Is everyone becoming a leader? If you use AI daily, I’m sure the answer is yes.

I want to pose a question that I don’t think enough people are considering: Is everyone becoming a leader? It might sound like over-inflating our titles, but I have a new take on it: I believe for a huge, growing segment of the population, the answer is an emphatic yes.

I’m talking about people who use AI on a daily basis.

No, it’s not because they are the bellwethers of new technology or because they’re inherently more “visionary.” It’s for a much more practical reason: Working effectively with an AI agent is remarkably similar to leading a human team.

And conversely, failing with AI looks exactly like failing as a new manager.

The “AI is stupid” complaint

I see it constantly. On Discord servers, in Slack communities, in the lobbies at conferences. Someone will vent, “I tried using [insert AI tool], and it’s just stupid.”

They’re frustrated. They’re unhappy with the result of the AI’s work. They asked it to “complete this task,” and the output was a mess. It didn’t follow their project’s structure, it used the wrong patterns, or it was just plain wrong.

So they close the chat window in disgust and say, “It’s just faster if I do it myself.”

Sound familiar?

The untrained manager’s playbook

I’ve seen this exact behavior countless times, not with AI, but with fresh team-leaders who were never trained to manage, delegate, or develop people.

Their “management” style looks like this:

1. Zero onboarding: They provide no context. They don’t say, “Hey, welcome to the project. Here’s our architecture. Here are the design patterns we follow. Here’s our style guide and a description of our best practices.” They just expect the person to know.
2. The “deep water” delegation: They grab a team member, “delegate” a complex task by saying “Just get this done,” and offer no support.
3. Vague requirements: They don’t clearly state what “done” looks like. The acceptance criteria are fuzzy, and the objectives are unclear.
4. The “I’ll just do it myself” retreat: When the (predictably) subpar work comes back, the new manager sighs, “Never mind.” They take the work back and redo the whole thing themselves, all while thinking, “I can’t rely on anyone.”
5. Zero feedback: The most critical failure. The manager never sits down with their team member to explain why the work wasn’t right. They don’t review it, offer corrections, or explain the patterns they want to see.

The result? The manager is burned out, the team member is confused and unmotivated, and nothing improves.

You manage your AI the same way

Now, look at how people treat AI.

We throw an agent into the “deep water” with a prompt like, “Complete this task.”

We provide zero onboarding. We don’t feed it the project’s architecture, the established patterns, or the style guides.

We don’t clearly state our requirements.

Then, when the AI produces work that doesn’t magically fit our hidden, unstated context, we get frustrated. We close the tab. We “redo the whole work by ourselves.”

And, crucially, we give zero feedback. We don’t tell the agent, “That was a good start, but you used the wrong pattern. In this project, we do things this way. Please refactor it using this example.”

The people who complain that “AI is stupid” are often the same people who would fail as team leads. They are treating a powerful, context-starved agent like a bad manager treats a new employee.

The shift: From “user” to “leader”

The people who are getting incredible, game-changing results from AI aren’t just “users.” They are leaders.

They understand that an AI is not a deterministic tool like a calculator. It’s an agent that needs to be managed.

They “onboard” their AI. They start a session by providing context, documents, and code examples.

They “delegate” with crystal-clear requirements and constraints.

And most importantly, they use iterative feedback. When the output is 90% right, they don’t throw it away. They coach the AI the last 10% of the way. “This is great, but can you now refactor this part to be more modular?” “You missed this edge case; please add error handling for it.”

This isn’t just “prompt engineering.” This is management. It’s delegation. It’s a feedback loop. It’s the art of developing your resource to get the best possible output.

So, yes, I believe everyone using these tools is becoming a leader. The question is, what kind of leader will you be?

If you want to be successful in this new era, the most important thing you can develop isn’t just your technical skill. It’s your soft skills. Learn to communicate clearly. Learn to provide rich context. Learn to delegate effectively.

And above all, learn how to give good feedback.

The “AI is stupid” crowd will be left behind, frustrated and doing all the work themselves. The AI leaders will be the ones who succeed.