Paul Welty, PhD AI, WORK, AND STAYING HUMAN

How To Lead When You Have No Authority

Discover effective strategies to influence and lead without formal authority, empowering you to drive change and inspire others in any setting.

Everyone remembers the 2002 movie, My Big Fat Greek Wedding. It’s a hilarious story about the struggles of Toula (the daughter of a traditional Greek family) as she tries to fall in love and get married. There is one particular scene where Toula asks her father permission to go to college….

Read full article at the publisher’s site: https://medium.com/swlh/how-to-lead-when-you-have-no-authority-9f22206356d4


Featured writing

Why customer tools are organized wrong

This article reveals a fundamental flaw in how customer support tools are designed—organizing by interaction type instead of by customer—and explains why this fragmentation wastes time and obscures the full picture you need to help users effectively.

Infrastructure shapes thought

The tools you build determine what kinds of thinking become possible. On infrastructure, friction, and building deliberately for thought rather than just throughput.

Server-Side Dashboard Architecture: Why Moving Data Fetching Off the Browser Changes Everything

How choosing server-side rendering solved security, CORS, and credential management problems I didn't know I had.

Books

The Work of Being (in progress)

A book on AI, judgment, and staying human at work.

The Practice of Work (in progress)

Practical essays on how work actually gets done.

Recent writing

Dev reflection - February 07, 2026

I've been thinking about friction. Not the dramatic kind—not the system crash, not the project that fails spectacularly. I mean the quiet kind. The accumulation of small things that don't quite wor...

Dev reflection - February 06, 2026

I want to talk about the difference between a system that works and a system that's ready. These aren't the same thing. The gap between them is where most projects stall out—not from failure, but f...

Dev reflection - February 05, 2026

I want to talk about something I keep running into: the moment when you realize the outside of something no longer matches the inside. And what that actually costs.

Notes and related thinking

Article analysis: 3 AI competencies you need now for the future

Master essential AI competencies to thrive in an evolving landscape and ensure your career remains irreplaceable in the age of artificial intelligence.

Article analysis: The Rise Of The Micro-Credentials Movement: Validating Skills Beyond Traditional Degrees

Explore how micro-credentials bridge skill gaps, enhance hiring, and offer affordable, flexible learning options for today's workforce demands.

Article analysis: The Future Of Corporate Learning And Employee Engagement: Why Traditional Training Is Dead

Explore how AI and immersive technologies are reshaping corporate learning, making traditional training methods obsolete and enhancing employee engagement.