I’ve been overwhelmed by the amount of leadership books, articles, and podcasts on how to lead in the AI era.
And they all seem to be saying the same thing: AI increases the value of distinctly human leadership. McKinsey argued that AI “can write, design, code, and complete tasks at breakneck speed….but it still can’t do the hard work of leadership itself.” Harvard Business Review says that heavy use of AI is undermining the original judgment leaders need. The World Economic Forum says that the real value of the future is in identifying problems, done most uniquely by humans.
I am overall pleased to see this emerging consistent thesis. But I keep feeling like we’re missing something substantial.
I’ve had the immense privilege over the last ten years of learning from world-class leaders while helping build FaithTech into a global community of hundreds of leaders. The ones I keep coming back to for advice are rarely just impressive. Yes, they are deeply human. They listen well. They care about people. They know how to be present.
But the best of them seem to be operating from something deeper than human skill alone.
Their leadership is shaped by dependence on God, conviction, discernment, restraint, and wisdom. In other words, I keep noticing something deeper than human leadership. What I see in them is godly leadership. So here is my conviction:
This AI age needs more than human leadership. It needs godly leadership.
That could sound like a loaded statement, so let me explain what I mean.
I do agree that being more human is essential and so important (prioritize being in-person, have compassion/empathy, etc). Yet, truly transformational leaders have something else about them. The leaders who most compel me are not simply charismatic, strategic, or gifted. There is often a depth beneath their leadership – a spiritual weight, a clarity, a steadiness, a way of being before God – that is hard to quantify but easy to recognize.
Godliness is a life ordered toward God. Think of the fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control from Galatians 5:22–23). Or the eldership qualifications (above reproach, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, gentle, not quarrelsome, not greedy, faithful, disciplined, loving what is good, upright, and holy from 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1). Or lastly, 2 Peter 1:5–7 lays out a compelling vision for godliness: “Make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.”
In this AI moment in particular, I feel like AI itself exerts a formation pressure on us. AI tends to push us towards something. A way of doing things. Now, that way can be useful I believe (asking better questions, improving efficiencies). But Godly leadership resists these formative pressures by operating from a different posture.
Therefore, here are five traits I believe are uniquely helpful right now:
AI tends to push us towards control. It gives us this odd feeling that with enough information, analysis or knowledge, we can manage the uncertainty we are living in. As if we can engineer the right outcomes.
But Godly Leaders practice a rich and deep dependence on God. I’ve been learning to pray before I prompt. My friend Cameron Doolittle helped write a great book titled Lead with Prayer. It is a fundamental trust in the Lord and belief that apart from Jesus we can do nothing. Jesus himself would withdraw to pray and constantly talked about doing the will of Him who sent him. It is a deep well of trust in God above all.
AI tends to push us toward what is probable. AI is incredible at recognizing patterns and generating likely outputs but it can subtly train us to trust what is most plausible rather than to trust what may be most faithful or countercultural.
Godly leaders are willing to act on faithful conviction. It comes from a deep conviction from the Lord. Jesus repeatedly acted in ways that confounded conventional expectations. He touched people others avoided, withdrew when crowds wanted more, and rejected shortcuts to power. It reminds me 2 Timothy 1:7 “God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.” I remind our staff team often that the most important thing we can do in leading FaithTech is having faithful obedience to the Lord. The fruit of that is always the right fruit.
AI tends to push us towards speed. An important gap used to exist between a question and an answer. That gap allowed for our minds to be open to new possibilities. AI is eliminating that gap and immediacy now feels normal and patience feels inefficient.
But Godly Leaders are slow and thoughtful. That doesn’t mean they don’t want to see meaningful impact at scale. It's just that they do not succumb to the illusion that speed equals success. AI collapses the distance between question and answer. Wisdom often requires restoring some distance. It reminds me of the time Paul prayed that believers would grow in “knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent.” (Philippians 1:9–10). Great leaders pursue excellence. They build a culture of excellence. But it comes from patient discernment, making many small great decisions over a period of time that leads to greatest impact.
AI tends to push us towards more. It is so easy to draft a strategy, create ideas, and make things. The intoxication of this AI moment is rooted in the unlimited possibilities and potential. Yet this increased capacity can quietly become an increased hunger for productivity, doing, and carrying more. It’s one of the reasons I feel the utopian vision of a nearly workless future underestimates our seemingly limitless human appetite for more.
Godly Leaders, however, know what they are called to and, equally importantly, what they are not called to. They say no. Just because AI enables me to do more does not mean God has called me to do more. The best leaders I know constantly ask me, “what are you saying no to right now?” It is the self-control we see in Galatians 5 and 1 Timothy 3. Key things like sleep, sabbath, rest. And the best leaders I know have learned how they truly rest and double down on doing that in the right rhythms.
AI tends to push us towards answers. It can respond to anything and anytime. We are slowly being trained to move too quickly out of uncertainty to conclusions, rather than sitting in ambiguity long enough to understand what is really going on.
Godly Leaders are non-stop asking thoughtful and timely questions. They want to know more. They are quick to listen and slow to assume they understand. They also resist the urge to demonstrate how quickly they understand. They keep listening long enough to discover what they do not yet understand. It reminds me of James 1:19 “quick to hear, slow to speak.” Godly leaders are slow to assume and quick to understand.
None of this means leaders should resist AI. I use it constantly. It can make us better informed, more productive, and more capable. The danger is not using AI; the danger is allowing the logic of the tool to become the logic of our leadership. AI may shape what we can do as leaders. But Jesus must still shape who we become as leaders. Godly leaders.