AI, Anxiety and Authority

What Leaders Are Being Asked to Hold

AI is not just changing what organisations do. It is changing how they function — who holds authority, how value is determined, what people's roles mean, and how leadership itself is understood. These shifts are felt before they can be named. And leaders are being asked to hold them, often without the language or the frameworks to do so.

This book introduces a Three-Lens Framework — technical, human and organisational — that helps leaders and their teams see the full weight of what AI adoption is asking of them. Drawing on twenty years of organisation development consulting and the systems psychodynamic tradition, it offers a way of looking at AI not as a technology to be deployed, but as a force reshaping how organisations function.

• Senior leaders navigating AI adoption in their organisations.
• HR and OD professionals supporting large-scale change.
• Change practitioners working at the intersection of technology and people.
• Anyone trying to make sense of what AI is doing beneath the surface.