Companies are finding new ways to use AI to do the work managers used to handle. But what happens when they eliminate the people who were holding their teams together?

In this episode of The Strategic Thinkers Podcast, Sean M. Atkinson welcomes Patrick Carter back for a conversation about artificial intelligence, middle management, and the hidden costs of replacing leadership with technology.

AI can process reports, identify patterns, and streamline communication. But can it recognize when an employee is struggling? Can it identify a future leader whose performance hasn't caught up with their potential? Can it build the trust that makes people willing to give more than their job description requires?

Drawing from his experience leading teams across multiple locations, Patrick explains why companies risk losing more than management positions when they reduce their leadership layers.

In this conversation, Sean and Patrick explore:

• Why eliminating middle managers can break the human connections that hold organizations together.

• How companies can mistake lower payroll costs for better organizational performance.

• Why the numbers sometimes identify the wrong people as underperformers.

• What happens to mentorship, trust, and employee motivation when one manager becomes responsible for too many people.

• The difference between using AI to replace managers and using it to help leaders become more effective.

• The question every executive should consider before eliminating a management position.

This isn't an argument against artificial intelligence. It's a conversation about the difference between managing tasks and leading people—and the consequences of confusing the two.

A question worth considering:

If your organization eliminated a layer of management tomorrow, what would disappear that doesn't show up in a performance report?

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Being great at your job and being great at leading people require two different skill sets.

Patrick Carter learned that distinction firsthand.

After nearly two decades across sales and leadership, Patrick has experienced the business from multiple seats: individual contributor, manager, store leader, and regional leader. Each position gave him a different view of the same recurring problem — people are often promoted because they can produce results, then expected to know how to create those results through other people.

In this episode of The Strategic Thinkers Podcast, Patrick and Sean explore what actually changes when an individual contributor becomes responsible for a team.

They discuss the difference between management and leadership, why strong performers can struggle after promotion, what Patrick means by learning to "sell through people," and why discretionary effort has to be earned rather than demanded.

Patrick also shares the story of Jorge — an employee others had written off as a reliable B-player — and how a simple attempt to understand the person behind the performance changed their relationship.

The conversation ultimately comes back to a larger question: What happens when the kind of manager an organization rewards isn't always the kind of leader its people need?

Patrick's answer eventually became part of his own second act — and the foundation for Edge Advantage.

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© 2025 Majority Media LLC. Frameworks protected under applicable law.

What happens when the business isn't on fire anymore?

After two years of downsizing, cutting expenses, and rebuilding Secret Stache, Rich is finally coming out of survival mode. Things are stable again — but stability creates its own question: What's next?

Rich and I talk about the strange space between crisis and the next chapter, why some entrepreneurs deliberately make themselves uncomfortable when things get too comfortable, and how AI is changing the boundaries that once naturally forced us to stop working.

The conversation eventually lands on something even simpler: surviving entrepreneurship isn't always about having the right idea. Sometimes it's about giving yourself enough runway to keep moving until you figure it out.

The Strategic Thinkers Podcast is where I sit down with founders, operators, and experts for honest conversations about the frameworks, turning points, and mental models behind real strategic growth.

Hosted by Sean Atkinson.