The AI-Driven Leader Quotes

“When asking AI to act as your Thought Partner, consider having it play these three roles: • The Interviewer: Ask AI to interview you to gather the information in your head and help you clarify your thinking. • The Communicator: Engage AI to turn complex ideas into simple, powerful messages. • The Challenger: Ask AI to challenge your thinking so you overcome your biases and assumptions.”
― Geoff Woods, The AI-Driven Leader: Harnessing AI to Make Faster, Smarter Decisions

“Do not abdicate your responsibility as the Thought Leader.”
― Geoff Woods, The AI-Driven Leader: Harnessing AI to Make Faster, Smarter Decisions

“Up to that point, I’d asked the same question, “How can I do this?” At that moment I found myself asking, “How might AI help me do this?”
― Geoff Woods, The AI-Driven Leader: Harnessing AI to Make Faster, Smarter Decisions

“How will you address the potential gap between perceived confidence and actual competence in strategic decision-making? How will you ensure the training translates into measurable improvement in performance?”
― Geoff Woods, The AI-Driven Leader: Harnessing AI to Make Faster, Smarter Decisions

“Resist the temptation to outsource your thinking to AI. Use it as your Thought Partner, but always maintain your role as the Thought Leader, providing context and judgment to shape the final output.”
― Geoff Woods, The AI-Driven Leader: Harnessing AI to Make Faster, Smarter Decisions

“It’s crucial to approach AI-generated results with a critical eye and apply your human judgment.”
― Geoff Woods, The AI-Driven Leader: Harnessing AI to Make Faster, Smarter Decisions

“If you don’t understand your business problem, your business challenge, the market forces, and customer demand, then asking ‘How do we use AI?’ is the wrong question.”
― Geoff Woods, The AI-Driven Leader: Harnessing AI to Make Faster, Smarter Decisions

“I want you to help me identify a team member who can help champion AI adoption. Interview me by asking one question at a time to help me identify someone who is innovative, growth-minded, and influential. Once identified, role-play with me as that person, and I’ll present my vision. Give me feedback on my presentation and suggest improvements.”
― Geoff Woods, The AI-Driven Leader: Harnessing AI to Make Faster, Smarter Decisions

“I want you to act as my Thought Partner in helping me create a vision statement around AI, outlining: 1. How I believe it will benefit our company 2. How I see it benefiting our people 3. Where I see potential risks with AI and how we can work together to manage it Interview me by asking one question at a time. Once you have enough information, generate a draft of what I might share with other people.”
― Geoff Woods, The AI-Driven Leader: Harnessing AI to Make Faster, Smarter Decisions

“I’m new to AI and unsure how it can help me. Interview me by asking one question at a time to identify how you can help me.”
― Geoff Woods, The AI-Driven Leader: Harnessing AI to Make Faster, Smarter Decisions

“Our thinking drives our actions, which drives our results.”
― Geoff Woods, The AI-Driven Leader: Harnessing AI to Make Faster, Smarter Decisions

“It’s not about the gap between where you are and where you want to be. It’s about celebrating who you are becoming along the way.”
― Geoff Woods, The AI-Driven Leader: Harnessing AI to Make Faster, Smarter Decisions

“would like you to act as a Thought Partner by asking me one question at a time. Here’s the situation: (provide the necessary context). Here’s what I’m trying to solve: (then insert where you need help). Please help me think through potential solutions. AI”
― Geoff Woods, The AI-Driven Leader: Harnessing AI to Make Faster, Smarter Decisions

“If your people have fear, remind them that six out of ten jobs today didn’t exist in 1940. Technology changes the skills required and the processes we follow. Their opportunity is to develop the skills and processes for an AI-driven world. Your obligation is to train and support them along the way.”
― Geoff Woods, The AI-Driven Leader: Harnessing AI to Make Faster, Smarter Decisions

“The sunk cost fallacy leads us to continue investing in failing initiatives, while the status quo bias makes us prefer the current state of affairs.”
― Geoff Woods, The AI-Driven Leader: Harnessing AI to Make Faster, Smarter Decisions

“In the industrial way of working, leaders told people what to do, and those people executed. In the world of AI-driven leadership, the value of human work will shift to emphasize our unique human strengths, such as creativity, strategic thinking, problem-solving, communication, and collaboration.”
― Geoff Woods, The AI-Driven Leader: Harnessing AI to Make Faster, Smarter Decisions

“As an AI-driven leader, you are a composer of strategy. You imagine what the future of your organization might look like. You begin to craft a strategic plan that acts as your musical score, outlining the competitive advantage you want to build in the long term. Yet your true genius also lies in clarifying the simple actions your people can take in the short term so they play in harmony to bring your strategy to life.”
― Geoff Woods, The AI-Driven Leader: Harnessing AI to Make Faster, Smarter Decisions

“Without clear direction, a compelling vision, and accountability, change initiatives are more likely to stall or fail.”
― Geoff Woods, The AI-Driven Leader: Harnessing AI to Make Faster, Smarter Decisions

“We are prone to various biases that can impede our ability to adapt to change.”
― Geoff Woods, The AI-Driven Leader: Harnessing AI to Make Faster, Smarter Decisions

“you want different results, you have to demonstrate different leadership behavior. This means shifting from telling people what to do to telling people the vision for the company, your strategic plan to get there, and letting them tell you how they plan to make it happen. That means empowering your people to own their portion of the plan and harness their human strengths, augmented by AI, to make it happen.”
― Geoff Woods, The AI-Driven Leader: Harnessing AI to Make Faster, Smarter Decisions

“As an AI-driven leader, you embrace the dual role of both composer and conductor. You create strategies that pave the way for competitive advantage and lead the performance of these strategies with the finesse of a maestro. Using the tools and talents at your disposal, you bring your vision to reality. As your business continues to change, it is you as the AI-driven leader who is best equipped to navigate both the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.”
― Geoff Woods, The AI-Driven Leader: Harnessing AI to Make Faster, Smarter Decisions

“Your growth will be defined by who you surround yourself with—those who are on the same journey and can challenge your thinking, expand your perspective, and push you to evolve.”
― Geoff Woods, The AI-Driven Leader: Harnessing AI to Make Faster, Smarter Decisions

“As an AI-driven leader, your job isn’t to ensure your people’s happiness or eliminate their fear. It’s to build the best business possible in an ethical manner, keeping your people’s interests at the center. I call this leading with empathetic strength.”
― Geoff Woods, The AI-Driven Leader: Harnessing AI to Make Faster, Smarter Decisions

“Skills and processes change over time, but this doesn’t mean you will lose your job. It means your role might evolve, either within the same company or in a different one.”
― Geoff Woods, The AI-Driven Leader: Harnessing AI to Make Faster, Smarter Decisions

“Strategic thinking and decision-making have always been critical leadership skills. However, our education system often grades you on your ability to have the answer, not on your ability to search for one.”
― Geoff Woods, The AI-Driven Leader: Harnessing AI to Make Faster, Smarter Decisions

“Great strategic thinkers are masters of asking questions they don’t yet have the answer to and searching for those answers. Developing this skill on your own requires practice, but AI can collapse the learning curve.”
― Geoff Woods, The AI-Driven Leader: Harnessing AI to Make Faster, Smarter Decisions

“Through my interviews, I discovered that while executives acknowledge the need to adopt AI “eventually,” three main obstacles held them back: They were too busy with all the existing demands of the business. They didn’t understand what AI was or AI how it could help them. No one had showed them the simple path to go from 0 to 1 with AI in a way that would create value for them.”
― Geoff Woods, The AI-Driven Leader: Harnessing AI to Make Faster, Smarter Decisions

“how many potential customers have you spoken to who said they want to buy what you’re selling?” My answer was zero! Jayme challenged me to speak with 100 potential customers and then revisit my vision.”
― Geoff Woods, The AI-Driven Leader: Harnessing AI to Make Faster, Smarter Decisions

“Nokia’s flagship N95, which came out before the iPhone 2G, had fourteen of those fifteen features, plus many extras that the iPhone lacked. The problem? No one knew! The difference-maker wasn’t the product itself but the strategic thinking and decisions of the leadership team. Steve Jobs recognized that strategy meant building an advantage in the long term through the actions taken in the short term. He crafted compelling stories as if Apple’s future depended on it—and it worked!”
― Geoff Woods, The AI-Driven Leader: Harnessing AI to Make Faster, Smarter Decisions

“The choice is clear: learn the skill of harnessing AI ethically to build an advantage, or cling to outdated ways of working and risk being left behind.”
― Geoff Woods, The AI-Driven Leader: Harnessing AI to Make Faster, Smarter Decisions