Harvard Business Review: The C-Suite Behaviors That Stall AI Transformations
Updated: 13 minutes ago
Illustration by Eliot Wyatt
AI transformations rarely stall exclusively because of the technology. More often, these big transformations hit road blocks because of executive behavior. That’s the focus of my latest Harvard Business Review article, The C-Suite Behaviors That Stall AI Transformations.
In my work with executive teams, I’m seeing a consistent pattern: AI cuts across every function, but many leaders are still relying on habits that were built for a more siloed operating model. What worked before can quickly become a liability when decisions around technology, talent, risk, operations, and strategy all need to be made together.
In particular, two behaviors repeatedly get in the way:
The Ownership Instinct: “My idea, my project.”
The Expertise Default: “This isn’t my job.”
One shows up when leaders become territorial about AI initiatives, make key decisions too narrowly, or bring peers in too late. The other shows up when leaders disengage because the issue feels too technical, too unfamiliar, or outside their lane. Different behavior, same result: stalled progress, unnecessary friction, and missed opportunity. For a one-page summary of both behaviors and the five practices that counter them, download the Shared Authority Framework (PDF).
If you want to know how to help your executive team move from turf protection and disengagement to stronger cross-functional decision-making, I expand on all this in the full HBR article. I share practical ways CEOs and senior teams can create the conditions for shared authority around AI—before conflict, delay, and rework start to undermine progress.
In the article, I also explore how leaders can better frame AI decisions at the outset, strengthen the relationships this work depends on, and reduce the kind of executive friction that slows implementation even when the strategy itself is sound.
This theme connects closely to my broader work on executive team dynamics and my broader work on executive team dynamics and leadership transitions. The technology may be evolving quickly, but the core challenge is often deeply human: how leaders share power, engage across boundaries, and make better decisions together.
