Most executive teams do not need to be convinced that AI is changing the rules of the game. They already feel the urgency. Yet, surprisingly little happens. The problem is rarely a lack of insight — it is a lack of authority and agency.
It is easy to assume that organizations that move slowly on AI simply fail to grasp its importance. Carl Heath’s experience suggests the opposite.
– Most leadership teams today clearly understand that AI is transforming how value is created, how work is organized, and how competition plays out. Urgency is present, often in abundance. What is missing is something else: the ability to translate that urgency into action.
The three vital components for success
The issue is rarely disinterest, but rather a lack of authority. By authority, Carl Heath means the combination of judgment, decisiveness, and mandate required to move forward. Many organizations lack one or more of these components. Often all three.
– A clear signal is the gap between policy and practice. In most organizations, AI is already being used in day‑to‑day work, but in ways leadership neither sees nor governs. Employees bring in their own tools, experiment, write, and analyze, often without support, without shared learning, and sometimes in direct conflict with formal guidelines. This is shadow IT in new packaging. Not because people are disloyal, but because the organization has failed to provide a legitimate framework for action.
Mapping what is already happening is therefore often the most effective first step. Not to control but to make the issue concrete. In executive rooms, AI easily becomes abstract; in people’s workflows, it is already very real.
The next key is direction. Not in the form of a 40‑page AI strategy, but a small set of principles that people can understand and act upon. Direction means clarifying what is permitted, what is encouraged, and where the boundaries lie, not specifying every possible use case.
Start without answers
Finally, organizations must have the courage to start without having all the answers. Those waiting for perfect decision material will wait a long time. AI evolves at a pace that makes learning through action the only sustainable strategy.
– Urgency without direction creates frustration. Direction without urgency creates documents. Only when both are combined does real authority emerge and that is where meaningful movement becomes possible, concludes Carl Heath.
Three questions for the executive team:
- Where are our employees already using AI in practice — and what are we not seeing?
- Have we articulated principles that people can actually act on?
- Are we waiting for more input — or avoiding a decision?
Carl Heath is a senior researcher at RISE and a doctoral researcher at the University of Gothenburg, focusing on leadership, AI and digital resilience. His work explores how organisations can navigate technological change while strengthening human judgement, trust and agency. He approaches AI not as a technical issue, but as a leadership and organisational challenge rooted in learning and everyday practice.