Leading in the Age of AI
SUMMARY
Do you find that it's even a little bit more difficult right now to lead your people?
There’s a lot more uncertainty. We've got people quiet quitting and others who are anxious about what's happening in the fast pace of change and everything else that's going on in the world right now.
Well, that's okay because this sort of stuff happens to all leaders.
There's a lot of narrative going on in the world right now about things like Chat GPT and artificial intelligence. People are feeling a little bit uncertain about whether or not robots will take over the world, and it's a little bit more difficult to lead right now.
It doesn't matter whether I talk about leading in the world of AI, in a VUCA world, or any world; that's just to get your attention. Because the thing is the foundational principles of leadership haven't changed. Those human behavioural elements we come across as leaders, both in ourselves and the people we lead, haven't changed. What's happening is they're manifesting differently because of the environment that people are working in right now.
As I have said many times before, ‘It's not what happens to you; it's what you make it mean.”
When people make external situations mean something about themselves (e.g. having thoughts like, “If there is AI, will I still be needed?”), those things will create behaviour that you need to help them to navigate.
I know that as I'm talking to you about your people, I'm talking about you as well. This is because, as a human being, you operate under the same three universal fears:
The fear of not belonging.
The fear of not being enough.
The fear of not being loved.
As human beings, when we feel threatened, and one of those fears is triggered, we behave in an irrational way. A lot of times the behaviour is counterintuitive to what it is that we're trying to achieve.
To do this, what I've come up with, and what I've been working on over many years now, is what I call a VUCA Shift.
Today's leaders need to be taught to lead in today's world.
So, what I want to do over the next number of weeks — between now, the end of the year and going into 2024 — is to empower you with the skills that you need to develop as a leader right now so that you can lead yourself well and then lead others in the age of AI.
TRANSCRIPT
Do you find that it's even a little bit more difficult right now to lead your people?
There’s a lot more uncertainty. We've got people quiet quitting and others who are anxious about what's happening in the fast pace of change and everything else that's going on in the world right now.
Well, that's okay because this sort of stuff happens to all leaders.
In this week’s episode, I’m going to show you some shifts you can make to improve the whole situation for you, and the people you lead.
Hi, this is Grant Herbert, VUCA Leadership and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today I want to continue our conversation around all things leadership by helping you to lead in the age of AI.
There's a lot of narrative going on in the world right now about things like Chat GPT and artificial intelligence. People are feeling a little bit uncertain about whether or not robots will take over the world, and it's a little bit more difficult to lead right now.
I've just come back from London where I got the opportunity to speak this same message across a stage with a crowd of people who were really feeling what I'm going to talk about today. I was able to empower them with what to do next, and that has inspired me to bring this message to everyone today so that you can become who you need to be to lead right now.
It doesn't matter whether I talk about leading in the world of AI, in a VUCA world, or any world; that's just to get your attention. Because the thing is the foundational principles of leadership haven't changed. Those human behavioural elements we come across as leaders, both in ourselves and the people we lead, haven't changed. What's happening is they're manifesting differently because of the environment that people are working in right now.
As I have said many times before, ‘It's not what happens to you; it's what you make it mean.”
When people make external situations mean something about themselves (e.g. having thoughts like, “If there is AI, will I still be needed?”), those things will create behaviour that you need to help them to navigate.
I know that as I'm talking to you about your people, I'm talking about you as well. This is because, as a human being, you operate under the same three universal fears:
The fear of not belonging.
The fear of not being enough.
The fear of not being loved.
As human beings, when we feel threatened, and one of those fears is triggered, we behave in an irrational way. A lot of times the behaviour is counterintuitive to what it is that we're trying to achieve.
Take me for example: To stop being rejected, I subconsciously pushed people away.
The first thing I want you to understand is that the world is going through what it's going through right now but that doesn't make any of what I'm talking about any different. It's just how we apply these principles in that current context.
To do this, what I've come up with, and what I've been working on over many years now, is what I call a VUCA Shift.
You've heard me talk about V.U.C.A many times before. It stands for volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. It's a term that was coined by the American military at the end of the Cold War to describe the differences on the battlefield. Therefore, the reaction or the way you operated in the battlefield environment needed to be different, and that's the same as what you are doing right now as a leader. As a leader, you need to be able to take these principles and apply them to the situations that are going on.
So, the first thing you want to understand with this is that there's more to leadership than telling people what to do. Leadership is not a set of skills that you have so that you can get people to do what you want them to do.
There are three faces of leadership that you need to look at.
The first one is Personal Leadership.
What you need to do to lead YOU?
In my experience, the person that I've found the most challenging to lead on a daily basis is ME.
So, personal leadership is the foundation of everything you do in your leadership.
The second area is in your Professional Leadership. That is the area where you employ your skills and talents to be able to get a result from your own efforts.
Then we go into People Leadership, which is using the skills that you have to take people on the journey with you. To lead them to the destination you are going on together, both as individuals and as a collective team.
So, if you are watching (or reading) this and you think: “Well, I'm not a leader; I don't have people that I need to lead” then I want you to shift your mindset because leadership starts with YOU.
Leadership starts with you leading yourself well and then being able to lead others well by influencing their behaviour, providing an environment for them to grow, and all those great things that have been taught in “leadership training” over the years.
Unfortunately, a lot of leadership training still teaches antiquated techniques from the eighties and the nineties and even before that. Unfortunately, what that does is it disempowers a leader.
Today's leaders need to be taught to lead in today's world.
No longer are we in the industrial age where we have a manager who has all the information and tells people what to do and they go and do it. We are no longer at an age where authoritarian leadership is the only way.
We’ve also moved on from the information age when the World Wide Web meant that we could get any bit of information and answer that we wanted at the touch of a finger.
We led people in a different way, and we removed the term manager and all of a sudden, we said: “Let's lead people and become leaders.”
We then shifted into that VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) world, where the speed of change just kept getting faster.
But now we've moved into this age of AI.
We’ve been through a pandemic. There are conflicts going on all around the world, and we've got this element of Artificial Intelligence that is in the limelight.
By the way, AI has been around for a long time. If you've used Google, you've used AI.
It's just that it's been talked about so much that people are now fearing what it means about who they are, their place and their belonging.
So, what I want to do over the next number of weeks — between now, the end of the year and going into 2024 — is to empower you with the skills that you need to develop as a leader right now so that you can lead yourself well and then lead others in the age of AI.
Well, that's it from me for another week. Join me again next week as we start off in the area of Personal Leadership, where we lay that foundation around YOU, the leader.
I'll see you then.
