SHRM26 Debrief · General Session · #1383

Forward: Release Your Inner Leader

with John Maxwell

▶ Watch on the SHRM portal ~68 min, distilled

HR leadershipDEI and inclusionAI adoption

"Be afraid of the person who is AI fluent displacing the person who is rejecting to get intellectually invested in AI."

What it was about

The opening general session for SHRM26 frames HR's current moment as navigating AI anxiety, DEI/EEOC compliance risk, and political polarization all at once. Outgoing and incoming SHRM board chairs argue HR leaders should respond with calm, clarity, courage, and hope rather than fear.

By the numbers

70%

HR practitioners using AI week-to-week for tasks like drafting communications, job descriptions, and policies

11%

organizations HR practitioners describe as having truly integrated AI

14,000 times / only missed 10 appointments

number of times John Maxwell has spoken globally and how rarely he has missed an engagement

Key notes

Model honesty, transparency, courage, and hope when leading teams through significant organizational change.
Bring 'calm and clarity' and communicate clearly and often during turbulent or uncertain periods.
Focus DEI efforts on the substantive work itself (broad recruiting, respect and dignity, evidence over rhetoric) rather than on advertising or politicized language and acronyms.

The contrarian takeBetty Thompson argues HR should reject the popular narrative that AI is eliminating jobs. Very few jobs are actually being replaced by AI itself, since most cuts stem from COVID-era over-hiring, and AI should instead be viewed as removing administrative burden and freeing HR for more strategic work.

Take this back Monday

Do this for your team

Get HR directly involved in your company's AI rollout and offer employees AI training instead of leaving adoption purely to IT.

Say this in your next leadership meeting

AI fluency is becoming a job-security issue, not just a productivity one, so HR needs to lead training, not leave it to IT.

Watch out for

Treating 'equity' and 'equal opportunity' as interchangeable, which creates legal exposure under EEOC guidance.
Advertising or marketing DEI work instead of actually doing it.
Assuming AI is simply eliminating jobs rather than transforming them and creating new ones.

Fun fact · John Maxwell

John Maxwell has sold more than 40 million books and been named the world's most influential leadership expert.

If this landed, see these

↳ Go deeperLeading By Example: Aligning HR, Leadership, And Employees for Responsible AI AdoptionTurns the AI-frees-HR argument into a concrete leadership playbook instead of ceding adoption to IT.⇄ The counterpoint2026 State of AI in the WorkplaceComplicates the calm optimism with messier data: AI usage and trust vary wildly by job level.✦ The unexpected oneHow to Leverage the 5 Hidden Signals That Predict Cultural DriftSame fear of fragmenting meaning, tracked as slow cultural drift instead of headline crisis.