Leaders Embracing AI Competencies
If you are considering using these competencies as part of a selection or development system, we recommend conducting a job analysis together to verify that they are relevant for your specific role and organizational context!
Date: 14. November 2025
Categories: AI, selection, Leadership, Personality
As one of the driving forces of the fourth industrial evolution, artificial intelligence (AI) has become the face of digital transformation. As the scope of what AI can do continues to grow, leadership needs to adapt and evolve with it to take advantage of what it offers and guard against its shortcomings (Frangos, 2022). As a leader, embracing AI starts with a fundamental understanding of data and machine learning principles (Singh, 2023). It requires not only a strategic approach, aligning AI with company goals and values (Burkhardt et al., 2016), but also an interpersonal one, creating a supportive and empathetic environment to engage employees in the change process (Vivek et. Al., 2024). When leaders champion AI, it is important that they do so with integrity, recognizing the ethical implications of use and misuse. Adopting AI can equip leaders to become agile, swiftly aligning new strategies with the evolving landscape of technology (Sriharan et al.,2024).
As innovations in the AI sphere develop more rapidly, leaders should embrace AI to maintain a competitive edge in the market. Because of this, Hogan has identified competencies organizations may use to assess a leader’s competence for embracing AI and spearheading its adoption throughout their organization. Hogan competencies relevant to leaders embracing AI were identified using a six-stage process.
- Two Hogan researchers read through scholarly articles on competency models related to AI adoption. These articles were selected for their discussion of personality and competencies related to leaders promoting AI within an organization, using a keyword search of terms like “embracing AI” or “AI leadership”. The articles may be found in the reference section.
- Each researcher identified competencies related to leaders embracing AI within their assigned articles.
- The researchers grouped these competencies based on similarity and wrote new summarized competency definitions.
- Three researchers aligned these competency definitions to competencies from the Hogan Competency Library (Hogan Assessment Systems, 2016).
- Where disagreement existed, the researchers met to identify a final set of Hogan competencies.
- The lead researcher ensured the final Hogan competencies aligned to those competencies taken from the scholarly articles by comparing the Hogan competencies to the earlier list of competencies related to leaders embracing AI.
We note that this process helps identify competencies associated with leaders who embrace AI, but it does not determine whether these competencies predict workplace outcomes in every organization. If you are considering using these competencies as part of a selection or development system, we recommend conducting a job analysis together to verify that they are relevant for the specific role and organizational context.
Based on Hogan’s review, 24 competencies have been linked to leaders successfully adopting and leveraging AI. These competencies provide a framework to guide talent decisions, helping you select, develop, and support leaders who can thrive in an AI-driven workplace.
Interested to learn more? Let’s talk!
This study was done by Hogan Assessments System.
