Beware of Greeks bearing gifts: three actions for leaders in the age of AI
All roads lead to Rome. Or Greece. Or wherever takes your fancy.
The point is that, however sophisticated technology becomes, leadership still depends on one ancient and stubbornly human reality:
You must be able to communicate with people—and the people following you must be able to communicate with one another.
The Latin warning Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes means, literally, “I fear the Greeks, even when they bear gifts.” It comes from the story of the Trojan Horse: a magnificent offering is welcomed through the gates, only for the danger hidden inside it to emerge later.
Artificial intelligence is undoubtedly a gift.
It can save time, organise information, sharpen language and remove a great deal of unnecessary labour. But leaders must also pay attention to what may be hidden inside that gift.
The risk is not necessarily that you, as an experienced leader, will suddenly forget how to communicate.
You grew up before AI wrote your emails, summarised your meetings and polished your opinions. You probably developed your judgement through actual conversations, awkward meetings, difficult negotiations and the occasional professional disaster that taught you far more than any online module ever could.
The greater risk lies with the people following you.
A generation is entering the workforce with fewer opportunities to practise the fundamental human capabilities on which organisations depend: thinking independently, speaking clearly, listening carefully, handling disagreement and responding under pressure.
That makes AI not merely a technology issue. It makes it a leadership issue.
The human-skills paradox
The Australian Senate Education and Employment References Committee is investigating the employability of university graduates, with particular attention being given to the impact of artificial intelligence on entry-level jobs and the perceived decline in human skills.
The concern is not that graduates cannot use technology.
Quite the opposite. Many can use it beautifully.
The concern is that they may enter the workforce technically capable, yet unable to communicate effectively, exercise judgement or build trust with other people.
Employers are already seeing the effects.
As AI-generated résumés and cover letters become more polished and more alike, employers are finding it harder to identify the actual person behind the application. The proportion of employers relying entirely on human screening reportedly rose from 35 per cent in 2024 to 48 per cent in 2026.
That tells us something important.
The more artificial intelligence improves the appearance of competence, the more organisations need genuine human interaction to determine whether competence is actually there.
A beautifully written application may no longer tell you whether a candidate can think on their feet, explain an idea, listen to an objection or remain composed when challenged.
AI proficiency may help people complete tasks.
But human capability determines whether other people trust them, employ them and want to work with them.
This matters because communication remains one of the most sought-after capabilities in the workplace. LinkedIn ranked communication as the most in-demand skill in 2024, while nine in ten executives said human skills were more important than ever. The World Economic Forum continues to place leadership and social influence among employers’ leading core capabilities.
And yet, while organisations say these skills matter, many have quietly reduced the time and money devoted to developing them.
We have created a rather impressive paradox.
We want people to communicate brilliantly.
We recruit for communication.
We complain when communication is poor.
Then we replace substantial development with short webinars, passive modules and automated tools that do much of the communicating for them.
Ah yes. All roads do lead somewhere.
For leaders, there are three clear actions.
1. Change how you employ people
AI has made it easier to produce a polished application.
It has also made the application less reliable as evidence of the applicant’s actual capability.
This does not mean rejecting AI or assuming that every suspiciously elegant sentence has been produced by a machine. It means changing how you assess people.
Leaders must look beyond the document and test the person.
Ask candidates to explain how they reached a conclusion. Give them a problem without a perfect answer. Challenge one of their assumptions and observe how they respond.
Ask them to explain a complex idea in plain English. Can they listen? Can they adjust their thinking? Can they disagree without becoming defensive? Can they speak with clarity when they do not have a prepared script?
These are not decorative qualities. They are the capabilities that determine whether someone can operate effectively inside a team, influence others and contribute to sound decisions.
A résumé may open the door. Only interaction will tell you who has walked through it.
2. Model the standard yourself
The second responsibility is yours.
You cannot demand communication excellence from followers while modelling something closer to a hostage video.
Leaders must show what good communication looks and sounds like.
That means speaking clearly, structuring ideas, listening properly and remaining steady when challenged. It means being visible, understandable and able to bring people with you.
The ancient Romans understood that leadership required presence. A leader had to be seen, heard and recognised.
AI does not change that.
You may use technology to prepare, analyse and refine. But your people still need to hear from you directly. They need to understand what you think, what you expect and why a decision matters.
Samson had his hair. Leaders have communication. Cut it away and the title may remain, but much of the influence disappears.
Communication is not the wrapping around the real work. It is how the work is explained, challenged, approved, funded and delivered.
It is how you create clarity when information is incomplete.
It is how you communicate a difficult decision without causing unnecessary fear. It is how trust survives bad news. And it is how your followers learn what leadership sounds like.
Your standard becomes their standard. That is the uncomfortable part.
3. Restore real communication development
COVID did not kill interpersonal communication training.
It accelerated an existing decline, moved much of the training online and often removed the very elements that made it effective.
So COVID was not the murderer. It arrived to find the victim already looking rather pale.
In Australia, participation in work-related training has declined, as has the number of hours devoted to it. Internationally, training has often become shorter, cheaper, more digital and more transactional.
That may work for information.
It works for policies, procedures, technical updates and compliance. It does not work nearly as well for human performance.
You can learn the principles of a difficult conversation online. You cannot become skilled at difficult conversations without having one, receiving feedback, adjusting your language and trying again.
Interpersonal communication is a performance capability.
It requires people to practise:
finding the right words under pressure;
listening rather than merely waiting to speak;
reading the responses of others;
controlling breath, voice and physical tension;
handling interruption and disagreement;
structuring messages clearly; and
repeating the process until the skill becomes reliable.
Watching is not practising. Exposure is not development. Completion is not competence.
Yet many organisations can now say that staff have “completed communication training” because they watched a video, attended a webinar or clicked through a series of scenarios.
The training is still somewhere in the building. It has simply been chopped into very small pieces and placed beside the cybersecurity refresher. That may satisfy the reporting system. It will not necessarily help someone handle a difficult board question, challenge a poor decision, calm an angry client or speak with authority when the stakes are high. Leaders must therefore bring practice back.
Not merely more content. More rehearsal. More feedback. More structure. More opportunities for people to find the words themselves.
The gift and the burden
Artificial intelligence is not the enemy.
Used well, it is a powerful assistant. The danger lies in allowing it to replace the experiences through which human capability develops.
Your own communication skills may be well established. You may have spent decades learning how to read a room, influence a decision and manage conflict.
But leadership is not only about what you can do. It is about what the people following you are learning to do.
So employ for human capability. Model communication excellence. And give your people the opportunity to practise the skills they will need when the script disappears, the machine is unavailable and another human being is waiting for an answer.
Use the gift. Just do not wheel it through the gates and assume there is nothing hiding inside.
Let me hear your thoughts.
Love,
Dr Louise Mahler