This article draws on insights shared during a recent private LRN roundtable where Chief Human Resources Officers and senior HR leaders discussed culture, leadership, trust, and the changing role of AI in the workplace.
Technology may be changing how work gets done, but leadership is still what shapes culture.
The conversation kicked off with the participants sharing their largest workplace challenge. AI quickly emerged as the catalyst for discussion. But something interesting happened.
The conversation was not really about technology.
It was about people.
Participants explored AI governance, workforce transformation, generational differences, leadership accountability, and organizational trust. Across these topics, one idea surfaced repeatedly:
Technology may be changing how work gets done, but leadership is still what shapes culture.
Leadership behaviors shape culture more than policies
The discussion reinforced the importance of tone at the top. Employees do not experience culture primarily through corporate statements. They experience it through the decisions leaders make, the behaviors they reward, and the conduct they are willing to tolerate.
Policies and codes of conduct matter, but they only become meaningful when leaders consistently model the values behind them.
LRN’s research supports that connection. The 2024 Benchmark of Ethical Culture found that ethical culture explained 69% of the variation in business performance. Organizations with strong ethical cultures also significantly outperformed those with weak cultures across adaptability, innovation, employee loyalty, customer satisfaction, and business results.
Culture is not simply a people initiative. It is an important driver of organizational performance and resilience.
AI is raising the value of human intelligence
One of the most memorable moments came when a participant recalled a question from a senior leader:
“You’re doing all this AI training. Are you doing HI training?”
“HI”, or human intelligence, is not a widely established corporate framework. During the discussion, it became a useful way to describe the distinctly human capabilities that become more valuable as AI becomes more capable.
These include critical thinking, ethical judgment, curiosity, empathy, communication, collaboration, and the ability to navigate ambiguity.
One participant offered a compelling way to think about the shift. Historically, professionals might spend 90% of their time researching and executing and 10% applying judgment. With AI, that equation could reverse: technology handles more of the execution, allowing people to devote more time to evaluating the output and deciding what to do with it.
LRN’s 2026 Ethics & Compliance Program Effectiveness Report found that 39% of organizations are already using AI within some aspect of their programs, yet fewer than half can explain how it is improving outcomes. The next challenge is not simply adoption. It is using AI in ways that strengthen human judgment rather than bypass it.
Trust will determine whether transformation succeeds
The most persistent concern around AI was not technical capability. It was trust.
Leaders described employees using public AI tools with good intentions but without understanding the risks associated with confidential information, contracts, or proprietary data. Others shared how excessive governance can slow experimentation to the point that employees seek unofficial workarounds.
Trust also depends on honesty about how work and jobs may change. Participants spoke candidly about roles that could disappear, employees who will need reskilling, and the responsibility organizations have to help people prepare for new career paths.
Psychological safety is critical in that environment. Employees need to feel able to question decisions, raise concerns, and admit when they do not understand a new tool.
Generational differences require a new leadership approach
The roundtable also highlighted how differently generations are experiencing AI.
One participant described speaking with employees about their AI proficiency and reported that professionals over 40 often considered themselves advanced users because they used AI two or three times a day. Employees in their early twenties described themselves as average users, despite using it many more times throughout the workday.
Organizations need both perspectives. Emerging talent can contribute digital fluency and experimentation, while experienced employees bring institutional context, judgment, and a deeper understanding of risk. Reverse mentoring and cross-generational learning can help organizations combine those strengths.
Values provide direction during change
As work evolves, values provide a consistent framework for deciding how new tools should be used.
LRN’s 2025 Code of Conduct Report found that 45% of organizations now substantially revise their code annually, compared with only 11% a decade ago. Employee use is also increasing, with 70% reporting that they had used their code as a practical resource.
A code should not be a static document employees acknowledge once a year. It should help people apply values to emerging questions, including responsible AI use, confidentiality, bias, human oversight, and accountability.
Agility is the new stability
As organizations redesign jobs and workflows, one comment captured the spirit of the discussion:
“Agility is the new stability.”
LRN’s research found that employees in strong ethical cultures were 2.6 times more likely to describe their organizations as adaptable than employees in weak cultures. Ethical culture may therefore be one of the strongest foundations for navigating disruption successfully.
The conversation ended with optimism. One participant suggested that while AI is often compared to another industrial revolution, it could also create the conditions for something more human:
“I kind of feel like the next step after that is a renaissance, like a human renaissance.”
The organizations that thrive will not simply be those that adopt AI fastest. They will be those that combine artificial intelligence with human intelligence, grounded in trust, shared values, agility, and leaders who consistently model the culture they hope to create.
