Inclusion sounds simple.
But doing it well takes thought, intention, and leadership.

In a recent conversation, Bernardo Ferdman unpacked what inclusion truly means in organizations—and why it’s more than just being “invited to the meeting.”

As Bernardo puts it:

“When people are included in everything—every email, every meeting—that’s a recipe for chaos.”

Inclusion isn’t about volume. It’s about value.

At Berman Leadership, we believe inclusion means creating systems, spaces, and mindsets where every individual feels:

• Safe to contribute
• Valued for their input
• Able to bring their full potential to the collective work

“It’s about building environments that are mutually beneficial—where people can really belong.”

True inclusion isn’t just a DEI initiative. It’s a leadership imperative. Because teams perform best when people feel respected, heard, and aligned—across all kinds of differences.

And while inclusion is for everyone, it’s also challenging:
It involves navigating paradoxes, adapting systems, and rethinking what belonging looks like in practice.

But when leaders embrace that complexity, the rewards are transformational.

Explore how we coach leaders to foster true inclusion:
https://bermanleadership.com/our-approach

Introduction

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is no longer a distant frontier, it is embedded in the daily operations of organizations, transforming how decisions are made, how work is performed, and how leadership is exercised. As AI technologies evolve rapidly, leaders face a new imperative: to understand not just the capabilities of AI, but its implications for people, culture, and the future of their workforce. This paper describes what we see as the most pressing leadership issues in the age of AI, drawing on contemporary insights and frameworks for organizational life.

 

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice as a Metaphor for AI Adoption

 

Unpacking the Metaphor

We are not the master of our tools. The story of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice offers a vivid lens through which to view the leadership challenges brought on by AI. In the tale, the apprentice, eager to harness magical power, sets forces in motion that rapidly spiral beyond their control. Without the wisdom and restraint of the master sorcerer, the apprentice becomes overwhelmed by the very tools meant to empower them.

For today’s leaders, this metaphor carries profound relevance. The rush to adopt AI often comes with great enthusiasm and ambition—an eagerness to solve complex problems, boost productivity, and gain a competitive edge. Yet, like the apprentice, leaders may lack the full understanding of the technology’s intricacies, its unforeseen ripple effects, and the deeper ethical considerations at stake.

• Unintended Consequences: Just as the apprentice’s enchantment leads to chaos, hasty or unexamined deployment of AI can result in disruptions to workflow, loss of institutional knowledge, or new forms of inequality. Without careful oversight, automation may replicate biases, erode trust, or undermine morale.
• Responsibility and Stewardship: The apprentice’s predicament highlights the critical need for responsible stewardship. Leaders must balance innovation with caution, setting ethical boundaries and ensuring that AI serves the organization’s values rather than dictating them.
• Continuous Learning: The sorcerer represents wisdom built on experience and reflection. Leaders in the age of AI must commit to ongoing learning—not just about technology itself, but about its impact on people, culture, and community. This means asking hard questions, anticipating unintended consequences, and being prepared to intervene when things go awry.
• Empowerment vs. Control: The apprentice sought empowerment but quickly discovered the limits of AI offers unprecedented power, but true leadership lies in knowing when to guide, when to restrain, and when to adapt. Leaders must recognize that technological mastery is inseparable from human judgment and empathy.

Ultimately, the metaphor of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice is a cautionary tale for leaders: wielding powerful new tools requires humility, wisdom, and a steadfast commitment to the well-being of those affected by their decisions. In the age of AI, the real magic lies not in unchecked ambition, but in thoughtful stewardship and ethical leadership. Although the deployment of AI is inevitable, organizations and their leaders have the agency to shape its effects on individuals and the workplace with intention.
 

Our Response – A Framework of Opportunity for AI Leadership

Our conversations with leaders about AI have led us to build a framework of opportunity for leaders to hold important conversations inside their organizations about the real impacts of AI deployment. This framework has 4 elements Capability, Care, Connection, and Community.
 

 

 

Capability

AI challenges the relevance of human expertise. Tasks once considered uniquely human—writing, designing, analyzing—can now be performed by algorithms. As AI expands, individuals may feel disconnected from their sense of professional value. Critical questions arise: What does it mean to be capable in an AI-enhanced workplace? How can the dignity of human contribution be preserved when machines outperform people in certain domains? How will we as leaders respond to the impact of a loss of human capability of those we lead?

 

Care

The integration of AI risks reducing people to plug-and-play components. When employees are viewed merely as bundles of skills to be deployed on demand, the relational fabric of organizations frays. This shift can undermine both how individuals care about their work and how organizations care for their people. How will we prevent the inevitable adoption of AI from eroding empathy, trust, and psychological safety?

 

Connection

AI lacks emotional investment in its own outcomes. Our work “is an issue for us”, it’s not for the robot. While it can generate content, solve problems, and optimize processes, its outcomes don’t matter to it. Meaning in work derives from pride, ownership, and emotional resonance. What can we do to design roles and workflows that preserve the human experience of accomplishment and purpose for those using AI?

 

Community

Status and belonging remain central to groups and therefore to organizational life. As AI flattens hierarchies and disrupts traditional markers of expertise, individuals’ sense of identity and place may be threatened. How can we as leaders foster inclusive communities where every individual feels valued, even as roles and contributions are redefined by the rise of AI?

 

Ethical Leadership in the Age of AI

Ethics is not a peripheral concern—it stands at the core of leadership in the AI era. Leaders must move beyond technical and economic considerations to embrace moral and philosophical questions. What are the human factors impacting responsible AI adoption? How can fairness, transparency, and accountability be ensured? How do we engage our workforce in new ways to support these outcomes? These are not hypothetical questions; they demand immediate and thoughtful attention.

 

Toward a Human-Centered Response

A central principle for leadership in the AI age is clear: AI may be happening to organizations, but the response remains a matter of choice and stewardship. Leaders must reclaim their role as stewards of culture, meaning, and human dignity, embracing courage, curiosity, and a commitment to asking essential questions—even when answers remain elusive.
 

Conclusion

The ultimate goal is not merely to make work easier, but to make it matter.

For leaders the starting point is clear, develop a contextual understanding of AI’s opportunities and risks, set ethical guardrails, create space for dialogue with your teams, and measure not only efficiency but also human impact. The real test of leadership in the age of AI is not how fast we adopt it, but how intentionally we shape its effects on people and culture.

Leaders must rise to this challenge, not as sorcerers, but as thoughtful guides attuned to the power of their tools and the humanity of their teams.

 

Michael Molinaro

Partner, Berman Leadership Development New York City, August 2025

In today’s fast-paced, highly competitive business landscape, the temptation is to move fast, close deals, and keep things transactional. But at Berman Leadership, we’ve found that the leaders who go further—and last longer—are those who lead with humanity.

On the Human Wise podcast, Dr. Bill Berman shares why relationships, not transactions, are the real differentiator in leadership:

“To build long-term clients, suppliers, or teams, you need deeper conversations. You need trust.”

This idea sits at the heart of human-centered leadership. It’s not about being soft. It’s about being real. It means asking questions like:

• What matters to the people I lead and serve?
• What pressures are they navigating?
• Where can I create space for honesty, trust, and growth?

In hybrid and remote work environments, these conversations don’t happen casually. They must be created—with intention. That’s where psychological safety comes in. Leaders must signal, through words and behavior, that their teams are safe to speak up, take risks, and bring their full selves to work.

This isn’t just good culture—it’s good business. When people feel heard and valued, they perform better, collaborate more, and stay longer.

At Berman Leadership, we help executives build human-centered habits that translate to commercial outcomes. Listening, curiosity, empathy, clarity—these are the skills that move teams and organizations forward.

In a world where everything feels replaceable, relationships are the true competitive edge.

Explore how we help leaders drive performance through connection:
https://bermanleadership.com/about/

At Berman Leadership, we work with executives who are navigating a new leadership reality—one where binary thinking no longer applies.

In his Human Wise podcast conversation, Dr. Bill Berman captured it perfectly:

“It’s not either the ethics of the business or the ethics of the individual. It’s both.”

This mindset—what we call both-and leadership—is essential for today’s leaders. It means holding space for opposing forces:

• Compassion and accountability
• Listening and selling
• Individual needs and enterprise performance

It’s not easy. And it’s not always clear. But it’s the kind of thinking that allows leaders to thrive in complexity.

“Most people are more comfortable choosing one side,” Bill notes. “But great leaders know how to hold the tension between both. They live in the paradox.”

At Berman Leadership, we coach executives to build this cognitive flexibility. We help leaders:

• Make decisions that are empathetic and strategic
• Communicate with honesty and diplomacy
• Prioritize their people and protect business performance

This dialectical approach is more than a mindset—it’s a leadership muscle. And like any muscle, it gets stronger with use.

In today’s high-stakes environments, both-and leaders are the ones who move organizations forward—without leaving their people behind.

Learn how we develop leaders to operate in the gray: https://bermanleadership.com/about/

For many leaders, self-awareness means recognizing patterns after the fact—reflecting on what was said, how it was received, and what could have gone differently. That’s useful. But it’s not enough.

In a recent Human Wise podcast conversation, Dr. Bill Berman described a deeper, more strategic form of self-awareness—one that moves from hindsight to foresight:

• Retrospective self-awareness: Seeing your behavior clearly—but only after the moment has passed.
• Concurrent self-awareness: Becoming aware of your impact as it’s happening.
• Anticipatory self-awareness: Knowing in advance how you’re likely to think, feel, and act—and using that awareness to choose your response strategically.

It’s this third level that distinguishes effective leaders from reactive ones.

“If I want others to feel a certain way,” Bill notes, “I need to know how I feel—and what I’m doing that elicits that feeling.”

Anticipatory self-awareness allows leaders to:

• Prepare for high-stakes conversations
• Navigate emotionally charged situations with greater clarity
• Adjust their presence based on context
• Influence outcomes without being controlled by emotion or assumption

And yes, the business impact is real. Leaders who develop this level of self-awareness tend to:

• Build stronger alignment within teams
• Communicate with intention, not reaction
• Reduce friction during change or conflict
• Inspire confidence—even in uncertainty

At Berman Leadership, we view self-awareness not as a personality trait, but as a leadership capability. One that can be strengthened with the right support, honest feedback, and ongoing reflection.

The leaders we work with aren’t just learning to understand themselves better—they’re learning how to anticipate and manage their impact in ways that serve the business.

Because when you can see what’s coming—both inside and out—you lead with greater intention, and greater effect.

Explore how we help leaders turn self-awareness into strategic foresight: https://bermanleadership.com/about/

Organizations often celebrate a “team of leaders” — a collection of high-performing executives each driving success in their respective domains. But a true leadership team is more than the sum of its parts. It’s not just about collaboration; it’s about collective accountability. And that shift—from a team of leaders to a leadership team—requires a mindset grounded in two deceptively simple questions: What is my Main Team? What is my First Team?

In Influence and Impact, I introduced these concepts to clarify the two key groups every leader serves. Your Main Team is the group you lead day-to-day—the people whose performance, development, and success you directly manage. Your First Team, by contrast, is the team your manager leads—the peers with whom you align priorities, share resources, and ultimately contribute to your manager’s success.

Why does this distinction matter?

Most executives view their Main Team as their primary allegiance. But when each leader in the C-suite prioritizes their own team over the collective goals of the organization, collaboration erodes. Resource battles flare up. Strategic misalignment takes root.

The transition to a leadership team begins when leaders recognize their First Team obligations as equal in weight to their Main Team responsibilities. In Ruth Wageman’s model of Senior Leadership Teams and in the work of Scott Tannenbaum and Eduardo Salas (Teams That Work), the leadership team is defined not just by hierarchical roles but by the shared enterprise of leading the business together.

This dual accountability—owning your team’s success while advancing your manager’s strategy—can be complex, especially in matrixed or global structures. HR leaders, for example, are often part of both a functional HR First Team and a business unit First Team. Navigating that ambiguity requires clarity about who makes decisions affecting your goals and your future.

As illustrated in Influence and Impact, Darlene, an e-commerce leader, advanced by understanding what her First Team—her manager and skip-level CEO—needed. She didn’t just manage her Main Team’s operations; she translated her insights into metrics that aligned with the CEO’s growth strategy. She wasn’t just a strong individual leader; she was a key contributor to the leadership team.

HR and I/O professionals have a vital role in supporting this shift. By helping leaders recognize and navigate their First Team obligations, you can foster more integrated, aligned, and effective leadership teams—teams that think beyond their silos and act in concert toward shared success.

In executive coaching, trust isn’t something you earn after the engagement begins—it’s something you build from the very first conversation.

On the Human Wise podcast, Dr. Bill Berman reflected on how this mindset has shaped his approach over the years:

“I’m not a salesperson. I listen to what people need—and if I can help, I will.”

That perspective isn’t a tactic. It’s a practice. At Berman Leadership, we view early conversations with potential clients as an extension of the coaching itself: grounded in curiosity, free from pressure, and focused on what matters most to the other person.

This way of engaging may feel unusual in a professional services context. But for the leaders we work with, it’s what builds credibility. They’re not looking to be convinced. They’re looking to be understood.

That’s why we ask coaching questions from the very beginning:

• What decisions are you facing right now?
• Where are you seeing friction—in the business or in yourself?
• What outcomes are most urgent or most meaningful?

These questions don’t just surface needs—they help clarify whether coaching is the right fit, and whether we’re the right partner to provide it.

There are moments in our work where we recommend another path or another provider. And that willingness to walk away is part of what builds long-term trust. Because good coaching starts with alignment—not persuasion.

We’ve found that the best relationships begin not with a pitch, but with presence. A willingness to listen. And an ability to sit with complexity, even before the engagement is formalized.

That’s how coaching begins before the contract ever does.

Learn more about how we build partnerships through trust and understanding: https://bermanleadership.com/about/

What does it mean to coach a leader in context? At Berman Leadership, this question sits at the heart of our work.

In his Human Wise podcast appearance, Dr. Bill Berman offered a phrase that captures the approach:

“Think psychologically, act commercially.”

Coaching doesn’t require a trade-off between individual growth and business results. The most effective work happens when both are addressed in tandem—when a leader’s internal experience is explored with the same care as their external performance.

This is what we refer to as Context Driven Coaching.

It begins by understanding the leader’s mindset—their goals, fears, values, and assumptions. But it doesn’t stop there. It places those insights within the broader system they lead: their team, their stakeholders, and the strategic priorities of the organization.

We regularly explore questions like:

• How are personal dynamics shaping leadership decisions?
• In what ways do internal beliefs affect external outcomes?
• How can a leader’s growth contribute to both their development and the business’s success?

Rather than separate the personal from the professional, we help leaders integrate them. Confidence in decision-making. Clarity in stakeholder conversations. A more intentional leadership presence. These outcomes don’t just serve the individual—they support the enterprise.

Bill’s background in both psychology and business reflects this integrated view. He notes that coaching is often seen as either personal or commercial. But in practice, the most effective coaching respects both:

• It’s psychologically informed
• It’s contextually grounded
• And it’s focused on impact at multiple levels

Context Driven Coaching isn’t one-size-fits-all. It’s built on a deep understanding of the leader and the business. It’s practical, reflective, and aligned with the complexity of modern leadership.

Because when leaders grow in context, the results are both personal and organizational.

Learn more about our coaching approach: https://bermanleadership.com/about/

At Berman Leadership, we don’t believe in generic coaching. The challenges leaders face today are too complex—and too deeply rooted in the systems they operate within.

In the Human Wise podcast, Dr. Bill Berman shares how his background in family systems therapy shaped his approach to executive coaching. “You can’t coach a leader in isolation,” he says. “You have to understand the system they’re part of—team, enterprise, culture—because that’s where the real leverage is.”

This systems-based perspective is a defining feature of Berman Leadership’s approach. Whether we’re coaching a CEO, a rising leader, or an entire leadership team, we consider the broader dynamics at play:

• Team interactions
• Organizational pressures
• Cultural norms
• Strategic priorities

Bill draws a powerful parallel: just as family therapy considers how each person impacts the whole, effective executive coaching must examine how individual leadership behaviors ripple through an organization.

He also challenges the default towards individualism in Western business culture. “In many parts of the world, leadership is deeply collectivist,” he notes. “That lens—thinking about the organization first—can actually drive stronger, more sustainable outcomes.”

Our work helps leaders operate with greater awareness of the systems around them. The result? Decisions that land, conversations that matter, and leadership that scales.

In complex environments, the right coaching isn’t about offering advice. It’s about navigating interdependencies with clarity, empathy, and enterprise-wide impact.

Learn how we coach leaders across systems: https://bermanleadership.com/about/

At Berman Leadership, we believe that effective leadership is as much about ethics and systems thinking as it is about performance and results. In his conversation on the Human Wise podcast, our CEO Dr. Bill Berman shared a truth many leaders face but few openly discuss: doing what’s right often means thinking beyond the individual.

“When you’re the head of a business—whether 10 people or 10,000—you can’t just focus on one individual,” Bill says. “You’re responsible for the system. And sometimes, that means the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one.”

This is where leadership becomes a true balancing act. You may care deeply about an employee’s situation, but if their performance impacts the team, the project, or the business, tough conversations must follow. Not because you’re uncaring—but because you’re accountable.

Bill’s systems-based approach to coaching is grounded in both psychology and experience. He encourages executives to look beyond individual behavior and consider team dynamics, organizational health, and long-term business outcomes.

Leadership requires the courage to be direct—and the wisdom to understand the broader consequences of your decisions. It also demands clarity around your values and a willingness to act in alignment with them, even when it’s uncomfortable.

At Berman Leadership, we help executives navigate these complex tradeoffs. Our coaching emphasizes ethical clarity, systems thinking, and leadership impact at every level of the organization.

Because leadership isn’t just about what’s right for one person—it’s about what’s right for the whole organization.

Explore our systems-based coaching approach: https://bermanleadership.com/about/

At Berman Leadership, we believe leadership isn’t just a role—it’s a responsibility to balance business performance with human understanding. In his recent appearance on the Human Wise podcast, our CEO Dr. Bill Berman explored what it means to be truly human at work—and why timing, tact, and compassion are essential for leaders.

“Being authentic doesn’t mean saying everything you think,” Bill explains. “It means saying what matters, with timing and tact.”

That insight defines one of the core principles of Berman Leadership: authenticity is powerful—but only when paired with awareness and intention. For leaders navigating complex decisions, caring is not a distraction from the bottom line—it’s a strategic advantage.

Bill reminds us that behind every role is a person with a life beyond work. And when leaders recognize that humanity—when they care enough to listen, pause, and act thoughtfully—they build stronger, more resilient teams.

But authenticity alone isn’t enough. Leaders must also consider the needs of the collective. That means having difficult conversations when needed and prioritizing the health of the organization as a whole—even when individual decisions are hard.

As Bill puts it, “You’re responsible for the whole business. Sometimes you have to focus on the needs of the many, not just the one.”

It’s this dual lens—of compassion and commercial clarity—that defines effective leadership today. Human-centered leadership isn’t soft; it’s strategic. And it starts with self-awareness.

At Berman Leadership, we help senior leaders build this balance—leading with courage, clarity, and care.

Read more on our coaching approach: https://bermanleadership.com/about/

Belonging Is Not a Buzzword—It’s a Mindset Shift

The term belonging has gained traction across workplaces in recent years, often positioned as the “B” in DEIB. At first glance, belonging feels warm and inclusive—a counterbalance to the complexity and tension that DEI conversations sometimes carry.

But belonging is more than a feel-good concept. Done right, it fundamentally shifts the lens from groups to individuals.

Where traditional diversity efforts might ask, “Do we have enough representation from X group?”, belonging asks, “Does each person feel seen, heard, and valued here?”

This distinction matters. Because while group-based representation is measurable, it doesn’t guarantee the daily experience of inclusion. People may be “at the table,” but still feel invisible or isolated. Belonging addresses that gap.

 

The Risk of Dilution—and the Need for Nuance

Of course, there’s a reason many DEI professionals are wary of this shift. Belonging, they argue, can be co-opted as a softer, less political alternative to hard conversations about power, history, and systemic barriers. When belonging is treated as a way to make everyone feel good, it risks glossing over the very real struggles that marginalized groups continue to face.

They’re not wrong.

For Chief HR Officers, this presents a nuanced leadership challenge: How do we embrace belonging as a universal human need without erasing the specific, often painful realities of people who have been excluded?

The answer lies in the both/and.

We must hold space for the individual and the systemic. We must build cultures where everyone feels they belong—and acknowledge that some people have to fight harder to get there. Belonging isn’t a replacement for diversity; it’s the outcome we reach when inclusion is real, when safety is felt, and when opportunity is accessible to all.

 

Moving Beyond the Affinity Group Model

Many organizations have leaned heavily on affinity groups (also known as employee resource groups or ERGs) as their primary DEI structure. These groups have provided valuable space for connection, identity, and advocacy. They have offered support and voice where it was previously missing.

But they are not, by themselves, a DEI strategy.

Affinity groups can also reinforce silos, foster a sense of “us vs. them,” or limit interaction across lines of difference. And they can unintentionally convey that responsibility for inclusion rests with the marginalized—rather than with leadership.

That’s why we’re seeing a shift toward more integrated approaches—ones that make inclusion a shared leadership responsibility and a core cultural competency. The goal is not to abandon affinity groups, but to supplement them with deeper organizational practices that build belonging into the way we lead, manage, and make decisions.

 

The Psychology of Belonging: Why It Matters for Performance

At Berman Leadership, we work with executives every day who are navigating high-stakes leadership in complex, fast-changing environments. The ones who create lasting impact tend to have something in common: they understand the emotional realities of the people they lead.

Belonging is one of those realities. And it’s not just about morale—it’s about performance.

Research has shown that when employees feel a strong sense of belonging:

• They are 56% more productive
• They take 75% fewer sick days
• They experience a 50% drop in turnover risk

Psychological safety—the shared belief that it’s safe to take interpersonal risks—underpins this. When people feel safe, they speak up. They innovate. They push boundaries. That’s the cultural multiplier effect of belonging.

For HR leaders, this creates a compelling case: belonging isn’t a social agenda. It’s a business strategy.

 

Operationalizing Belonging Without Losing Rigor

So how do you build belonging into the fabric of your organization without diluting your DEI commitments?

Start with these four principles:

1. Understand individual identity without assuming it defines experience.
   Representation matters. But demographics only tell part of the story. Encourage managers to get to know the personal context, career aspirations, and lived experiences of each team member—not just their “group” identity.
2. Shift DEI from compliance to culture.
   Policies and training are foundational, but belonging happens in the micro-moments—team meetings, feedback conversations, decision-making norms. Invest in leadership development that embeds inclusion into how people lead every day.
3. Measure experiences, not just demographics.
   It’s not enough to track representation. Ask: Do people feel safe? Do they feel heard? Do they trust their manager? Do they see a path for growth? Pulse surveys, stay interviews, and qualitative feedback can give insight into what belonging actually looks like.
4. Make belonging a leadership expectation.
   Hold managers and leaders accountable for creating inclusive environments. Recognize and reward those who build strong, equitable teams. Inclusion can’t be a side project—it must be a leadership standard.

 

What This Looks Like in Practice

Here are three examples of companies we’ve seen leaning into this individual-first, belonging-focused approach:

A technology firm with a hybrid workforce rewrote its performance management approach to emphasize values-based leadership. Rather than relying solely on KPIs, it now evaluates managers on how well they foster trust, collaboration, and belonging—especially across remote teams.

A healthcare system serving multilingual communities trained every people manager on active listening and trauma-informed supervision. The result? Higher patient satisfaction, lower nurse turnover, and a deeper sense of mission among staff.

A professional services firm began embedding DEI criteria into its project staffing decisions—not just to balance representation, but to ensure diverse voices had influence in visible, career-defining work.

In each case, the move from “what group do you belong to?” to “how do you experience belonging here?” unlocked deeper insight—and better outcomes.

 

Belonging as a Leadership Imperative

Belonging isn’t about comfort. It’s about commitment. It’s about saying: we see you, we value you, and we’re investing in your potential—not just your productivity.

That message resonates with everyone. But it matters most to the people who haven’t always felt it.

As a Chief HR Officer, your role is to steward this evolution. To move beyond checklists and categories. To build a culture where diversity isn’t just tolerated—it’s activated. Where identity is honored, but not assumed. And where belonging is not a buzzword, but a practice.

It’s time to expand the frame.

 

Let’s Talk

At Berman Leadership, we partner with HR and executive leaders to build psychologically safe, inclusive cultures rooted in high performance. If you’re rethinking how your organization approaches belonging and leadership, we’d love to start a conversation.

Let’s make inclusion personal—and powerful.