Research
Leadership Philosophy Predicts AI Execution Success
An Initiative-Specific Diagnostic Framework
Accepted for presentation at BIG.AI@MIT 2026 (April 2–3, MIT Samberg Conference Center)
Most AI readiness assessments evaluate the wrong things at the wrong level. They emphasize technical maturity and treat readiness as an enterprise trait. In practice, the same organization can be well positioned to execute one AI initiative and completely unprepared for another.
This framework diagnoses initiative-specific execution capacity, ideally before funding decisions. Two dimensions do most of the predictive work: Leadership Alignment and Team Fluency.
The framework draws on McGregor's Theory X/Y, Henderson and Gibbons's work on relational contracts, and Edmondson's research on psychological safety to explain why leadership assumptions determine whether discretionary adoption behaviors emerge.
About the Research
This work bridges organizational behavior theory and AI implementation practice. It proposes a pre-commitment diagnostic grounded in established theory, offering practitioners a way to assess which initiatives their organization can actually execute before committing resources.
Full paper available after the conference.