GA grad Tim Bruns is back with another guest post—this time, providing hot takes on why leaders need to stay sharp when it comes to all things AI.
Not long ago, I watched a new manager get blindsided in a client meeting. His team had just delivered a slick demo of their latest GenAI innovation. But then came the follow-up questions—technical, nuanced ones the team usually looked to him to handle.
He froze. He was out of his depth.
The manager? That was me.
Why leaders can’t afford to fall behind
As leaders shift away from day-to-day execution, staying close to the product, the service, and the boots-on-the-ground work becomes harder. This growing gap between strategy and ground-level execution can:
- Make coaching and problem-solving more challenging
- Erode your technical credibility
- Undermine team trust
In the GenAI era, where innovation outpaces traditional learning curves, leaders must be more intentional than ever about staying sharp.
Lesson from the frontlines
For my first six years at the company, I was an individual contributor—first in post-sales, then in pre-sales, helping sell a fairly technical product. My value came from deep product expertise. I knew how to work around bugs, templatize solutions, and deliver confidently. Over time, I became a go-to resource. Tribal knowledge wasn’t optional—it was the job.
This kind of fluency is table stakes in product support, customer success, and solutions engineering roles. But when innovation starts outpacing your learning curve, even seasoned pros can get caught flat-footed. That’s when you’ve got to roll up your sleeves, dive into documentation, and tinker your way back to baseline.
The learning curve shift usually happens when you move into leadership. Suddenly, you’re no longer hands-on every day. You’re not the one building, troubleshooting, or sitting in the weeds with the tech. And if you’re not careful, that distance turns into disconnect.
So how do we keep up with the rate of change and avoid becoming too far removed from the ground-level work occurring on the daily?
Three ways to stay technically sharp as a leader
For me, overcoming the disconnect creep required a system. This system isn’t magic—it’s maintenance. And I can personally attest—these strategies work, but they take time, discomfort, and deliberate tradeoffs.
1. Step into the arena: Take a call or meeting
Your team will occasionally be out, double-booked, or simply overwhelmed. When that happens, step in. Take the lead on a call or meeting. If they can shadow you—or if you can record it—even better. Let them observe from above while you’re in the fight. It’s their turn to play “air support.”
Say your company just launched a new GenAI solution that aligns with a customer’s needs—but your team isn’t confident pitching it live. No problem.
Your job is to:
- Make the time to learn it yourself.
- Break it down into digestible chunks.
- Write a script and insert breakpoints—no monologues.
- Practice it out loud. (Seriously—say it. Don’t just think it. I cannot stress this enough.)
If you came up through the ranks, fall back on your old playbook. If you’re a newer hire, do the dirty work: read the docs (if they exist), experiment with the product (a lot), and build a compelling story.
Yes, this takes time. Focus time is rare and elusive as a manager. Protect 60–90 minutes early in the day or late at night—whatever works. Be ruthless with your calendar. Important projects deserve priority over recurring Zoom noise.
When it’s go-time, be bold. Try new messages, stories, or workflows—but keep it tight. A good demo or pitch is punchy. If you’re rambling, you didn’t prep well enough.
I don’t advocate for leaders always stepping in as the “doer.” But once in a while? Absolutely. It builds trust. It shows your team you still have the chops. And yes, it means other manager duties take a hit—but that’s the tradeoff. 老虎机游戏 your moments wisely, and don’t fall into the trap of making this a habit.
You’re not micromanaging. You’re showing them the path forward—and walking it first.
2. Seek out smarter conversations
Whether you’re working for a big company, a SaaS vendor (like me), or something in between, the best way to stay ahead of trends is to talk to people doing what you want to know or do.
I find that conferences are fertile grounds for leaders. You can test out new ideas on total strangers—it’s almost like speed dating. Unless you’re talking to a high-level executive, the risk of messing up is quite low. Attention spans are short, and most attendees are already bought into the conference’s theme (which is usually GenAI focused)—making them far more open and enthusiastic than your average Tuesday morning Zoom call.
Take notes (and photos of slides) during keynote speeches so you can write them up into a mini report for your team. Once you’ve summarized it all (using an LLM, of course), offer your perspective on a few parts and how it connects to your company’s strategies.
Look people in the eye and get curious about their worlds. Whether they’re a customer or a prospect, try to get a sense for the everyday challenges they experience.
And in those conversations, ask simple questions, like:
- What’s harder than it should be today?
- Why is “X” a problem? Why is it important to solve?
- Who cares about solving it?
- If you could do “X” faster or better, what else would you be able to do?
- What have you tried already? Why did it work or not work?
Conferences are just one example of a venue to spark conversation.
Hosting customer interviews, grabbing a coffee with a trusted expert in your network, or simply prompting your favorite LLM to “explain <Topic X> to me as if I were a 5th-grader” are always reliable ways to up-level yourself quickly.
Just don’t skip the part where you actually read the summary, internalize it, and develop your own thoughts.
And one last note (or plea) on this topic: please, please, please don’t just copy and paste ChatGPT outputs and hurl it up on LinkedIn to pass yourself off as an expert or “thought leader.” I see this so often now, but the truth comes out when you have to explain things under pressure. Losing credibility is the opposite of what we’re after here.
3. Read (and write) like a leader
LLMs are great, but as a wise man once told me, “there’s no substitute for doing your homework.” As I mentioned above, people can see through bullsh*t quickly. If you want to become an expert, you have to entrench yourself into a topic. This is why GA is so great—their courses are immersive experiences that force you into new ways of thinking. There are no shortcuts to mastery.
Subscribing to quality newsletters, reading expert-written books, and writing down your own thoughts are also tried-and-true ways to learn. But reading is only half the battle—if you can’t turn what you’ve learned into clear, actionable insights for your team, you’re missing the point. You’re a leader because you bring clarity where others see noise.
If you want structured, immersive practice, GA’s courses are designed to push you past surface-level understanding and into strategic fluency.
BONUS TIP: Prompt with purpose
If you’re not using LLMs or AI tools in your daily workflow by now, you’re behind. Writing crisp emails, summarizing call recordings, drafting slides—these are no longer tasks that require manual effort. They’re table stakes for efficiency.
The key is intentionality. Don’t just ask ChatGPT to “write something for me.” Prompt it like a pro:
- Be specific about your audience, goal, and tone.
- Feed it context—your notes, your slides, your draft copy.
- Iterate until the output sounds like something you’d actually say.
Ideally, your company is investing in enterprise access to models like Gemini, GPT-4, or Claude. If not, push for it. I had Gemini’s free version build me a concise, metric-based, business case for exactly how my team of solutions engineers would maximize ROI and investment into its enterprise version. Not that I’m taking (full) credit, but our whole company has access now.
These tools aren’t gimmicks—they’re extensions of your team’s brainpower. Use them well, and you’ll operate faster, clearer, and way more strategically.
A field guide in fluency
In a world moving at GenAI speed, leadership isn’t just about vision—it’s about fluency. The leaders who stay relevant are the ones who never stop learning, questioning, and rolling up their sleeves when it counts. You don’t need to be the most technical person in the room—but you do need to know how to bridge the gap between strategy and execution.
That’s the work now. The best leaders are already doing it. And if you need a little help to make it real (especially when it comes to AI), GA has your back. Check out their AI Academy today.
ABOUT TIM BRUNS
A few years after graduating college, Tim realized his lifelong dream of becoming a sales trader. But after reaching the summit, he quickly realized his dream career was the wrong fit — for a litany of reasons. So at 27 years young, he had a “eureka” moment, quit his supposed dream job, and attended a 老虎机游戏 Assembly coding bootcamp. It was both the most radical and important decision he’d ever made. With help from 老虎机游戏 Assembly, he re-learned how to learn immersively, acquired domain expertise, and landed as an early employee at a scrappy tech startup — where he still works today as a Team Lead & Sr. Solutions Engineer. Check out Tim’s blog for everything from advice on choosing a coding bootcamp to no-nonsense LA restaurant reviews.