KNVI Annual Programme: Personal Leadership & AI, Season 2026-2027

31 August 2026 · René de Baaij

English

Context: leadership in interplay with AI

Leadership has always been a personal undertaking: the task of knowing yourself, reading others and giving direction to people and organizations from your own values. In recent years that task has gained a new dimension. The rise of artificial intelligence affects not only how organizations function but also what is asked of leaders as human beings. Who still decides, and on what basis? What responsibility do you take when an algorithm is thinking along with you? How do you keep authority and trust in an environment that changes faster than you can follow? What does it mean for an organization's culture when AI takes over tasks that used to be human work?

The interest group 'Personal Leadership and AI' explores that interplay. Not AI as a technical issue, but AI as a context that amplifies, clarifies and sometimes fundamentally intensifies existing leadership challenges. Every theme the group discusses, from self-knowledge and shadow work to organizational culture and moral judgement, is also examined in the light of what AI means for it and what it asks of leaders.

Personal leadership: the person behind the leader

Who you are as a person largely determines how you function as a leader. Your drives, your blind spots, your patterns under pressure: they carry through into every decision you take, every culture you help shape and every relationship you maintain. That has always been true. But in an era in which AI supports, accelerates and sometimes replaces decisions, the question of personal leadership does not become less relevant. It becomes more urgent. Precisely because the environment is growing more complex and uncertain, the ability to act from inner clarity is a distinguishing quality of leadership.

The interest group works from the conviction that lasting leadership development begins with self-knowledge, continues through understanding interpersonal and organizational dynamics, and leads to a practical ability to act, including when the situation is complicated, technologically charged or morally fraught.

Purpose of the interest group

The interest group 'Personal Leadership and AI' aims to form an inspiring, learning network for information professionals who want to develop as leaders: in their relationship with themselves, with others, with the organizations in which they work, and with the technology that increasingly shapes those organizations. The group explores the interplay between personal leadership and the impact of AI, not as two separate agendas but as one integrated question.

Core ambitions

• Personal leadership development: increasing self-knowledge, self-awareness and the ability to lead from your own values and convictions, also under the pressure of technological change.
• AI as a permanent perspective: every theme is also viewed through the interplay between human leadership and the impact of AI on behaviour, culture and decision-making.
• Professional action in complex contexts: developing the competences to navigate dynamic organizations, with attention to culture, conflict, generational differences and organizational dynamics.
• Knowledge sharing and co-creation: creating an open environment in which experiences, insights and questions from practice are shared and deepened.
• Ethics and moral compass: encouraging conscious leadership that is mindful of the social, ethical and human consequences of acting in a digitalized environment.

Who it is for

The group is intended for professionals, managers, advisers and anyone interested who wants to explore leadership in depth: in breadth, from personal development to professional practice, and in depth, through the question of what AI means for it. No specific prior knowledge is required; curiosity and a willingness to reflect are what matter. The interest group is open to all members of KNVI and IPMA. Sessions are in principle held in Dutch.

Programme concept: drop in, or follow the full learning route

Each theme is developed in a cycle of four sessions: an opening session on the content, a second session that goes deeper, a practical seminar and a reflective webinar. Every session can be attended on its own, and occasional participants are very welcome. Those who want to experience real impact follow the whole cycle. The first two sessions set out the theme in substance and from several angles, the seminar makes it personal and practically applicable, and the reflective webinar closes with the question of what it has done for you and what you as a leader want to do with it.

Activities

• Online webinars (about 90 minutes): thematic presentations with room for dialogue and questions, in which each subject is also viewed through its interplay with AI.
• In-person seminars (4 hours including lunch): in-depth working sessions with interactive formats, case studies and peer consultation on concrete leadership questions from participants' own practice.

Practical conditions

Accessibility: the interest group is open to all members of KNVI and IPMA at no extra cost. IPMA can join as a partner association. Regular KNVI rates apply for becoming a KNVI member.

Location and sessions: online webinars take place on a digital video platform. Seminars are held at varying locations in the Netherlands. Sessions are announced through KNVI's channels, including KNVI's LinkedIn company page.

Media: the interest group will have its own page on www.knvi.nl. Exact dates for each session will be announced in good time via www.knvi.nl and the KNVI newsletter. Subject to change.

Who organizes this

The interest group 'Personal Leadership and AI' is an initiative of KNVI, the Royal Netherlands Society of Information Professionals. Leads: René de Baaij and Auke de Jongh. Treasurer: Auke de Jongh.

Programme overview: season 2026-2027

The programme is built around four cycles, each with a central theme. Within each cycle, an opening session, a second session that goes deeper, a practical seminar and a reflective webinar form a coherent learning route. Every session can also be attended on its own.

Cycle 1: What is leadership in the age of AI? (September to December 2026)

What does it mean to lead at a time when AI increasingly takes over tasks, supports decisions and fundamentally changes organizations? This opening cycle lays the personal foundation of the programme. We explore who you are as a leader, which perspectives exist on leadership in relation to AI, and how you can act from your own roles, strengths and potential. AI is not the answer here but the context that makes the question of personal leadership more urgent than ever.

Webinar 1.1: Personal Leadership (29 September 2026). Leadership begins with self-knowledge. In this opening webinar we explore what leadership really is: not a role or a position, but a personal way of being and acting. Participants reflect on their own values, drives and leadership style. At the same time we ask what AI brings about in this: does it reflect something back about who you are as a decision-maker, or does it take over something that used to define what made you distinctive?

Webinar 1.2: Relevant Perspectives on Leadership and AI (27 October 2026). There are many perspectives on leadership, from classical management theories to complexity thinking, from servant leadership to adaptive leadership. This webinar brings together the most relevant schools of thought and places them in the context of AI: which leadership theories help us understand what is really being asked in an organization that is partly shaped by AI?

Seminar 1.3: Standing in Your Strength (18 November 2026). From which strength do you lead? In this seminar participants explore their own roles as leaders, the strengths they bring and the potential that remains untapped. The AI dimension runs through it as a common thread: what does your relationship with AI systems say about your tendency towards control or trust, and about your ability to delegate, machines included?

Webinar 1.4 (reflective): Roles, Strength and Potential (8 December 2026). This reflective webinar closes the first cycle by going deeper into the seminar's theme. Which roles do you fulfil as a leader, consciously and unconsciously? Where does your strength lie, and where is your untapped potential?

Cycle 2: Learning, Growing and Moving from Thinking to Doing (January to April 2027)

Insight changes nothing until it becomes behaviour. This cycle focuses on how leaders keep learning and growing in a rapidly changing environment, and how they translate leadership insights into concrete, observable action. AI plays a double role here: it offers new possibilities for learning and reflection, but it can also become a new form of postponement: analysing instead of acting, collecting data instead of deciding.

Webinar 2.1: Learning and Developing (19 January 2027). How do you keep learning as a leader in an environment that changes faster than ever? This webinar looks at the learning leader: someone who stays curious, welcomes feedback and keeps questioning themselves. AI adds a new dimension to professional development. It offers unprecedented opportunities for acquiring knowledge and for reflection, but it also calls for a conscious stance on what you take over from AI and what you continue to think through and decide yourself.

Webinar 2.2: From Thinking to Doing (9 February 2027). Much leadership development leads to insight but not to demonstrably different behaviour. This webinar is about the gap between intention and action: which mechanisms keep leaders trapped in familiar patterns, and which methods help to turn conscious leadership choices into actual behaviour?

Seminar 2.3: From Thinking to Doing: the gap between insight and behaviour (17 March 2027). A practical translation of leadership insights into concrete, observable behaviour, using action learning principles, feedback structures and behavioural experiments. Participants draw up a personal action plan that they try out and evaluate in the weeks after the seminar.

Webinar 2.4 (reflective): What have you actually done differently? (13 April 2027). This reflective webinar does not ask participants for new knowledge but for honesty about what has come of it in practice. What worked, what did not, and what does that say about you as a learning leader?

Cycle 3: Leadership, Culture and the Dark Sides (May to July 2027; summer break in August)

Leadership never exists in isolation: it shapes and is shaped by the culture of the organization. This cycle explores that interplay, with particular attention to what can go wrong: toxic patterns, psychological unsafety and the undercurrent that determines what is really going on. In this domain AI amplifies both the good and the bad: it makes patterns visible, but it also reproduces them. This cycle deliberately includes in-person work: the emphasis shifts from transferring knowledge to experiencing, exploring, practising and making discussable what goes on beneath the surface of leadership and culture.

Webinar 3.1: Leadership and Culture: Strength and Conflict (11 May 2027). Culture is the invisible force that determines what really happens in an organization. This webinar explores the interplay between personal leadership style and organizational culture, with particular attention to the constructive role of conflict as a driver of learning and change.

Webinar 3.2: Toxic Leadership, Discomfort and Unsafety (1 June 2027). This webinar combines two closely related themes. Toxic leadership, persistent and underestimated, is examined through its characteristics, causes and consequences. Psychological safety is its complement: how do you as a leader create conditions in which people truly feel heard?

Seminar 3.3: Working with Your Shadow (23 June 2027). An exploration of your own shadow sides, the rejected or suppressed tendencies that steer your behaviour unnoticed under pressure, through reflection and peer dialogue. AI comes into view as a mirror that can expose blind spots, but can also confirm and reinforce them.

Webinar 3.4 (reflective) (21 July 2027). What has this cycle taught you about the culture you help shape as a leader? Participants share insights and explore together what they have become more aware of.

Cycle 4: Moral Compass and Ethics (September to December 2027)

The closing cycle puts the moral compass at the centre: the ability to give direction when the situation is complex, technologically charged and morally fraught. Over four sessions participants build their capacity for ethical judgement, from the foundations of moral leadership, through the practice of concrete dilemmas and the inner voice that gives direction, to anchoring it in their own personal leadership.

Webinar 4.1: Moral Compass and Ethics (28 September 2027). Leaders are increasingly confronted with ethical dilemmas in which the path of least resistance is rarely the right one. This webinar is about developing and maintaining a personal moral compass.

Webinar 4.2: Moral Compass and Ethics in Practice (26 October 2027). How do you take ethically sound decisions as a leader, under pressure from organizational interests and AI-generated justifications? Participants practise with concrete dilemmas from their own work.

Seminar 4.3: Moral Compass and Ethics: Inner Voice (23 November 2027). A practical deepening of the moral compass: distinguishing between your inner voice and the external pressure of the organization, the group and AI-generated reasoning, and practising letting that voice speak in charged decisions.

Webinar 4.4 (reflective): Moral Compass and Ethics: Personal Leadership (14 December 2027). A reflective close to the season: how does a moral compass become anchored in your personal leadership, and what do you take away from a year in which AI made every leadership question more urgent?

The year at a glance

Webinars usually take place on Tuesday evenings from 19:30 to 21:00; in-person seminars take place during the day, with lunch, from 12:00 to 17:00.

Collaboration and network

The interest group 'Personal Leadership and AI' actively seeks collaboration with other professional groups and knowledge networks within KNVI, and with IPMA as a partner association. It has points of contact with almost every other interest group within KNVI, since personal leadership in interplay with AI touches every complex issue that information professionals encounter. Specific links are being made with:

• The Systems Thinking for Information Professionals interest group: a shared framework of complexity, organizational dynamics and thinking in systems.
• The Ethics for Information Professionals interest group: a shared agenda on responsible action and moral judgement.
• The AI, Data Science & Analytics interest group: a shared interest in the impact of AI on professional roles and decision-making.
• The Smart Humanity interest group: a shared orientation towards human-centred technology and the human scale in digitalization.

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