This is Johanna Rothman’s September 2026 Pragmatic Manager newsletter. The Unsubscribe link is at the bottom of this email.
One of my trusted advisor clients, Gary, told me he was worried about how their organization used their LLMs. “I feel as if no one takes responsibility for their thoughts or their actions. They blindly trust that the AI will do the right thing. But we know that’s not how these predictive models work—they are not deterministic. How can I ask people to take more responsibility for their judgment? Do I need more managers? Or more control?”
I said, “I’m sure the people do not need more managers or control. Here’s a question for you: How can you create a culture where people have the autonomy to both control their LLM use and to use their judgment? Will that culture allow you more trust?”
Gary agreed he needed a bit of a culture change. Here are the principles Gary will start to use as experiments:
- Ask people to collaborate as a team along with the LLM. That will prevent AI bottlenecks. Team-based collaboration will also reinforce team autonomy.
- Every time the LLM offers a “solution,” ask the LLM to test or verify it.
- Ask the people to consider their trust and judgment as part of the overall outcome. How will they know if they trust the answers? What will they do if they do not trust the answers?
Gary is treating these principles as experiments because he’s not sure they’re correct or sufficient.
He assumes that the people control the tools. Not the other way around.
Why More Managers or Control Does Not Work for Humans
Gary wants people to take more responsibility for their judgment. More managers or management control means Gary does not trust them.
But that’s not the problem Gary needs to solve. Instead, Gary wants people to take more responsibility for how they use these tools.
The same basic principles apply to management, even with these tools: if you want people to do a great job, they need to know the outcome you expect. They also need the tools to do the work. Then, managers have only one more job: to remove impediments as the inevitable problems arise. That’s an example of people needing your help if they come to you with a problem.
When organizations have too many managers, those managers need something to do. Too often, that’s micromanagement (a form of control) or busywork for the people who do the work. (In project management, that’s asking an agile project manager to also make a Gantt chart instead of asking that person to measure cycle time and make a time-series chart for improved estimation.) If you’re worried about micromanagement, see How to Create More Autonomy and Finish More Work with Just Enough Delegation for more information.
Instead, if managers focus on creating a culture of autonomy, people and teams tend to take more responsibility and exhibit more judgment. All because you trust them.
Extend Trust and Build Autonomy
We all need to earn each other’s trust. We build trust with our colleagues, one dependable interaction at a time. The longer we work with our colleagues, the more we can trust them.
But LLMs do not earn our trust over time. That’s because they are not deterministic, dependable. Because of that, they too frequently give me a wrong or illogical answer. While LLMs can be powerful tools, we need to use our judgment and decide when to trust an LLM.
If we want people to use their judgment, we need to extend those people trust and autonomy. You can build trust with these people by asking them to explain where they trust an LLM’s answer—and where they do not.
That’s different from more management or control. Instead, when leaders ask people to use their best judgment, they trust them to do the work. That’s how leaders can support humans taking responsibility, exercising their autonomy.
LLMs are powerful tools. That’s why we need to exercise human control over their work. Human judgment is even more necessary when we use non-deterministic tools.
But no organization needs more managers to control the people. (You might need more facilitative leaders to lead, serve, or support teams. That’s a different newsletter!) Instead, consider how you can manage your tool use to create the best possible outcomes for your employees and customers.
That’s a win-win for every human involved.
Read More…
This newsletter touches on ideas in these books:
- All three of the Modern Management Made Easy books.
- Project Lifecycles: How to Reduce Risks, Release Successful Products, and Increase Agility.
(If you have read but not yet reviewed my books, please leave a short review somewhere, such as Goodreads. Thank you in advance.)
Links of Interest
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- Managing Product Development Blog.
- Create an Adaptable Life Blog to see the weekly question.
- My Books. You can also buy my self-published ebooks and audiobooks on my store.
- Johanna’s Fiction
- Tip Jar. (My newsletters will remain free. And I do want to offer you an option for you to show how much you value my work.)
Johanna
© 2026 Johanna Rothman
Pragmatic Manager: Vol 23, #9. ISSN: 2164-1196