AI and Leadership: Why AI Is Coming for Your Excuses, Not Your Job
Everybody's freaking out about AI taking their jobs.
My guest Dusty Holcomb has a different take: AI isn't coming for your job. It's coming for your excuses.
Dusty is the founder and CEO of Arcqus Group, a leadership consulting firm out of the Charlotte area that works with CEOs and their leadership teams. He spent about two decades at AAA Carolinas, then ran Red Stag Fulfillment as CEO.
So I asked him the big question on AI and leadership. Is AI a tech problem, or is it a leadership problem hiding in a tech costume?
AI and Leadership Start With "It's Not About You"
Dusty's first leadership lesson came at 21, from a retired colonel who took him under his wing.
The lesson was simple: it's not about you.
That's funny to me, because in sales I taught the opposite. Every buyer is tuned in to the same radio station, WIIFM: What's In It For Me?
Dusty argues that good leaders tune out of that station on purpose. When you make decisions based on what the pressure means for you, you stop seeing clearly, you stop delegating well, and you stop leading.
Execution Gaps Are Usually Clarity Gaps
Here's the number one flaw Dusty sees in leaders running companies from $5 million up to a billion dollars.
They spot a performance gap and jump straight into fix-it mode. Hammer, hammer, hammer.
Dusty says to go upstream first and ask a few questions:
- Is there a clarity gap? Do I, the leader, actually know what great looks like and how we'll measure it?
- Is there an alignment gap? Does my team understand how their work fits the destination?
- Then execution. "When we create clarity, we build alignment. What we get is execution."
The goal is to let the people closest to the customer make the right call, because they'll always have more context than the leader does.
Self-Leadership Comes Before Leading Anyone Else
This one hit home for me.
I used to weigh 385 pounds. Over two years I lost 180 pounds the old-fashioned way, walking the roads and eating the salad instead of the cheeseburger. I cut out drinking five years ago, and it turned out to be a really good decision.
Dusty's framing: everything you do is leadership.
Your good choices, your bad choices, and whether you keep your word are all leadership. Even when you react poorly, you still get to close the loop and say, "That wasn't how we said we'd lead. I owe you an apology."
Myth busted: self-leadership isn't selfish
Getting up early to take care of yourself isn't selfish, Dusty argues. It's how your behavior ends up matching your words.
For me, that's the morning workout. With my ADHD, the days I work out first are the days my brain actually shows up.
"You Are Eminently Unqualified to Be in That Seat"
My favorite story of the episode came from a workshop Dusty led for 200 CEOs.
He asked how many of them were exceptional operators. Most hands went up.
Then he told them they were "eminently unqualified" to be in the CEO seat.
He wasn't saying they hadn't earned it. His point was that the job three to five years from now, with the world changing this fast, will demand a leader none of them are yet.
The fix is a learning mindset. Dusty calls leadership "an active, tense learning behavior." Leaders who skip that create the HiPPO effect, where the Highest Paid Person's Opinion wins, and then they hit a ceiling.
AI Is a Leadership Test, Not a Tech Test
Dusty is "incredibly bullish" on AI. But he laughs when anyone calls themselves an AI expert, because the tools change every six weeks.
If you're worried you're behind, his answer is blunt. "You are behind. You are. That's okay."
Don't try to be cutting edge. Try to be AI fluent.
He looks at AI through three lenses:
- Return on invested capital. Is the money paying off?
- Return on invested time. Is it giving you time back?
- Return on new opportunities. What can you do now that you couldn't do before?
He also treats AI like a science experiment. Start with a hypothesis, test it, learn, and repeat, without falling in love with the idea.
Hear Dusty's full breakdown in the episode
Stop Handing Out Spoons
A CEO told Dusty his people had started signing emails "written by a human."
Dusty's response: who cares who wrote it? Make sure it's right.
That reminded me of the Milton Friedman story. He saw workers digging with shovels and was told it was a jobs program, so he asked why they weren't using spoons.
Doing worse work slower just to prove you're human is the status quo dressed up as virtue.
I've seen the other side up close. Using AI on my own show has let me knock out projects in weeks that sat on my to-do list for years.
A local photographer I showed my setup to now runs all her invoices and bookkeeping through it. Her words: "life changing." She got her family time back.
You're Just Leading a Machine
Dusty closed with the line that ties it all together.
When you set clear expectations for your AI tools and coach them, "you're leading. You're just leading a machine. It's the same skill" people have used for thousands of years.
Get better at leading the machine and you'll lead people better. Lead people better and they'll lead the machines better.
That's the virtuous cycle.
Where to Find Dusty Holcomb
- Leadership manifesto (free): ancientintelligencebook.com
- Book: Ancient Intelligence: How Wise Leaders Will Win in the Age of AI (Dusty says May 2027)
- Arcqus Group: arcqusgroup.com
- Email: dusty@arcqusgroup.com
- LinkedIn: Dusty Holcomb
So what's the one thing you've been putting off? Cutting sugar, hitting the gym, finally trying AI on that idea sitting on the shelf?
Start with five minutes today. Something is always better than nothing.
Quick note: I'm not a doctor and this isn't medical advice. Before you make big changes to your diet or exercise, talk to your doctor.
Host
I'm Brian Nichols... and I spent years watching good ideas lose arguments they should've won.
Not because the ideas were wrong. Because nobody knew how to sell them. That's where I come in.
I come from the world of sales and marketing - helping businesses communicate better, close more deals, and actually solve real problems. Somewhere along the way, I realized those same skills translate directly to politics, policy, and culture. So that's what TBNS is.
Sales. Business. Politics. Health. Taught like a real human talks. No partisan cosplay. No debating obscure philosophy. Just practical conversations about what actually works - one episode at a time.
1,100+ episodes in. Still going.
Also: unapologetic Cowboys fan. We don't need to talk about it.
