On the morning of 11 March 2026, 103 clients and associates gathered at the Houghton Golf Club for Legitimate Leadership’s latest breakfast event, a conversation that was equal parts grounding and thought-provoking. With AI dominating boardroom agendas everywhere, the morning’s theme was timely: How Leaders Can Use AI To Expand Capability And Strengthen Culture.

Setting the Scene

From the outset, Legitimate Leadership’s CEO, Ian Munro, made it clear this wasn’t another AI hype session. “During times of uncertainty,” he told the room, “It’s very easy to focus on what we’re getting, not what we are giving.” That framing the shift from taking to giving is the philosophical backbone of the Legitimate Leadership framework, and it quietly underpinned every conversation that followed.

Josh Hayman, Managing Director of Legitimate Leadership’s South Africa practice, sharpened the point further. The real question, he argued, isn’t how organisations use AI; it’s why. Are leaders reaching for AI to extract more output from their people? Or are they genuinely trying to free their people up to do more meaningful work? The distinction, he suggested, is everything.

“The how conversation is a surface conversation. One level down from how is why, and that is a motive issue.” Josh Hayman, Legitimate Leadership South Africa

Spatialedge Takes the Stage

The morning’s keynote conversation was led by three representatives from Spatialedge, a specialist AI consulting company and Legitimate Leadership client of three years: COO, Dr Frank Ortmann; Chief of Staff, Dr Carl du Plessis; and Chief Culture & People Officer, Hermine Gericke.

Dr Carl du Plessis opened with a striking statistic: across the industry, 94% of AI use cases fail to deliver business value. Spatialedge, by contrast, operates at a 93% success rate in production delivery. The secret, he argued, isn’t superior AI knowledge; it’s people. His central thesis drew a direct parallel between good AI implementation and good leadership: both require the discipline of Observe, Measure, Experiment, and Iterate.

To bring this to life, Dr Carl du Plessis walked the room through a landmark client project, an international retailer whose team of 50 people was manually managing 25,000 products across five countries, almost entirely in spreadsheets, losing an estimated R100 million a year in errors and missed opportunities. Previous attempts to fix it had failed because everyone started with the technology rather than the problem.

Spatialedge’s approach was different. A small team went in, sat beside the planners, and observed. The result: a two-week process reduced to 30 minutes. But Carl’s real point was this: senior leaders suddenly had time to think strategically, buyers began building genuine supplier relationships, and the business grew. “That’s not a technology result,” he said. “That’s a people result.”

The Human Leadership Conversation

What made the morning particularly resonant was how naturally the AI conversation folded back into the human one.

Hermine spoke about the observable shift in leaders who’ve been through the Legitimate Leadership programme, one-on-ones that were once transactional tick-boxes becoming meaningful conversations, and accountability being understood as an act of care rather than control. On AI’s role, she was clear: “AI should be an enabler. The human connection must remain central.”

Dr Frank Ortmann reflected on what Legitimate Leadership gave Spatialedge as they scaled: not new ideas, but a shared language for behaviours they’d always practised intuitively. On AI, he was equally direct: “The personal touch is always going to be super important. If you’re using AI to do the leadership, it’s going to feel fake, and people are getting better at knowing when it’s fake.”

“People are getting better at knowing when it’s fake. We’re a social species, AI can be a tool, but it cannot be a panacea.” Dr Frank Ortmann, COO, Spatialedge

A Note to Close

Ian closed the formal proceedings with a candid reflection. He’d spent hours listening to AI podcasts on a recent road trip and came away none the wiser. “I was starting with the tool, asking what AI can do for my business, instead of asking what my business challenges are and how AI can help solve them. That’s a massive shift in thinking.”

It’s a shift Legitimate Leadership has always advocated, not just in relation to AI, but in relation to leadership itself. Start with understanding. Start with people. Start with purpose. The technology, as ever, is just a tool. What you do with it depends entirely on the leader holding it.

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