Welcome—or welcome back—to The Thoughtful Executive!
Yesterday, this column flashed across my phone from Harvard Business Review: “Has AI Ended Thought Leadership?” The author—a long-time founder, executive fellow at Harvard Business School, and frequent HBR contributor—argues that thought leadership as a category is dying. He blames AI for letting anyone sound like a thought leader and for producing content that looks like it’s contributing to solutions, even when the people behind it aren’t actually doing the work.
One point he makes is worth underlining: in an AI world, making a good argument isn’t enough. You need experience, data, feedback, and what he calls “scar tissue” behind that argument. That’s exactly what we’ve been mindful about in this community when shipping commentary and reflections to the public.
I do have one big disagreement.
I don’t think AI ended—or is ending—thought leadership. I think it exposes how little of it there actually is.