What innovation actually demands of executives — and why AI Is the test | Amazon Web Services

Something is shifting in the way organizations are being led — and not enough people are talking about it. The companies seeing the greatest returns from AI aren't the ones with the best models. They're the ones whose leaders have learned to move without a clear destination — to hold conviction through ambiguity, build cultures where experimentation isn't punished, and treat every decision as a working hypothesis. Harvard's Leadership Chair has spent decades studying why the highest performers struggle most when asked to lead innovation — and what separates the leaders who break through from those who stall. What they've found challenges nearly everything we assume about the strongest leaders in the age of AI. In this episode, AWS's Randi Larson sits down with Linda A. Hill, Wallace Brett Donham Professor of Business Administration and Chair of the Leadership Initiative at Harvard Business School, and Shaun Collett, Global Forward Deployed Engineering Leader for Generative and Agentic AI at AWS, to explore what this AI moment is actually asking of the people leading through it. They explore: • Why the highest performers in your organization may be the least prepared to lead through what's coming — and what to do about it • The difference between capability and capacity — and why organizations keep investing in the wrong one • What shadow AI actually signals about where an organization is, and what it needs from its leaders • Why Andy Jassy called for "reexamining our faith" in this AI moment — and what that means in practice • How serial innovators develop a fundamentally different relationship to being wrong Whether you're a C-suite executive navigating workforce transformation, a leader trying to build a culture that experiments without fear, or someone seeking clarity and purpose— this conversation is for you. Subscribe to AWS: https://go.aws/subscribe Create a free AWS account: https://go.aws/signup Try AWS for free: https://go.aws/free Connect with a