If this is a conversation happening around your leadership table, I’m always happy to be a sounding board or have a confidential chat.