The First Word: Augmenting leadership by using AI

Published in Chief of Staff Asia (Oct 2024)

The First Word: Augmenting leadership by using AI

Artificial intelligence (AI) is starting to change job roles in every industry across the globe; it’s only a matter of time before it transforms leadership too. Asia’s top 1000 companies plan to spend more than 50% of their IT budget on AI1 initiatives by 2025. But how much of this is being spent on making us better leaders?

AI leadership is not just about leading AI initiatives, but also about using AI ourselves to be better leaders and bosses. More than almost any other technology in our lifetimes, AI has the potential to augment human leadership, thereby enhancing decision-making, performance management, and strategic thinking. For middle and senior managers and leaders, especially in Asia, grasping the value of AI and making it useful to stay competitive, is critical.

There are many ways to use AI to make your business more productive, but for a change, let’s look at how we can (and should) use AI to make our leadership more effective.

Authenticity in leadership using AI

Despite the hype surrounding AI, it’s essential to clarify that AI is not sentient (yet). While sophisticated, it does not yet mimic human intelligence. Instead, AI functions more like an advanced database combined with behavioural algorithms. It has the ability to manage and process huge amounts of information quickly and creatively. However, it is not perfect, and the quality of its output depends heavily on the data input. Nonetheless, its capabilities are impressive, and smart leaders need to leverage this technology to reduce the mundane tasks of leadership and focus on higher-value activities.

Embracing AI to Augment Leadership

So, how can leaders use it to augment our leadership? Here are some steps leaders can take to make AI an asset:

1. Familiarize Yourself with AI Tools

Leaders should start by becoming familiar with the AI tools available, whether free, paid, or proprietary to their organization. Large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT or specific AI tools that cater to niche functions can help leaders streamline tasks such as writing emails, summarizing voice notes, or analysing reports. By automating these routine tasks, AI allows leaders more time to focus on strategic priorities, like people management and innovation.

2. Stay Informed About AI

Leaders should regularly read up on AI advancements and their implications. Understanding what AI can and cannot do is crucial, as relying on AI without grasping its limitations leads to errors and costly mistakes. For example, while AI can synthesize information quickly, it is not
always accurate or truthful. Recently Air Canada found this out the hard way. Leaders need to discern when to trust AI outputs and when human oversight is essential.

3. Adapt AI to Your Leadership Needs

AI could be useful for externalizing self-discipline necessary for good leadership. For instance, you could build a simple AI that would prompt you to regularly assess the performance of your team members, helping you track their progress more consistently over the year, rather than scrambling to remember details during annual reviews. This technology could summarize your insights, provide trends in behaviour, and help ensure a fair and comprehensive appraisal process.

AI’s Role in Decision-Making

Beyond routine tasks, AI can be a powerful tool for decision-making. By providing leaders with data-driven insights, AI can help leaders make more informed choices. Whether it’s market analysis, forecasting, or competitor research, AI can compile and synthesize data faster and more comprehensively than any human team. This can give leaders an edge, allowing them to act on opportunities and risks before others.

However, leaders must balance AI’s contributions with their own human judgment. While AI can analyse past trends and provide predictive models, it cannot understand the nuances of human relationships, cultural context, nor the emotional intelligence needed to lead people effectively. AI should be seen as a tool for good decision-making, not a replacement for it. AI can help you clarify what do in a situation, but it won’t motivate your staff or inspire them to greater success.

Ignoring AI is Not an Option

When it comes to AI, leaders have three choices: ignore it, tolerate it, or embrace it.

Ignoring AI is not a viable option (unless you’re about to retire). The rate of technological advancement is so fast that those who resist it risk becoming irrelevant.

Tolerating AI—adopting it cautiously and reluctantly—can lead to stagnation; a feeling that you’re doing something, but in reality your competitors are passing you by. And in this context, those competitors are inside your organization competing for the next promotion.

The leaders who thrive will be those who embrace AI fully, adapting it to their leadership style and using it to augment their own capabilities, while at the same time being cautious about AI’s strengths and vulnerabilities.

Embrace AI: start slowly and build AI into your leadership practices over time. Leaders who take the time to understand and integrate AI will see its potential to reduce workload, improve efficiency, and open new avenues for innovation and creativity. As always with AI (or any tech) let it do the dirty work and save yourself for the things that only you can do; lead, inspire and motivate people.

We stand at a moment of Augmented Leadership, where we have access to tools and workflows to help us be better at being the boss. AI can help us to manage people, make informed decisions, and stay competitive in an ever-evolving business landscape.

For leaders in Asia and around the world, embracing AI offers the opportunity to stay ahead of the curve, increase productivity, and focus on what matters most: leading people effectively. Ignoring AI is no longer optional, and those who embrace it will be the ones shaping the future of leadership.

Author

Mark Cosgrove

Managing Director - APAC for PROAKTIV Management.

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