AI không thay thế lãnh đạo mà mở rộng năng lực của họ

• AI không nhằm thay thế nhà lãnh đạo mà để mở rộng trí tưởng tượng, khả năng xử lý phức tạp và sức mạnh ra quyết định.

• Câu chuyện thực tế: một công ty hạ tầng ở Ấn Độ, sở hữu 17 tuyến đường cao tốc, gặp áp lực chi phí tăng mạnh (nhiên liệu, bitumen nhập khẩu) trong khi doanh thu bị giới hạn bởi công thức giá do chính phủ quy định.

• COO tự hào báo cáo đã giảm chi phí xuống trong 3% ngân sách, đồng thời giảm nhân sự từ 3.800 xuống 3.400 trong 2 năm. Tuy nhiên, chủ tịch cho rằng cách tiếp cận này không đủ để thoát khỏi tình trạng chi phí vượt doanh thu.

• Trong cuộc họp, chủ tịch yêu cầu dùng ChatGPT đặt câu hỏi: giám sát đường cao tốc mới, phương pháp thu phí, sửa chữa nhanh hơn, an toàn cho người đi đường.

• AI đề xuất: giám sát bằng drone/satellite, phân tích dự báo lưu lượng, hệ thống thu phí AI, case study toàn cầu, danh sách nhà cung cấp.

• COO từ hoài nghi chuyển sang hứng khởi khi nhận ra khả năng: AI có thể phát hiện lỗi theo thời gian thực, chỉ dẫn đội sửa chữa nhanh hơn, dự báo hỏng hóc.

• Công ty triển khai thử nghiệm: drone và dashcam quét đường, kết hợp AI dự đoán để đối chiếu với cơ sở dữ liệu lỗi. Độ chính xác 95%, báo cáo lỗi và phương án sửa trong 36 giờ.

• Nhờ đó, thời gian phát hiện và xử lý lỗi giảm từ nhiều tuần xuống 3 ngày, thời gian phản ứng hiện trường giảm 40%, nhu cầu lao động thuê ngoài giảm 18%.

• Nhân viên thấy rõ ý nghĩa công việc: cơ hội đào tạo lại và phát triển kỹ năng mới. Khách hàng (người đi đường) hài lòng hơn nhờ sửa chữa chủ động, an toàn và trải nghiệm tốt hơn.

• Bài học: AI không đưa ra câu trả lời sẵn có, mà trao lại sự tò mò và can đảm đổi mới cho lãnh đạo.

📌 AI được minh chứng như một “bộ nhân trí tuệ”: mở rộng trí tưởng tượng, sắc bén phán đoán và tăng tốc quyết định cho lãnh đạo. Tại một công ty hạ tầng Ấn Độ, AI giúp đạt 95% độ chính xác phát hiện lỗi, giảm 40% thời gian phản ứng, cắt 18% lao động thuê ngoài, đồng thời nâng cao sự hài lòng khách hàng. Lãnh đạo thành công khi biết đặt câu hỏi, khai thác AI như đối tác tư duy và hành động nhanh từ insight.

https://fortune.com/2025/09/05/ai-doesnt-replace-leaders-it-expands-their-capacity/

AI doesn’t replace leaders — it expands their capacity
By Ram Charan
By Pawan Kant
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Ram Charan is a world-renowned business advisor, author, and speaker who has worked with CEOs and boards of Fortune 500 companies for over four decades. He is the author or co-author of 36 books, with four million copies sold, including the New York Times bestseller Execution. Fortune magazine has referred to him as the most influential consultant alive.
Pawan Kant is the CEO managing Interise Trust, an infrastructure investment trust operating 17 highway assets across 8 states of India. He has over 3 decades of infrastructure asset investment, development, contracting, operations and management across highways, transmission, special economic zones, industrial and it.
Jay Galeota is the CEO of Kallyope, and was Chief Strategy and Business Development Officer at [hotlink]Merck[/hotlink]. 
September 5, 2025, 9:00 AM EDT
Executives
We're not understanding what AI can do for us.
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It is unmistakable: when applied thoughtfully, artificial intelligence (AI) doesn’t replace leaders—it expands them. It expands their capability to imagine new possibilities. It expands their capacity to process complexity and act decisively. And it expands the collective intelligence of teams in ways we are only beginning to understand.
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We recently witnessed this transformation in a privately held infrastructure company in India. What unfolded in one executive committee meeting illustrates how AI can awaken the imagination, shift entrenched mindsets, and unlock new avenues for growth—even in seasoned executives.
The problem: rising costs, flat revenues
This company builds and operates toll roads typically under 25-year government contracts. Its revenues depend on the growth in traffic and on the ability to increase prices. The price increases were linked to a government-determined formula and were insufficient in the face of double-digit increases in labor and material cost (largely imported bitumen and fuel).
In an executive committee meeting, the COO proudly presented his achievements: We reprioritized the asset repair strategy to be within 3% of the allocated budgeted costs mitigating abnormal material costs increases. Further, as benchmarked amongst top 5 asset management firms in the country, we are amongst the best management. Yet we plan on reducing the full-time employees base from 3,800 to 3,400 over the next 2 years, even while managing an expanded road network.
By conventional standards, this was excellent operational management. He expected recognition.
But the founder-chairman, a seasoned entrepreneur with a passion for technology, took a longer view. He acknowledged the COO’s efforts, then calmly laid out the challenge:
“At this trajectory, in a market subdued on growth due to geopolitical volatility, costs will outpace revenues. We need a fundamentally different approach.”
The mood in the room shifted. The COO, a veteran of several successful companies, crossed his arms slightly—a subtle signal of defensiveness.
The intervention: bringing AI into the room
At this critical moment, the chairman—an avid user of ChatGPT—made an unconventional request:
“Let’s open ChatGPT. Type in these prompts: Find new ways to monitor highways. Suggest innovative methods to collect tolls. Identify faster, more reliable road repair strategies. Propose fresh approaches to ensure motorist safety.”
Some executives hesitated, unsure of what to expect. But within minutes, AI generated thought-provoking information: Drone and satellite-based road monitoring. Predictive analytics for traffic flow and accident prevention. AI-driven toll collection systems. Global case studies of companies deploying such innovations. Lists of vendors with their capabilities and locations
The room began to buzz.
The COO’s transformation
The COO spoke first, his voice tinged with surprise:
“I never imagined drones or satellite imagery could detect issues in real time—or that AI could direct crews to the shortest route, capture before-and-after repair data, and even predict potential failures.”
His posture changed. No longer defensive, he leaned forward, engaged and energized.
“We can do this,” he said, his voice rising with conviction. “This could deliver major cost reductions, faster responses, and higher safety standards.”
Sensing momentum, the chairman acted:
“Within two weeks, let’s schedule a two-day workshop. Bring in vendors to show what’s possible, what investments are needed, and what outcomes we can expect.”
Two months after the cross-functional workshop, the company piloted test runs of not only drone-based road scanning and monitoring but also similar dash cam enabled pilots running closer to the linear highway assets. It had created a comprehensive repository of defects culled out from the prevalent concession agreements, the codal provisions and best practices observed on the highways.
Predictive AI was then able to run scans on the highways, reconcile defects with this repository list at 95% accuracy and provide an exhaustive list of defects with probable treatment to the maintenance head. All within 36 hours of ground scans!
This gave a head start to the teams in actual preemptive repair execution on the ground, saving valuable manhours of efforts. HR came back and said it provided a clear purpose to them, of an L&D opportunity to reskill and retrain specific sets people on that which is most needed. Contracted labor requirements are projected to fall by 18%.
More importantly, the accuracy and turnaround time for actual fault detection is completed within three days. Incident response times for physical rectification is pegged to drop by 40%. Client satisfaction improved by immediately mobilizing preemptive rectifications on the ground, providing a better travel experience to motorists.
The COO, once skeptical, became an AI champion. At the next leadership offsite, he reflected:
“AI didn’t give me the answer. It gave me back my curiosity—and my courage to try something different.”
The broader lesson for leaders
This story highlights an important truth: AI’s greatest power lies not in replacing human judgment but in amplifying it.
When used well, AI acts as a cognitive multiplier: Expanding imagination: Surfacing possibilities leaders hadn’t considered. Sharpening judgment: Providing patterns and insights beyond human capacity. Increasing capacity: Allowing leaders to process more scenarios, faster.
But AI also requires something from leaders: the humility to ask, the curiosity to explore, and the courage to act on what it reveals.
Four ways leaders can expand their capacity with AI
1. Frame the Right Questions Move beyond operational checklists. Ask broader, situational questions that provoke exploration: “What’s a radically different way to achieve this?”
2. Engage AI as a Thought Partner Use tools like ChatGPT or Perplexity not to find answers, but to surface options, challenge assumptions, and scan global best practices.
3. Encourage Team Discovery Invite teams to use AI collectively. This shifts the culture from passive reporting to active cross functional exploration.
4. Act Quickly on Insights Don’t let curiosity stall. Move rapidly from ideas to pilots, testing what AI-inspired thinking can deliver.
Conclusion: AI as a human multiplier
AI, applied thoughtfully, does more than boost organizational productivity. It expands human capability: enabling leaders to think bigger, decide faster, and act with greater confidence.
This isn’t about technology supplanting human intuition. It’s about technology helping leaders become more than they were yesterday.
The question for every executive is this:
What capabilities in your team could AI help unlock?