The Leadership Reset: How to Thrive Amid AI Disruption and Workplace Volatility

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here. Another episode of High Velocity Radio, and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have the founder CEO of 1099 Impact Street a day, Aday Adetosoye. Welcome.

Aday Adetosoye: Thank you so much, Lee. Glad to be here.

Lee Kantor: Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about 1099 Impact Street. How are you serving, folks?

Aday Adetosoye: Excellent. You know, right now a lot of organizations are investing millions in AI and wondering why the leaders are burning out. We work on that gap at 1099 Impact Street. We work with leaders and organizations that are sort of navigating volatility, disruption, the AI shift and just general disruption in the workplace based on systems. So our focus is really principled leadership, discipline, judgment and ensuring that we’re all building systems that hold under whatever pressure, whether it’s technological, whether it’s personnel. So we’re here to just ensure that organizations are looking at the right systems, that hold the right people to do what they need to do.

Lee Kantor: Now, you mentioned AI at the jump. Is there a correlation between people who are kind of leveraging AI or experimenting with AI and burnout? Are those two connected?

Aday Adetosoye: Yes, absolutely. Especially right now, AI is accelerating everything. And leaders at the top are wondering how they fit in and how does AI fit into their companies or organizations. So it then makes leadership clarity and decision stability that much more important. So I’m sure, you know, everywhere we look now we’re talking about AI. We’re talking about robots. We’re talking about this new technology that’s really just come to stay for now. So how do we ensure that people who have been doing their jobs, who have been relatively secure in their jobs, are not only freaking out about AI, but also are not burning out by this additional pressure of what AI means in their entity.

Lee Kantor: So is burnout happening statistically more today than it was five years, ten years ago?

Aday Adetosoye: Not necessarily. I haven’t looked at the latest statistics in that particular way. But what is happening for sure is that this idea of artificial intelligence is adding to the burnout, right? We are demanding more of our employees. We are asking, you know, there’s a lot of do more with less. You know, last year we saw record numbers of people get laid off, and those who are left behind have to do the job. So with or without AI, we’re already seeing that, uh, a lot of people are having to do much more than they were doing five years ago. And so what we’re seeing now is that with the additional layer of AI and the quote unquote threat, depending on how it’s defined, we’re starting to see that people are even feeling more burnt out as a result of this threat of AI, may replace me, may take my job. And so what we need to do is really work with organizations to sustain people, to sustain people, and to not reward overextension and compress timelines and treat people as if they’re endlessly adaptable. We’ve got to strengthen our systems to deal with burnout that is real, and burnout that is artificially extended because of this new AI situation.

Lee Kantor: Now, if this situation is systemic at the heart of it. You’re saying AI contributes to it, but from a leadership standpoint, aren’t most leaders kind of seeing the possibilities of AI and how it can enhance and help their people perform more effectively, more efficiently? Isn’t kind of that the heart of at least their belief? Maybe that’s not what it is in reality, for the kind of the people farther down the org chart. But in the minds of the leadership, don’t they see this as kind of a way to exponentially improve productivity, which should lessen burnout? But you’re saying that that’s not what’s really happening.

Aday Adetosoye: Well, yeah, it’s it’s a little bit of both, really. Li we see some leaders who are embracing AI as exactly what you just described, and we also see some leaders who view AI as a threat and also don’t know how to incorporate AI without, um, freaking out their employees. I see fear. I see a lot of fear of the unknown when I talk to leaders at the top. And if we say, well, how is AI changing their expectations? Ai does not replace leadership. And this is the core message is AI does not replace leadership. It magnifies it, right? It accelerates our ability to make decisions, to communicate and to execute. So when we use it the way we’re supposed to, it’s not supposed to add judgment and ethics or wisdom. So if leaders already overwhelmed AI will only help you burn out faster if you’re not using it correctly. But if you’re a leader who is clear and grounded, what AI does is reduce noise and protect your focus and help you strategize better. So what I’m seeing is that the mistake most organizations are making is they’re treating AI like a fix. Um, and it’s not a fix. It’s an amplifier, which means that the state of the actual leader who uses AI or who chooses to use AI matters more than the actual sophistication of the technology.

Lee Kantor: And that they have to use it strategically. And it’s not just kind of a blunt instrument, that it’s going to solve all your problems and make everything bad go away. Like, it has to be kind of strategically implemented in a manner that achieves the outcome you desire, not just creates chaos. So as part of your service that you go in and help leaders really understand how to deploy AI in a more strategic, meaningful manner.

Aday Adetosoye: That is exactly right. You just articulated that beautifully. That is exactly what we do, is we come in and we say, tell us what your current strategy is. Tell us what you’re thinking about AI. How are you feeling about it? What are you what are you thinking about doing with it? And then we find those gaps and try to fill them in with that strategy and making sure that, again, it’s amplifying and not replacing. Excellent. The way you put it.

Lee Kantor: Well, I think it’s one of those things where if it’s not deployed mindfully, it can be a distraction and a disruption and lead to that kind of downward spiral pretty quickly, because it’s easy to get overwhelmed, because you start asking your questions or you start putting data in and you’re going to get lots and lots of data back, and all of a sudden now you’re down 50 rabbit holes. That can be a distraction and not really strategically help you. So I think people do need to kind of rely on an expert or a Sherpa to help them kind of focus in on what outcome they desire, and just use AI as a tool to help you do that.

Aday Adetosoye: Yes, yes. And it’s really about what you put in is what you get. And so we talk a lot about prompt engineering, which is just really a fancy term for, you know, how do you tell this tool to give you what you want? So if you go in and try to sort of say, um, you know, you give it a very generic or a vague, um.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, like make me a marketing plan, you know, like, that’s not helpful.

Aday Adetosoye: That’s not helpful. You’re going to get those 50 rabbit holes that you just talked about. You’re going to keep going and going. So you have to be very clear and precise about what it is that you want it to do. You know, down to if you were blue Sky and your marketing plan had these five things and these ten outcomes, make sure that you’re putting in those precise, specific outcomes that you desire into that prompt, and then that’s what you’re going to get. So part of it too, is just having leaders and teams define exactly what they want to do with AI and not just see it as we’re just going to have it do all these things well, what are all these things? And that’s some of the things we help folks clarify.

Lee Kantor: So now what is happening before they hire you? What kind of pain or friction are they having? Uh, that is kind of the trigger to say, you know what? I gotta get a day in here.

Aday Adetosoye: Um, uh, what we’re seeing is there is a sort of, um, it’s a sort of frenzied moment, is what I would call it right now is, uh, and this FOMO, this fear of missing out because people are on LinkedIn or, um, various, um, social media platforms or even in the literature saying that, you know, uh, entity, a adopted AI and their output was so much greater. And so what we want to do that too, without really thinking through how you’re going to bring it in on an enterprise level and how you’re going to stagger it, um, onto and into your current human potential that you have. And so there’s this, you know, a CIO goes out there and gets, you know, um, a system and just brings it and says, now we’re going to be using AI. There’s no real strategy, there’s no policy, there’s no thought through, um, how this actually integrates with the human beings that are there and how the leaders are using it ethically, what the governance frameworks frameworks look like. It’s just sort of like the in the moment. Well, all we have to do is just get, you know, paid or pro ChatGPT or paid or pro, um, Microsoft Copilot or whatever tool it is that folks think they need and they just get and these are the ones I hear of the most is the ChatGPT and and, uh, here, Claude now a lot.

Aday Adetosoye: Oh, we’re just going to bring that in at the enterprise level, and we’re just going to tell everyone to use it. Well, no, you have to think through what again, as you mentioned earlier, Lee, what is your strategy and what is it that you want to achieve and how does it blend in with people? So by the time they’re calling me, they’ve already tried something. Um, AI related. And it has created more chaos than, uh, how it was before they brought AI into it. And so they call me in and say, well, we got the AI and it’s not working. Our staff are deflated and they’re feeling like we want to replace them. So we need your help and just, you know, strategizing and building out what our policy looks like, what the implementation plan looks like, and what success looks like down the road.

Lee Kantor: But, I mean, that makes perfect sense that that would occur like that, because AI isn’t that kind of a tool. Like if you put AI in the hands of ten people, those ten people are going to all use it differently, like some people are going to go crazy and think, this is the best thing that ever happened. Another person’s going to hate it and say, what is this doing? You know, it’s a robot revolution. Like, um, get it out of here. I mean, people some people will be threatened, some people will be thrilled. I mean, you yeah. It’s not something I think that you can just deploy just that casually.

Aday Adetosoye: Correct. Correct. But that’s what’s been happening. So people have been leaders have been feeling under pressure. And effective leadership is not about moving quickly or moving faster than the next. It’s about staying stable and staying steady. Right. So when you are stable in your decision making, it means that you are able to pause. You’re able to assess the risk, assess the outcomes you’re looking for, and act with clarity, even when everything feels urgent, you know. And teams at the end of the day mirror their leadership. And that’s why we say leadership matters. So when leaders are reactive, we see the situation we’re talking about where organizations become volatile. Like you just said, ten people will react ten different ways. That’s why that policy is important. The change management, the open communication, why we’re going this route, what we expect to happen, channels of communication. If you run into any issues, here’s what the organization is going to do about it. So that calm is important because that’s what increases trust and that’s what improves execution.

Lee Kantor: And if you do it, if you deploy it that casually, I would imagine if there’s any cracks in your culture, this thing just explodes it.

Aday Adetosoye: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And I say that’s why I say that, you know, there’s a saying that culture eats strategy. And I say strategy eats culture because the culture will not fail on its own. Strategy overwhelms it. And especially when a strategy is not executed properly, it’s one thing to have a strategy and it’s another thing to execute it. So when the strategy applies, pressure on your culture is when you know whether your cultural culture will stand or not. And what we’re seeing is this strategy around AI and just adopting it willy nilly, or adopting it out of FOMO. Um, you know, it is definitely putting a strain on whatever organizational culture was there to begin with, if it was. We’re seeing a lot of strain on that.

Lee Kantor: So do you have any advice for folks out there that are struggling in this area? And they’d like to have some cogent AI strategy? Is there kind of a minimum viable product when it comes to AI strategy? Like what are some of the basics dos and don’ts when it comes to deploying AI?

Aday Adetosoye: Some of the things we’ve been talking about, it’s really important to understand where your organization is. What are the pain points that you believe AI is going to help you solve? How do how does the introduction of AI blend with your human, um, potential and and resource that you have? And those are the questions that leaders really need to think about. You’ve got to think about the leadership part before you think about the technology, because it’s just a tool, and it’s what matters most is what is it that you want this tool to do for you? And it’s not just bring it in because it’s available. Um, but bring it in because there’s a pain point you have and it’s going to help you. Um, and maybe you haven’t identified that pain point yet. So that’s where you look inwards at your strategy and whatever risks you have that you think, you know, the adoption of AI can mitigate. Um, so that’s that’s sort of on the leadership side. On the technology side, again, it’s tied to the pain point, right? Each of these tools is better at different things. So you also don’t want to just introduce a suite of AI tools. I was recently working with a client who had many tools all at the same time, and they were misusing them unintentionally, but just because the tools were there and they weren’t leveraging the power that tool A had over tool B, because they just they were so interested in bringing so many tools in. So again, it boils down to what are those pain points And which tool out there can help you solve the pain that you have, the problem that you have, and then you bring that in. And again, the change management, because a lot of employees today are freaking out about AI replacing them. So you’ve got to you’ve got to hold your team because that’s your most precious resource. That’ll hold your team through it and solicit as much input from them as you as you go this route. That’s what I would say there.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there a story you can share about one of your clients? How don’t name the name of the client, but maybe share the challenge they came to you with and how you were able to help them get through it and get to a new level?

Aday Adetosoye: Yes, absolutely. Several. But I would say one of the the more recent ones, um, is one who came there. Um, I would say about five years into they’ve got about a little over 50 employees and um, what they are social impact organization. They work with homelessness and, um, and people who are not housed across the country. Um, and one of the things that they wanted to do, uh, when they approached me was, well, we don’t want to have any more, um, administrative staff. So we’ve run into some hard times. We’ve lost contracts that we had with the government, and so we’re going to eliminate our administrative team. And, um, we brought in these tools. And what we’re finding now is we’re not able to do anything because there’s now chaos in the organization, our administrative staff, who who are still here when we brought in the tools, didn’t quite know how to react. Uh, we were being quote unquote transparent by telling them that we wanted to bring in these tools to ease them out and have the tools take over. So we wanted them to write out all the stops of the things that they were working on so that these tools would take over and we would just have like one person, uh, do what the team of five were doing. Um, using the AI tools. And what ended up happening was their team, um, remained, but they weren’t really working. They showed up. They were disenfranchized, uh, the person who was supposed to help them utilize the tools and sort of guide the process resigned, um, because the other ones felt that, um, she had turned against them and was working with the management to get rid of them.

Aday Adetosoye: And there was just general chaos, so work was not happening. The people who made the decision to bring in the tools were not the everyday users and didn’t quite know how to use the tools. And so that’s it was at that point that they came to me to say, we now have not only, um, a crisis where we’ve spent all this money to bring in the tools. It’s not being used. We also have the HR crisis. Our team is showing up, but they’re not motivated to work. We have used pips, uh, all kinds of things, to try to get them back on track, but they’re just. We believe they’re all looking for work, and the person who’s supposed to do all the work has resigned. So help. So what we did, we had a half day session, and we brought in all the the leaders who had made this decision to just talk through why, what what made you feel this was the route to go. And again, it boiled down to we heard of some organization that did it and it was working well for them. They cut XYZ costs of benefits and salaries. And so we felt after we lost the contract, it was important for us to also cut costs and use technology as best as we could. We were coming from an altruistic place, but our delivery looks like it landed wrong and our staff is mad at us. And even others who aren’t necessarily affected are also feeling like, could they just do this to us? And after I heard what they had to say.

Aday Adetosoye: I also talked to the middle level managers and the junior level folks, and that was pretty much the case. Um, so one thing that I gave to that leadership team was that they were able to keep a finger on the pulse of what was going on. Um, because when I spoke with the others, they pretty much verified that that was what was happening. In a nutshell, what I did for them was to bring back, bring everybody back to reality. Number one, you don’t tell your team that we’re going to replace you with this tool and say that you’re being transparent. What you do need to say is that we have lost funding, and we’re looking for ways to, um, cut our costs. And we’d like for you to help us with that. But we’re not going to let you go, per se. I mean, one of the things that you could do is reduce time, but not just, you know, declare that you’re letting them go. So we talked about now what is it that is really going to be replaced? Can you replace everything that person A was doing. Can you really do that. And found out that no, you can’t replace everything, so you’re going to need the human piece to guide the AI to what you need it to do. Uh, as much as we have these Agentic AIS and everything else, you know, build an entire system that doesn’t really work at the enterprise level of a social impact organization, because all of the social impact is about humanity and ethics and governance, and not so much just automated decisions.

Aday Adetosoye: So we got to the happy place. We’re still working through it, but we’ve gotten to a happy place where, you know, there is a recognition that humans are needed for this type of work and that you leverage all of the power that AI does to speed up things, speed up your reports, speed up the clarity, speed up the data. And as we all know, and I’m sure Lee, you know this too, that AI hallucinates and lies sometimes. So you have to check everything. And so you can’t just put the data in and believe everything that comes out. You’ve got to Fact, check it and make sure that it’s clear. And then also put in the right information. So where we are now is that we we are solving a few things at the same time. One, the strategic use of AI, which we’re now starting to see, you know, much better reports coming out. We’re starting to see much more confidence in using it from top to bottom. Um, how to strategically, strategically place it within humans and the technology itself to get the results that you need. And then finally, we’re also seeing that the leadership team is recognizing the value of their human resources and not to just get rid of them. So we’re we’re not quite there yet, but we are definitely, um, miles away from where we started, from the chaos of the org culture that I walked into.

Lee Kantor: So who is that ideal client for you, or is it mostly nonprofits or do you work with? Are you industry agnostic?

Aday Adetosoye: I’m industry agnostic, but I. I lean toward social impact nonprofit organizations just because of my background in global health. But I, I, um, at the end of the day, you know, the the the intersections are are very similar. You know, bringing in a new technology. It’s it’s still very similar.

Lee Kantor: Now, is it organizations of a certain size, number of employees, uh, amount of sales each year. Like, which when you hone in on that ideal, um, client.

Aday Adetosoye: Oh, I see what you’re saying. Yeah. My ideal client, I would say, is somewhere between, uh, 50 to 150 employees. Um, revenue is somewhere around, um, somewhere between, I would say 5 to $30 million per year. Um, distributed, um, operations. So either, um, across the country, across a region, or even internationally, um, but has, you know, staff in different offices and needs to, you know, usually has this pain point of how does everybody use the same tool to get fluency in the technology and in their operations?

Lee Kantor: So before we wrap, can you share a little bit about your Leadership Reset framework?

Aday Adetosoye: Oh yeah sure. So that I’ll I’ll quickly say I think we’ve got about four minutes here. Um, it’s got three parts. And the first is recognition. So that identifying, you know what the pain points are leaders. You have to be able to name where your strain and your misalignment are entering your system. You can’t fix what you’re not willing to see is what I say. So recognition of your problem. Second is regulation. The missing link in most leadership models is that, you know, leaders need capacity to stay steady under pressure. I worked in a very high pressure, 25 years in global health, working in infectious diseases around the world. It’s a lot of pressure and you’ve got to be able to stay steady. So you’re not making reactive decisions in high stakes moments. So I’ve worked with leaders across 40 countries, and I’ve seen the same pattern everywhere. When regulation breaks down, organizations pay for it. So second is regulation and the third one is reconstruction. So once you’ve identified your problem, you’re able to stay steady under the pressure of the problem. The next thing is how do you build. How do you rebuild to get beyond the problem. And this is where leaders redesign their boundaries, their authority, their purpose. So that performance becomes not a seasonal thing, but a sustainable, um, expected outcome. And it’s not about doing more. It’s about rebuilding leadership architecture that can hold the complexities that we’re facing today. So I say that regulation is a missing link, and most leadership models skip it entirely. So for for me, it’s, you know, the three things. It’s recognition, regulation and reconstruction. And understanding where you are in the regulation piece is the most critical.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what’s the website? What’s the best way to connect?

Aday Adetosoye: The best way to connect is a day. A day at 1099 Street.com. Our website is WW 1099 Street.com. And we have a contact form on there. Or you can just email me directly. Either way is fine. You can also follow us on LinkedIn. We’re there at 1099 Street and on Facebook and Instagram.

Lee Kantor: And it’s the numbers 1099 impact Street.com.

Aday Adetosoye: That is correct. Lee. You got it.

Lee Kantor: All right today. Thank you so much for sharing your story. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Aday Adetosoye: Thank you. Your questions are great.

Lee Kantor: All right. This Lee Kantor we’ll see you all next time on High Velocity Radio.