Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll know that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is all the rage at the moment.
It’s a bit of a confusing and scary time for many people.
Technology is changing rapidly, and there are hundreds of AI tools out there.
If you look on LinkedIn, you’ll see people telling you that you “must use AI or you will be left behind”.
There are also people telling you to download their “Free AI cheat sheet with 250 AI tools you should be using right now.”
In other words, the whole AI space is full of noise, BS and people trying to sell you their AI products.
However, it’s not all bad, and AI tools can do great things that are worth paying attention to!
So in this post, I’m going to give you my take on the whole Artificial Intelligence topic and what I think thoughtful leaders should be focusing on.
What Do Thoughtful Leaders Need to Know About Artificial Intelligence (AI)?
Here is some basic AI information that thoughtful leaders might find useful.
When people talk about AI these days, most of them are talking about “generative” AI.
Generative AI can create new content (such as images, audio, video or text) by predicting what it thinks you want, based on:
- What you ask it to do; and
- The set of data that the tool has been trained on.
It’s a predictive technology. It isn’t going to a big database and grabbing the answer, it’s predicting the answer based on a lot of information, and links between different pieces of information.
That’s why you’ve probably heard that it can get answers wrong from time to time.
But it can also do some really powerful and useful things.
Some of the more popular generative AI tools at the moment include ChatGPT, Dall-E, Claude and CoPilot, just to name a few.
What about the robots that will kill us all?
Ah, the killer robots.
Well, when we talk about super-human intelligence, that’s actually referring to Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).
This means that the AI can basically think for itself, similar (but better and faster) to how humans do. AGI has the capability to learn new things like humans too.
At the time of writing, AGI does not yet exist, but it is generally accepted that it is not far away from being created.
The generative AI tools I referred to earlier still need someone to tell them what to do. They don’t drive their own actions.
AGI will be able to make choices and take actions by itself.
Which is pretty scary when you think about it.
Do We Need to Be Worried About AI?
Personally, I’m a little bit worried about it.
I think the approach to the latest AI tools has been a bit “gung-ho” and people are pushing them like crazy.
AI will keep getting better and becoming more reliable, so its widespread adoption within business is inevitable.
However, as AI improves, it will be able to do things better than most humans can.
Jobs have already been impacted by AI, and there is much more to come.
So why is this a problem?
The Societal Impact of AI
Well, from a societal level, I think we need to be thinking about how far we’re willing to go with this so we can manage the impact.
Let’s say, for example, that AI enables us to completely automate the job of Accountants.
You’ll still need someone to check that the AI is doing the right thing, but perhaps you could get rid of 95% of the Accounting profession.
What does this mean?
Well, a quick search tells me that there are about 200,000 Accountants in Australia, and about 1.5 million of them in the USA.
This means that there could be a whole lot of people out of work in a short amount of time, with little opportunity to upskill themselves so they can do something else.
Multiply this by the number of different professions that could be impacted, and you’ve got a heap of people who are out of work, struggling and needing support.
I’m picking on Accountants here, but you could substitute this for lots of other professions and it would be a similar story.
I’m a coach, and there are already AI coaching tools available.
You could make an argument that the human element makes a difference in coaching, but still, as AI improves, you need to ask the question – do you need coaches, therapists, psychologists, counsellors or even doctors?
The question is, how far are we going to go with it?
Decisions need to be made, because ultimately as AI gets better, you could use it to replace many human jobs.
The Need for Purpose
If you’ve read any of my articles about motivation, you’ll know that having a sense of purpose is a major motivational factor.
People need a purpose: a reason to get up in the morning and to feel a sense that they matter.
For many people, the work that they do helps to provide that purpose.
The people pushing the AI tools the hardest aren’t really looking at the bigger picture.
They’re looking at the small scale – how can we be more efficient and do more things, faster?
We need to look at the bigger picture, because if AI keeps moving the way it is, we may see a lack of a need for humans at all!
Which means we’ll have a purpose problem in society.
I don’t know what the answer is, but I don’t think it’s grabbing onto AI tools to blindly improve our efficiency.
The De-Skilling Conundrum
One concern I have with AI is its capacity to make us, as humans, less capable.
Instead of understanding or knowing how to do things, we can simply ask the AI tools to do the work.
Many people are now asking AI tools to write social media posts, or create emails or documents for them, and to summarise meeting notes.
One of the funny things I’ve noticed when I’m using Zoom lately for meetings is that some of the recommended AI prompts it suggests are things like:
- Summarise what I’ve missed; and
- Tell me if I’ve got any actions.
So basically, we are using AI to not pay attention, and get a tool to do the work of paying attention for us.
Over time, as we come to rely on many of our AI tools, we may find that we are dumbing ourselves down, and no longer able to understand how things are working.
This is a real danger of AI, in my view.
Pay attention to the areas where you believe that understanding and knowledge give you an advantage. These are the areas when you might choose to rely on AI with caution.
How Will Artificial Intelligence Impact Leadership?
This is an interesting question and the answers aren’t immediately clear.
But here’s how I think it may impact leadership.
Leaders Will Need to Get Even More Comfortable Not Being the Expert
In the old days, leaders were often the most experienced and knowledgeable people.
“Do what I say, because I know best” was the theme.
As times have changed and work has become more specialised, it is impossible to understand everything about the work that your people do.
So, leaders needed to get better at delegating, and including their teams in decisions… and *gasp*, actually asking them what they think.
Your team members will have access to AI tools that give them the information they need, and they may need to rely on you less and less.
So the important part of your job will be to set direction, support your team and create an environment that helps people feel motivated and think for themselves.
Being the expert isn’t going to be as important.
Leaders May Have Smaller Teams
If you can automate a bunch of things using AI, then you’ll probably need fewer people.
But, one concept that is seen as important in AI is that you should have a “human in the loop”.
This means that there is a human involved, making sure AI is doing the right things.
So I think it’s unlikely that leaders will disappear altogether.
Leaders Will Need to Focus On the Big Picture
As technology advances, the technical work will become easier.
Leaders will need to spend less time focusing on the details, and more on higher-level thinking, such as:
- How does everything fit together?
- How can we best work with other teams in our organisation?
- What improvements can we make?
- What’s our strategy for the future?
Leaders should be doing this anyway, but I think it will become an even bigger focus.
Motivation Might Become More Difficult
As AI improves, technical work will be able to be more automated.
You might find that people start to oversee and check that work, rather than do it directly.
This may cause motivation issues.
Technical work is motivating for many people, and if you’re automating most of it, it could be that work becomes a lot less interesting.
I’m not sure, but I suspect that people will struggle to find their sense of purpose in the same way they used to.
What Should Thoughtful Leaders Do With AI?
I always try to add some practical tips to my articles.
It’s a little harder for this one, because this space is changing rapidly and there is a lot of uncertainty.
So here’s a few things that I suggest for you thoughtful leaders when it comes to AI.
1. Learn About and Use AI Tools
Fear often arises because of a lack of understanding.
One way to reduce the fear of the AI influx is to learn more about it, and start using the available tools.
The common AI tools I mentioned earlier often come with corporate plans that companies are using to give their employees access.
See if your organisation is using any tools, and if not, familiarise yourself with them anyway using your private email account.
After all, just like Excel, Word, Outlook or PowerPoint, it’s a tool that people will expect you to be able to use in the coming years.
Let’s explore when it’s helpful to use AI, and when it might not be.
2. Know When to Use AI
Some people seem to think that AI should be used for creating everything. I think this is a mistake.
Not only because it can generate bad or incorrect content, but because the very act of creating can be valuable in itself.
I use AI tools quite frequently, for things such as:
- Brainstorming ideas
- Creating a starting point for website content (but not articles like this one – more on why later!)
- Planning a vegetable garden
- Fixing my malfunctioning computer
- Analysing lots of information; and
- Doing research.
It’s certainly helpful if you don’t always assume it’s correct.
3. Know When Not to Use AI
However, I do not use AI tools for writing my leadership articles.
Why not?
Because I’ve come to realise that the act of thinking and writing is valuable to me. It helps me to understand the topic I’m writing about, structure my thinking and remember it.
Oh, and I also enjoy writing.
I could churn out an article in 20 seconds using an AI tool and it would do a decent job (if I fed it the right context and it knew my writing style), but instead I choose to spend a few hours writing.
My recommendation is to use AI when it improves efficiency, and you or the team won’t gain any benefit from doing the work yourself.
For example, punching numbers into a spreadsheet is prone to error and it’s pretty boring work, so it’s a great candidate for automation.
You might even pre-fill a report using AI tools, but you still need to be cautious.
Leaders will be expected to understand what’s in the report, and you may be asked about it.
So use AI as a starting point, but check, verify and be sure to understand the information or you might start to de-skill yourself.
Before diving into AI tools, ask yourself:
Will this help me to stay dependable?
Will it foster growth and potential in myself or my team?
Or is it adding unnecessary complexity that pulls me away from what matters?
4. Be Alert to Privacy Concerns
If you’re planning on using generative AI tools, be aware of the potential privacy concerns involved.
With all of these AI companies, I find it’s best to assume that they aren’t entirely trustworthy. We don’t really know what they are doing with our information.
What I assume, though, is that these tools are being trained with the information we give them.
If you provide them with a document, it’s possible that this is added to the training dataset which these tools use.
So – when dealing with sensitive information (whether personal or your employer’s), perhaps think twice before uploading that contract document or of course, any confidential records.
AI Isn’t Going Anywhere, So Get Used to It
AI is here to stay, so thoughtful leaders need to embrace it, and learn more about it.
Failing to do so may mean being caught unawares by significant changes to the way your industry operates.
Fear is normal, because there is a lot of change and uncertainty going on.
But instead of giving into the fear and avoiding AI, I recommend leaning into it, finding out how it works, and using it to your advantage.
If you’re feeling uncertain about how AI fits into your leadership style or team dynamics, that’s completely normal.
This is something I explore in-depth with my coaching clients, so if you’re looking for a sounding board to navigate these changes thoughtfully, feel free to get in touch.
What do you think about Artificial Intelligence? Are you worried about it, or loving it? What do you think the impact on leadership is? Let me and all the thoughtful leaders know in the comments below!
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