341: Leadership in the AI Era: What Leaders Still Miss with Steve Cadigan
5/6/202646 min
In this Workday Playdate, Erin tackles leadership in the age of AI with talent expert, Steve Cadigan.
If you’ve ever wondered, “Will AI replace leaders?” or felt the pressure to have all the answers in a rapidly changing workplace, this episode is your reality check.
About the Guest:
Steve Cadigan is a globally recognized talent strategist, keynote speaker, and former Chief HR Officer at LinkedIn. He’s known for helping organizations rethink leadership, talent, and the future of work in a world defined by constant change. Steve brings decades of experience advising leaders on how to build cultures rooted in trust, agility, and continuous learning.
Inside This Episode:
- AI Won’t Replace Great Leaders, It Will Expose Weak Ones: Why human skills like trust, empathy, and adaptability are becoming the ultimate competitive advantage.
- Ditch the Control Model: Outdated command-and-control leadership is slowing teams down; today’s best leaders prioritize autonomy and ownership.
- Trust Is the New Currency: Letting go of control is required to unlock innovation, speed, and engagement.
- Growth > Loyalty: Employees are looking for lifelong learning. Leaders who invest in development win.
- Agility Is Everything: What companies like Tesla teach us about rapid iteration, continuous improvement, and staying relevant in constant change.
What to Do Now:
- Challenge One Leadership Belief: Identify one assumption you have about control, productivity, or trust and question if it still works in today’s environment.
- Practice Trust in Real Time: Fully delegate one task this week. Provide clear ownership and space for the other person to deliver.
- Have a Growth Conversation: Ask one team member what skill they want to build next and how you can support it.
Your Freebie
What’s your leadership style and next business move? Find out by taking a fun little quiz here.
And thank you to our sponsors Intuit Quickbooks Payroll.
To learn more visit: https://quickbooks.intuit.com/workforce/
Connect with Steve Cadigan
Connect with Erin Diehl x improve it!
- Leadership Playground online membership community
- Erin’s website
- Erin’s Instagram
- Erin’s TikTok
- Erin’s LinkedIn
- improve it!’s website
- improve it!’s Instagram
For more information on improve it! visit www.learntoimproveit.com.
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsErin Diehl· Host0:01
Quick question. Are you a people leader, or have you been recently promoted to head of payroll, IT, compliance, and FBI-level timesheet investigator? Because same. Nothing like spending your afternoon tracking down one missing time entry like, "Hey. I'm just circling back again, for the third time." And meanwhile, you're like, "I would love to lead my team today." That is exactly why I use Intuit QuickBooks Payroll. It keeps payroll, time tracking, team management, and accounting all in one place, so I'm not hopping between systems or playing detective every day. It just works. And now they have leveled up with QuickBooks Workforce. This goes way beyond payroll. It connects HR, time, benefits, basically your entire team life cycle in one system. So you can automate the busywork, stay ahead of compliance, track onboarding and performance, and spend less time fixing problems and more time actually leading humans. Imagine that. And bonus, it grows with you, so your systems don't get messier as your team gets bigger. So if you're ready to retire from your side hustle as a workplace detective, make the switch to QuickBooks Workforce today. Learn more at quickbooks.com/workforce. That's quickbooks.com/workforce. Quick gut check. AI is moving