Employability & Partnerships Manager, Pippa Mclernon shares the key takeaways from two courses on leadership.
I’ve recently attended a couple of bitesize courses on leadership and the importance of human leadership skills in the AI era. Both of these came from Mindtools, the University Managers & Leaders toolkit. I thought the takeaways are interesting and relevant for all of us!
What is leadership? Key takeaways
- Leadership is complex and evolving
- Leaders set directions and help themselves and others do the right thing to move forward
- To do this they create an inspiring vision, then motivate others to achieve it. They also manage delivery of the vision, either directly or indirectly, and build and coach their teams to make them ever stronger. They're flexible, work well in a team, and adapt to their circumstances.
- Effective leadership is not limited by management roles, personality traits or hierarchy. Instead, good leaders embody expert power, credibility, trust, authenticity, and team building
- Effective leadership is about all of this, and it's exciting to be part of the journey!
Replaced by AI - a conversation with Emmanuel Gobillot
Here's a summary and key points of what the podcast episode covered. If you have 35 minutes to spare, I'd recommend taking a listen to Pain Points Podcast: Replaced by AI?
- AI has highlighted a lot of issues with bad leadership that were already there (e.g. overfocus on efficiency at the expense of impact, meaning, influence)
- It's important right now to focus on regaining our agency (not giving it away to AI)
- We also need to rediscover meaning and better understand our worth
- There is a lot of value for leaders in confidence and certainty
- When it comes to AI implementation, leaders need to constantly be asking these questions: Is this right? Is this ethical? Is this accountable?
- You cannot as a leader, engage staff on the basis of output alone
- AI can be useful if used well, but in the end it cannot make a decision any better than a human can. If leaders outsource their decision-making power to AI, they will have to live with the consequences of that (sometimes unintended)
- Ethics is a very high-risk area for leaders, because of the inherent bias built into AI tools
- We should all remember the ‘human hand’ behind AI tools – in terms of the decision-making process that has gone into the design. AI tools are not purely neutral machines, as they are often presented. There is always a human behind it.
- Following on from the above, AI tools are designed to ‘mirror our thinking’ – designed to please. This can easily become problematic as AI is not capable of nuance, meaning or true understanding.
- It is important to protect the human side of work. The workplace has become very dehumanised over time. Some jobs will eventually be replaced by AI, but for many jobs it will not be possible to replace them.
- In customer service roles, increasingly removing the human interface is going to create a significant pain point. It’s not necessarily the most effective option.
- Remember that like any technology, AI does have a cost and ultimately an environmental impact (e.g. large-scale data centres and all the associated resources involved to run them). Not therefore logical to just assume it’s the best option.
- The impact of AI is huge, but the danger is also huge. Don’t be swayed by the loudest voices – they will only be giving one particular viewpoint. Always employ critical thinking and ask questions (see below) when reviewing suggestions or updates in this arena.
Key questions for leaders (when it comes to AI)
The WHY is so important. A lot of people are not asking these questions which is concerning:
- Why are we doing this?
- What or who are we doing this for?
- What problems are we trying to solve?
- Where do we NOT need AI be involved?
Key values and skills leaders need now (that AI doesn't have)
- Creativity - we must be more creative in thinking about what we can contribute as humans. There is, and always will be, a definite human advantage.
- Compassion – understanding yourself; understanding others.
- Moral courage – AI cannot discern on matters that are moral and ethical in nature and this is a high risk area (see more on this above).
- Agency – we must seize our agency, have the courage to be ‘you’. Be fully human.
- Intuition – a definite human advantage that AI cannot possibly have, no matter how it’s designed.
- Curiosity & critical thinking – we must go in with our eyes open, understanding the benefits AND the dangers in equal measure.
- Being ‘comfortable in your own skin’ – understanding your skills and where you add value. Being truly yourself and being fully human. This is ultimately very freeing and the people who do this well will stand out and succeed.
