Leaders are facing a crisis of employee engagement and trust

Over the last few years, employee engagement and trust have declined significantly. According to a Gallup poll, U.S. employee engagement fell to 31% in 2024, the lowest number in a decade, with 17% of employees reporting being actively disengaged. In the 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer, only 75% of employees worldwide said they trust their employers to act with integrity, a three-percentage point decline from previous years.

To combat these trends, leaders will need to strengthen the human elements of their leadership, including awareness, clear communication, and compassion. However, few leaders actually have these soft skills. In a recent study of over 300 leaders conducted by the authors, they found that only 16% have the human leadership qualities that allow them to improve engagement, build trust, and develop high-performing teams.

These leadership qualities can also have a profound impact on organizations and their employees. Leaders with poor soft skills have employees with 49% lower trust in company leadership, 39% lower organizational commitment, and 59% higher intention to quit. In comparison, leaders with strong soft skills have employees with 97% higher trust, 65% higher organizational commitment, and 37% lower intention to quit.

To help leaders develop and deploy these human skills more effectively, the authors recommend leveraging generative AI. "While much of the focus on organizational AI adoption has been about the technology, in our experience, the rapidly evolving landscape of AI in the workplace has the potential to improve the human leadership of organizations," the authors write.

1. View the time saved with AI as an opportunity to focus on human leadership.

At IBM, generative AI was first implemented to help simplify processes in the human resources (HR) department, with the first target being the promotions process. Historically, promotions required leaders to spend hours collecting information, filling out forms, and submitting documentation, "an experience many found overly bureaucratic and burdensome," the authors write.

"Every minute I spend in these processes is a minute I am not with my team," one leader said. This comment became a turning point in the process redesign. Rather than aiming to just save time, leaders aimed to allow people to use their time more meaningfully.

"Do I want leaders entering data?" said Nickle LaMoreaux, SVP and chief HR officer at IBM. "Or would I rather have them sitting face to face with an employee sharing why they did or did not get a promotion and what are the next steps in their development journey?"

To emphasize the importance of these leadership behaviors, IBM gave over 70% of its executives 360-degree feedback in 2024. This feedback was designed to create a baseline for future assessments, increase executives' self-awareness, and highlight the essential nature of human-centered leadership for the company's future.

IBM also redefined all manager roles to emphasize leading people instead of simply managing tasks. To help managers with these activities, HR offered toolkits and coaching on how to enhance human leadership skills, such as providing timely and effective feedback.

IBM has also updated its new manager training to include practical guidance on how to leverage AI for feedback and released a new online module called "Leading in the Age of Gen AI" for all leaders to help navigate and use the technology more effectively.

3. Use gen AI to enhance human leadership.

Although it may sound paradoxical, the authors have found that AI, when used wisely, can actually help leaders be "more human."

Since generative AI systems have been programmed with a wide variety of insights into human behavior, they can be a valuable resource for leaders and help them better connect with their employees. Generative AI tools can be used for coaching, role play, language suggestions for difficult interactions, and more.

However, the authors warn that organizations should help leaders use AI to enhance their relationships, not automate them. "In our work, successful leaders look to augment their leadership with AI, helping people feel genuinely seen, heard, and valued with advice from a bot—rather than simply copying and pasting or parroting its language," the authors write.

IBM encourages its leaders to use AI to help prepare for difficult conversations or reflect on their own potential biases and areas of development, but caution that AI should not undermine authenticity. "There should always be a human in the loop," LaMoreaux said. "The goal isn't to sound perfect. It's to sound like you and ensure you enhance both clarity and connection in your communication."

Overall, "[a]s companies invest in AI systems and tools to enhance efficiency, they have a parallel opportunity to invest in developing leaders’ human qualities," the authors write. "Any organization—regardless of size or sector—can make human-centered leadership a measurable standard."