These Times Call for Jazz!

For years, the dominant metaphor for leadership has been the conductor of an orchestra: one person setting the tempo, cueing the sections, and integrating the performance through centralized control. That image made sense in an era when information was unevenly distributed, coordination was expensive, and hierarchy was the primary way to move insight through an organization. 

But AI has changed the economics of information. Context can now be gathered, analyzed, and routed in seconds. The challenge is no longer how to push insight down the chain of command; it is how to create the conditions for people to listen, adapt, and create together in real time. 

Perhaps it was a sign of an idea whose time has come: After independently attending the Montreux Jazz Festival, without realizing the other had been there, we found ourselves with the same impression: These times call for jazz in leadership.

Jack Dorsey and Roelof Botha’s essay From Hierarchy to Intelligence argues that corporate hierarchies were built, in large part, to solve a human information-processing problem. Managers aggregated context, routed decisions, coordinated dependencies, and translated strategy into execution. In that model, the organization operates like an orchestra: a fixed score, precise execution, central coordination, and predictable outcomes. 

They go on to suggest that AI changes that premise: as intelligent AI agents increasingly handle information gathering, analysis, and coordination, organizations can become flatter, faster, and less bureaucratic. But the interesting point here is not just about efficiency and the potential reduction of organizational layers. It’s that AI raises the bar for what only humans can do. 

That is where the jazz metaphor comes in: Jazz is not leaderless nor is it chaos. But certainly, it is not about one omniscient conductor anymore. It is about a group of exceptional players who know the score well enough to leave it, who can improvise together, and who can stay attuned to the subtle moves of the ensemble and take turns in who is leading in the moment. In our view, that is a great picture of what the work of leadership in an AI-native world needs to become.

The growing reach of AI means leaders must create value in very different places and ways. If AI can surface context, identify patterns, draft options, and coordinate routine work, then leaders are freed to focus much more intently on the decisively human work that cannot be automated: shaping culture, building deep trust, refining judgment, attracting and stretching exceptional people, and defining the governance and standards that enable real autonomy. 

AI thereby raises the bar on distinctly human work. It is no longer enough for leaders to understand an organization’s purpose intellectually; they have to be able to inhabit it, to feel it in their bones, and to align it with their own identity. As AI democratizes intelligence, access to information stops being a differentiator. Judgment, character, values, creativity, courage, and how and when to play become the differentiators. AI forces us to be better humans, not better machines. In other words: we need to be who we are beyond what we need to do in our respective roles as leaders. 

Great jazz depends on musicians who know their own voice, who can listen exquisitely to everyone else’s, and who can meet the moment together. AI makes this human capability more valuable, not less. That is why AI must not become a crutch. It can provide the key and time signature—the structural backbone that helps people move together and do so seemingly effortlessly. But the music comes alive and touches us through interpretation: the conscious choices people make in the moment, the silence and space they leave for each other, and the courage to deviate from the expected line when the situation calls for it. 

Leadership, like great jazz, is the art of mastery in motion: being fully present, embodied in the here and now, able to sense the room, feel the energy of the ensemble, and respond with precision, grace, and surprise. And leaders themselves show up differently in this metaphor: The leader doesn’t agonize over conducting every note and how it is supposed to be played. They create the conditions for talented people to play with confidence, discipline, and freedom. The work becomes more human, focusing on clarifying purpose, setting standards, building trust, and knowing when to step forward—or step back. 

True mastery in this picture is not rigid perfection; it is disciplined freedom. It is what emerges when craft, awareness, and courage are integrated over time—when the leader has done the inner work to stay grounded under pressure, to hold complexity without collapsing into control, and to invite others into bolder, more creative moves.  

Yet, no performance is complete without the audience (context). Therefore, for leadership it is important to understand what you are trying to achieve and with whom (impact). The application will look different in a small and very agile scale-up versus changing a large industrial company. In organizations where AI matters more – and we would argue that this will be true for all organizations – the leaders who matter most are those who can stand in the swirl of data, stay rooted in purpose, and improvise beautifully—again and again—in real time. 

The future does not need leaderless organizations. It does not need conductors directing every note either. It needs leaders – individually and collectively (a band of leaders) – who can create the environment where exceptional people collaborate deeply, support each other, and improvise together. Perhaps that is what leadership in these times needs to entail: not the perfect orchestra, but a truly great jazz ensemble that is structured enough to stay together, free enough to discover something new, and human enough to make the performance memorable.