Ethan Mollick: What Leaders Need to Know About AI

FranklinCovey On Leadership

FranklinCovey

Business, Management

4.9 • 851 Ratings

🗓️ 9 September 2025

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Ethan Mollick, professor at Wharton and leading thinker on innovation and technology, joins us to explore his lifelong fascination with artificial intelligence and its impact on how we work and learn. Ethan shares why play is one of the most powerful ways to engage with new technology, and how feedback and curiosity can turn mediocre outputs into something meaningful. We dig into the challenges organizations face when adopting new tools, the common mistakes leaders make in rolling them out, and what history tells us about jobs lost—and created—during times of disruption. From advice for students entering the workforce to insights on how leaders’ roles are already shifting, Ethan offers a clear-eyed yet optimistic view of where we are headed. As AI redefines efficiency, it cannot replace the qualities that make us human—like communication, collaboration, connection, creativity, ethical judgment, and leadership. Download our guide, Elevating Human Skills in the Age of AI to learn more: https://resources.franklincovey.com/c/tlg-elevating-human-skills?x=j4G37p&lb-mode=overlay FranklinCovey’s world-class learning solutions—delivered Live-Online, On Demand, or Live In-Person—are designed to build exceptional leadership skills and enrich your culture at every level of your organization. To learn more, email us at [email protected], visit franklincovey.com, or call us at: 1-888-868-1776

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to Franklin Covey on leadership.
0:08.0	I'm your host, Will Hodling, Franklin Covey's head of product.
0:12.0	In these conversations, we'll speak with many of the world's greatest leaders on the mistakes,
0:17.0	methods, and mindsets that help them become the people they are today.
0:20.0	We hope that hearing
0:21.7	their hard-earned insights accelerate you on your journey. Today's guest is Ethan Mollock,
0:27.9	professor at the Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania, where he is the co-director
0:33.2	of the generative AI labs, and his research focuses on AI's impact on work, entrepreneurship,
0:39.0	and education. Ethan has become widely regarded as one of the world's experts on the influence
0:44.8	of AI on the world and work. He has hundreds of thousands of followers across X and LinkedIn.
0:51.8	He writes a popular substack, One Useful Thing, and his recent book, Co-Intelligence,
0:57.4	is a New York Times bestseller and was named by both the Financial Times and The Economist
1:02.7	as one of the best business books of the world. Ethan was recently named by Time Magazine,
1:08.0	one of the most influential voices in AI, and he received the award of the MBA Professor of the Year by poets and quants.
1:15.8	If you are interested in how AI should influence your world of work, today is your podcast.
1:22.4	Professor Ethan Mollick, welcome to Franklin Covey on leadership.
1:25.9	Really excited to be here.
1:27.2	Wonderful.
1:27.7	So I have been following you on Twitter for many years, I guess now X, and was following
1:32.8	before you became the AI guru.
1:35.3	For a long time, you were working at Wharton as a professor.
1:38.3	You were teaching about innovation, entrepreneurship, how games can teach leaders.
	...

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