Type A workers, stand up!
Julia Dahl, North American leader of BCG’s people and organizations practice, says success increasingly comes down to what she calls a “senior authority mindset.”
These are proactive employees who actively seek to understand what is expected of them. They are also people who show up with a positive attitude and the belief that their actions have an impact.
“They have some optimism about the future, even though there is no guarantee that everything will go well in the future.” “We’re thrilled to be working with the BCG Research Institute on this topic,” said Dahl, co-founder of BCG’s Behavioral Sciences Institute and a research fellow at the BCG Institute.
Self-starters may have always thrived in the workplace, but in an era of rapid technological innovation, that mindset may become even more important.
BCG’s 2026 AI at Work Research Report Found 72% of employees say the skills required in their roles have changed, and 88% believe they will need to significantly upskill in the next five years. Dahl said employees who clarify their roles and acquire new skills may be in a better position to catch up.
Employees across industries are finding themselves in a moment where AI disruption is fueling uncertainty about the future of work. Dahl said government employees will focus on what they can control and take action where possible, rather than being consumed by fear.
“The more you take action, the more surface area of opportunity you end up with,” Dahl said.
What would actually happen?
Employees are the ones who notice recurring problems and build solutions before anyone asks, Dahl says. That might mean creating tools to address frequent team frustrations, she said. Or it might mean automating processes such as organizing customer feedback.
This can also take the form of proactively talking to your customers about the next feature or product they want to hear about, or taking the time to research and understand your competitors.
The difference between these employees, she says, is that they’re not checking boxes because they think they should. Because they are self-motivated, they don’t need perfect guidance before they can create value, Dahl says. She added that government employees are gradually becoming more intuitive by getting feedback on their efforts.
“You could think of it as the person asking one more question or doing a little bit more than what you would expect as a natural baseline,” Dahl said.
Her advice comes as AI reshapes the workplace and agent AI is increasingly integrated into daily workflows. Forty-two percent of workers surveyed in the BCG research report said they were using AI to save one day of work per week, but 66% were not given guidance on how to use that time.
At a time when organizations may not be giving employees clear direction, Dahl said successful employees are those who can identify high-value work, improve handoffs, solve frequently occurring problems and reallocate time to higher-impact activities.
As individual contributors are increasingly expected to take on roles like agents and managers overseeing automated workflows, the ability to work without specific instructions becomes more important.
For example, Dan Diasio, global consulting AI leader at EY, said many new hires are now expected to oversee AI workflows and need to think like managers early in their careers.