Executive development
Two in three executives say AI could end their business model by 2029. Three in four admit they are faking confidence about it. That is the real risk.
KUNGFU.AI with Wakefield Research, 2026
Every generation of leaders has faced a change that reshaped business: industrialisation, electrification, transportation, computerisation and the internet. AI is next, and arguably the most disruptive technology of the last 200 years. It will decide which companies pull ahead over the next few years, and their leaders will decide how effectively it is applied. This is executive development, not coaching: I work on the beliefs that drive a leader’s behaviour, not on what they say about it. The result is a leader secure enough to learn, and steady enough to make the right calls for the business.
Are your executives ready to lead this change?
Every executive now knows AI will reshape their business. Few will say out loud that they are not sure how. In a survey of senior US executives this year, three in four admitted they had projected more confidence in their AI strategy than they felt. They carry that certainty into the boardroom, into investment decisions and into the plans their teams are asked to deliver. When the confidence is an act, the decisions built on it are guesses, and some of the most important ones are never made at all.
Leaders need to be willing to admit what they do not know about AI if the company is to avoid poor investment decisions. A leader who is performing confidence will avoid looking vulnerable. When they fail to understand what AI means for their market, their contribution to the business shrinks as the gap widens between what they claim to understand and what they actually know.
Traditional coaching doesn’t offer a solution. It works from what the leader tells the coach, and it assumes the leader can see the problem and needs help finding the answer. A leader who has spent a career performing confidence does not stop performing just because they are sitting with a coach. The coach hears the same confident account, and the real problem stays exactly where it was.
I work from the other direction. I do not rely on what a leader says about themselves. I read how they actually behave when the pressure is on, and I work on the beliefs that make any gap in their knowledge feel like a weakness others will exploit. When those beliefs change, the act is no longer needed. What replaces it is real confidence, composure and authority: the ability to say ‘I don’t know yet’ in front of their peers, close the gap quickly, and make the AI decisions the business depends on.