Professionals with strong delegation skills will find it easier to manage AI effectively as this skill translates into AI implementation
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The demands and skills required for leadership are evolving rapidly. The pace of innovation through AI and machine learning is even faster. Every day there’s a new AI-enabled technology, sweeping organizational changes to manage and adapt, AI start-ups popping up everywhere, and new AI applications and business use cases.
As a leader or manager, the pressure is on to stay abreast of all the changes and steer your organization towards fully embracing the future of work, especially with the increasing popularity of agentic AI (see my last article).
How does one catch up with it all and remain equipped?
Yesterday, when I was at Asana’s Work Innovation Summit hosted in London, I had a chance to catch up for a few minutes with Asana’s CEO, Dan Rogers. I posed to him the question, “In light of all the recent developments of AI, what skills will leaders and managers need to stay ahead and effectively manage AI implementation?”
5 AI Certifications For Leaders In 2025
These core skills emerged from our conversation (and I’ve included the necessary certifications alongside them):
1. Strategic Problem Solving Skills
Rogers emphasized that leaders must rethink existing workflows and identify through deep planning and design where AI could add value, what processes are best suited for human-AI collaboration, and also consider what would a successful outcome look like as a result of AI implementation.
Certifications to help you develop strategic problem-solving:
Strategic Leadership and Management Specialization, by University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, via CourseraChange Management for Generative AI, by Vanderbilt University, via Coursera2. Delegation Skills
In our chat, we reflected on something Dr Mark Hoffman, who heads Asana’s Work Innovation Labs, stated in his keynote:
Professionals who are already familiar with delegating (leaders and managers) will find it much easier to reap the rewards of AI usage because they will know how to delegate to AI.
If you’re new to management, building delegation skills is a must, not just for managing people, but now for managing AI.
Certification to help you develop delegation and leadership skills:
Strategic Leadership: Impact, Change, and Decision-Making Specialization, via Coursera3. Outcome-Oriented Thinking Skills
Leaders must think in terms of outcomes. Rogers believes that senior management and leadership should focus on designing results-driven use cases, not just experimenting with AI tools for the sake of looking good or simply because it’s the thing to do.
“Clearly define what a successful outcome looks like,” he says. Engage in deep planning to identify where AI would add value and what workflows and processes could use human-AI collaboration.
Certifications to help you develop outcome-oriented thinking:
OKR Certification: Leadership and Goal Setting, via CourseraDelivering Results With Remote Teams, SkillUp via Coursera
Interestingly, technical literacy wasn’t mentioned here (although it is useful). The core focus is on how we approach AI implementation, not how well you can code or create a custom bot.
Focus on the outcome you want to achieve, before randomly applying AI all over the place
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As a leader thinking and operating at the strategic level, these three “soft” skills, also known as power skills, are what will set you apart and enable you to be ahead of the game. This will make you stand out from competitors and see the best results and wins as far as integration of AI is concerned.