gettyTechnology leadership is evolving nearly as quickly as the tools and teams it supports. Advice that once helped leaders succeed—whether related to management style, decision-making or workplace culture—may no longer fit an environment shaped by AI, distributed teams and near-constant change.Effective tech leadership now requires regularly reassessing familiar assumptions rather than relying on long-standing playbooks. Below, members of Forbes Technology Council share the conventional leadership advice they believe has become outdated and explain what today’s tech leaders should do instead.‘Don’t fix what isn’t broken.’“Don’t fix what isn’t broken” may have worked when technology cycles moved slowly. Today, what isn’t broken is often what leaves organizations vulnerable to disruption. The better mindset is to continuously challenge systems, processes and assumptions before the market forces you to. Modern tech leaders are not responsible for preserving the status quo. They’re responsible for ensuring today’s success doesn’t become tomorrow’s constraint. - Andrew Siemer, Inventive‘Clamp down on shadow IT.’The old advice was to clamp down on shadow IT. Today, leaders should celebrate what’s working in their shadow AI. Rather than controlling AI use, look for ways it can engage customers and employees, improve efficiency, reduce administrative burden and, ultimately, help teams handle demand. Empowering teams with AI assistants drives growth and strengthens retention. - Diana Cano, Cambium Learning GroupForbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?‘Lead with technology.’Better cameras, AI analytics and new integrations may be exciting, but leaders should listen to the problem before presenting the solution. The best ideas come from understanding what integrators, dealers and end users experience in the field and spending time where the work actually happens. - Freddy Kuo, Luminys Systems Corporation‘Move fast or be left behind.’Tech leaders still need to modernize, but speed without a clear view of cost, risk, staffing and existing infrastructure can create more disruption than progress. The better approach is to modernize in phases, reuse what still works and make sure every change is worth the cost, time and risk. - Susan Odle, StorMagic‘Define a multiyear strategy.’Decades of advice tell us to define a multiyear strategy and steer toward it, but in the new AI era, the planning horizon has compressed dramatically. A three-year roadmap can be obsolete in six months when a new technology or threat emerges. In this new environment, we should hold the destination firmly but the route loosely. Today, conviction isn’t refusing to change your mind; it’s having the judgment to know where to hold firm and what this quarter’s best approach is. - Anuj Goel, Cyware‘Focus on vision and leave adoption to teams.’One piece of outdated advice is that leaders should focus on vision and leave adoption to the teams. In the AI era, that is not enough. Leaders must be practitioners. Use the tools. Build, test, break and learn. Don’t just sponsor transformation; model it. Leading from the front now literally means getting hands-on with the technology. - Dheeraj Achra, Amazon Web Services‘Hire great people and get out of their way.’The advice to “hire great people and get out of their way” hasn’t aged well. It made sense when execution was the bottleneck, but in the AI era, the bottleneck is judgment, not effort. Leaders shouldn’t get out of the way, they should get in it—with context. Spend time with teams supplying the “why,” the guardrails and a sense of what “good” looks like. Autonomy without context is just speed in the wrong direction. - Yevgeni Tsirulnik, Toshiba Global Commerce Solutions‘Move quickly from emotions to facts.’Many leaders become trapped inside emotions and make flawed decisions based on assumptions rather than evidence. Paradoxically, the path toward more rational decision-making begins with acknowledging emotions rather than ignoring them. - Stan Kos, YouMatch‘Use AI to cut headcount.’The advice to use AI and automation to cut headcount is already outdated. It assumes technology and people create interchangeable value, but leaders are increasingly finding that AI doesn’t always translate into lower costs. Instead, AI should be used to expand teams’ capacity for judgment, creativity and strategic thinking. - Douglas Murray, Auvik‘Keep IT behind the scenes.’Today’s CIOs need to be visible business leaders. Spend less time managing technology and more time shaping strategy, influencing decisions and driving measurable business outcomes. - Paul A Mohabir, Transervice Logistics‘Tech leaders should spend a lot of time selling.’Today’s tech leaders create the most impact by focusing on technology strategy, operational excellence and team productivity. Rather than asking them to become sales experts, organizations should enable them to align technology investments with business outcomes, optimize resources and accelerate innovation through AI and modern engineering practices. - Prashanthi Kolluru, KloudPortal Technology Solutions Pvt Ltd.‘Treat engineering constraints as the ultimate bottleneck.’Tech leaders are often told to treat engineering constraints as the ultimate bottleneck. With AI, that advice is dead. Technology is now an infinite enabler. The real challenge isn’t building the tech—it’s driving business outcomes. Leaders must stop acting like resource gatekeepers and start operating as value creators, shifting their metrics from technical capacity to true commercial ROI. - Ameya Ambardekar, Collabrios Health LLC‘Maintain tight control as your organization grows.’In fast-moving technology environments, centralized decision-making often becomes a bottleneck. The best leaders set clear goals, establish accountability and empower teams to make decisions. The people closest to the work often have the best information. Leadership is about creating alignment so teams can solve problems effectively. - Maghnus Mareneck, Cosmos Labs‘Don’t bring me problems; bring me solutions.’In an era when AI, cyber risk, supply chains and geopolitics converge, weak signals matter before answers are fully formed. Leaders should prioritize early evidence, options and consequences; build judgment systems that convert uncertainty into timely, risk‑informed action; and surface ambiguity early to decide faster under pressure and ahead of rivals. - Koray Köse, KŌSE ADVISORY‘Leaders should have all the answers.’In an AI-first world, the role of a leader is no longer being the source of knowledge but the architect of learning. The best tech leaders build organizations that learn faster than their competitors. They align cross-functional teams around business outcomes and encourage experimentation. Great leaders balance the curiosity of an intern with the judgment of an experienced executive. - Benu Aggarwal, Milestone, Inc.‘Prioritize lean operations across the organization.’“Just-in-time” thinking is out. The most expensive habit in your business is applying one blanket risk policy across your entire operation. Lean operations made sense before market volatility, tariff swings and disruption occurred. Leaders should replace uniform policies with AI-driven, asset-level decisions and start asking, “Where are we exposed, and where can we actually run leaner?” - Ben Hussey, Katana Cloud Inventory‘Move fast and break things.’In today’s data-driven environment, tech leaders can break more than software: They can damage trust, data integrity, security, compliance and credibility. The better approach is to move with discipline, learn quickly and scale only what is secure, governed, measurable and trusted. What tech leaders should do instead: “Move with discipline, learn fast and scale what earns trust.” - Craig Hamill, Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning‘Make sure you’re the smartest person in the room.’IT leaders should no longer feel like they must be the smartest ones in the room when meeting with their teams. Today’s tech leaders focus on enabling great decisions. They ask the right kind of probing questions to drive clarity and enable success, guiding their team members to achieve high performance. - Kim Bozzella, Protiviti‘If you build it, they will come.’The truism that “if you build it, they will come” is not true in the tech world, from the front lines to in-house teams. As a tech leader, you can’t expect company culture to build on its own, even within a small group. You must lead by example and create opportunities to cultivate it. The same applies to product development. A new, exciting product won’t sell simply because it’s new. It requires smart data, strategic alignment and, sometimes, a bit of serendipitous timing. - Brett Beveridge, The Revenue Optimization Companies (T-ROC Global)‘Say yes to everything.’Early in my career, I thought success came from pushing harder and saying yes to everything. But constant intensity is often a warning sign. People aren’t machines. Our best work rarely comes from running on empty; it comes from clarity, energy and the perspective to make good decisions. The leaders I admire know high performance and well-being can coexist. A masterpiece isn’t created in a single burst of inspiration. The same is true in business. - Silvija Martincevic, Deputy