The other day, a client asked how much AI impacts my work as a leadership consultant and trainer.
I rather flippantly answered, “Well, no one leads the AI bot!”
And that’s true. Leaders don’t lead bots as if they were humans. But they do need to understand how AI is impacting the humans they lead.
They need to recognize that all the issues that usually arise around change – resistance, anxiety, and, yes, excitement and curiosity – are exponentially more with all the questions about how AI will be used and what it will mean for the humans.
When we compound that with the current economic insecurity and job-market instability, it just gets – well – compounded. As in, a whole lot more. Again, more. Lots of more!
You, the leader, feel all this too. So you’ve got to lead yourself through it as well as your people.
I wish I could give you a magical mantra or a virtual magic wand to help you and your people manage the disruption. But change at this level is a capital-B capital-D Big Deal, and there’s no simple way through (and definitely no way around). You have to “do it to get through it,” as the saying goes.
There are no easy answers. There will be pain and difficult decisions. And perhaps that’s the first step forward: acknowledging this, to yourself and to your team.
I will say, though, that it doesn’t surprise me at all that fewer and fewer people are saying they want to take the step into management and leadership.
NOTES:
This may help a bit: my Resistance Monsters handout is here (no email or other fee required).
Photo credit: Pavel Danilyuk: https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-robot-holding-a-wine-8439094/