Leadership in the Age of AI

AI doesn’t just speed work up. It changes what the work is — and that changes what leadership is for.

Roles are shifting

Understanding the role employees have in the organization is now more important than ever. Not just their title, but what they produce, what services they provide, what their work processes look like, how much they create in a given timeframe, and where their responsibilities begin and end. Knowing all of that builds a strong foundation for the changes that are coming — and they are coming.

AI has the potential to change almost every part of every organization. Right now, the biggest shifts are happening with knowledge workers. That’s why organizations and leaders should take every course and educational opportunity to fully understand AI and how it will affect their work world. That knowledge helps ensure the changes are beneficial and add real value to the organization. Employee roles — and what the organization needs from them — will shift as automation, productivity, and available time increase.

The ideas come from the floor

The employees who do the work will be the ones with the ideas on how to make the organization better — and that’s especially true with the power and capabilities of AI. In my current professional career, I hold both roles. I’m a leader and an employee, so I know firsthand the changes I face, and I can empathize with both sides. As an employee, I can produce ideas and solutions more efficiently, effectively, and capably than ever before. The analytical capabilities of AI save countless hours of inputting, quantifying, charting, and reviewing data. Then another AI in my stack helps me create new proposals and solutions, and pull research from across the internet — producing something I alone could never have completed. (Well, maybe with countless resources I could — but not as polished.)

As the employee, it will be my role and responsibility to communicate those solutions, ideas, and analysis to my leadership in a way that adds value for them directly, with enough context and information for decision-making. On the other side is the top-down request — leadership asking for an analysis or a proposal. Those are two key reasons why communication, both up and down, is now more important than ever.

What leadership has to do differently

Encouragement, support, and making sure employees are learning and adapting to the new environment — through training, practice, and access to the right systems. Leaders will also have to decide where to spend their resources and which AI systems to use. I separate those into five categories: generative, predictive/analytics, classification/recommendation, speech/vision, and automation/agents. As someone in a leadership role, I had to step back and look at the organization from a very high, strategic, and holistic view. That’s where I started — then I slowly worked my way down to the core functions my organization needs.

Once I understood the who, what, where, when, and why of the organization, I could start to plan. With so many options, systems, and opportunities, my capabilities, experience, and gut feeling are going to play a significant role. Leadership is going to have to make more decisive decisions and prioritize the most important goals of the organization — now that so many people have the capabilities for change, ideas, solutions, and opportunities.

The leader’s job is now judgment

With information everywhere and everyone able to act, the scarce thing is judgment: which goals matter most, and the decisiveness to pick them. The old structures and leadership styles will still be there — but changed, altered to fit a more knowledgeable, capable, efficient, and productive system. That’s if everything goes to plan.

If this sounds like your team, book a free 30-minute fit call and we’ll look at one workflow together to see if AI is a fit.