How to Lead in the Age of AI — Without Losing the Human Touch

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Transcript

 Hey everyone, and welcome back to another leadership episode. Today's topic, I think is very timely and it's something every leader needs to be thinking about. Right now we're talking about AI not from a tech heavy angle, and definitely not from a fear.

Headlines that you might see in the news and social media.   We're talking about how to lead well in the age of AI without losing the human touch or your leadership voice.  So we're gonna dive into five considerations that I think can help you and I. As we lead well with ai, not against it,  the first consideration that we should take into account is the common leadership trap. The false choice between people or technology  Leaders are asking, do we automate this or do we hire someone?

Uh, will AI replace my team? Should I be scared or excited?  Well, here's the truth. It's not an either or. It's an and great leadership lives in the and not the either or.  Yes, AI will replace certain tasks, roles, and even entire job functions, but that's not the core purpose.  AI exists to augment people, not erase them, to reduce busy work, enhance insights, and to free us up to do what only humans can do, build relationships, solve complex problems, and drive innovation.

 So let's revisit those questions. Do we automate this or do we hire someone? The answer is probably both, actually,  many. Repeat repetitive tasks can and should be automated, but we still need humans to manage those automations and decide what shouldn't be automated, not just what should. This isn't new.

We've used software to streamline work for decades. AI is simply the next step in that evolution.   The next question is, will AI replace my team? Well, maybe if your team only builds spreadsheets or creates basic design assets, then yes, AI will or probably will replace some of those outputs.

 But the real opportunity is to elevate your team's work. Instead of just producing content, they now evaluate it. Guide it and make higher level decisions about aesthetics, strategy, and impact. So what does that look like? Well, if you've been using AI recently, you already know that it's very fast defining information, information, checking facts.

Creating tool, cool graphics to use in what seems like no time at all. It's really, really fast. However, even with that elevated output, you still have to, it still has to be checked for aesthetics, accuracy, and application. Just producing something to produce something is not useful.   And I really do believe elevate is the key word here right now.

Elevate, not replace.  Next time you're working on a project, try typing something into AI along the lines of, I'm working on this project, listed out, here's my key points. My desired outcome, and here's my plan. How would you elevate this? To be honest, I think you'll be surprised and possibly amazed at what you'll get in return, including questions that sharpen your thinking.

 The next question is, should I be scared or excited? Well, neither extreme is helpful. Let's be honest. Fear is paralyzing and hype can be misleading. Many people are hyping it up. Even if your current job could be done with ai, your knowledge. Judgment and insights remain incredibly valuable.   I'm a leadership coach, and yes, you could type in your leadership question into chat GPT, and it would give you a solid answer.

I'm sure it will, but even an elevated one. Could come out of Ja, GPT, but it can't think, it can't know you. It doesn't know your situation, your facial expressions, your tone, your voice. It doesn't know your context of what's behind your frustration. It's just going to ask you key questions. So yes, some people will use AI instead of human coach.

But they'll likely have limited success, and the answers they receive are in a vacuum. What I mean by that is, in other words, they can have no confidence that the advice that they're given will actually work until they process it with a human by trying it out, adjusting and trying it again. It's just a fact.

AI is here to help not take over.   As leaders, we should embrace the tools that help us better, but never become fully, totally dependent on them.  Use AI to elevate your work, but don't just copy and paste. Read it, study it, question it. Learn from it, and I, you will emphasize question it. AI will give you information, but it's not always accurate.

Question it for me. This means I'm encouraged by what AI can bring, but I'm committed to not becoming so dependent on it that I stop thinking and leading.  Because as a leader, your job isn't to choose between tech and people. It's to make tech work for people.  The second consideration is why AI fails in organizations.

Let's be honest, most AI rollouts are failing at this point. Not because the tech is bad, but because the leadership is missing, more specifically, clear communication is missing.  Here's what's really happening. Leaders by tools before defining the problem, teams aren't trained or brought into the process.

People feel blindsided or overwhelmed, and most critically, no one talks about how to. How this change will affect the employee experience. That's one of the most important things. Here's reality.   If your team doesn't understand why a tool's being introduced or how it will help them, they're not going to adopt it, and if they don't adopt it, you've wasted your investment.

 This doesn't just apply to ai. Most of you listening have been part of a rollout that's failed. I mean, probably many rollouts that have failed not because of bad intent, but because of poor planning, poor communication. And no buy-in. So let's rewind. When computers first came out to the workplace, many of you don't know when that happened, but there was a time when there was not computers.

Some companies spent thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousand dollars just to use them as a typewriter. Why? Well, it's 'cause they didn't know what the full capacity was, but they wanted to be cutting edge. That's like buying a NASCAR car to drive around the neighborhood. Powerful tool, minimal impact.

You're going to impress your neighbors because you got a really cool car that you spend a lot of money on, but like companies did with computers, we're buying something but we not. Maybe to impress people, but we are not using them to their capacity. We wanna get past that impact stage. The same is happening with ai.

We don't even fully understand all the ways that AI will integrate into work daily. So yes, let's jump in. Test tools explore, but just like any project success depends on clear communication, strong planning, and intentional rollout.   Here's some project basics to check. Have you researched how this tool will be used in your context?

Have you defined tra the training needs and the hidden costs? Do you have a timeline and a feedback loop? And lastly, is there a trial period and a point person in charge?  If not, like any project, you're unprepared and that means you'll waste time and money. So you may not be ready for AI integration yet.

 The third consideration, which I think is important, the number one skill you need to lead with AI humility.  You might think leading in the age of AI is all about. Tech experience, you gotta get your tech skills in place.

I don't think so. Although though that does help the most important leadership skill right now with AI is humility. It ties back to the second point. Treat AI like you would any new tool, bring your team into the process. Humility to ask. I don't know how this works. Can you walk me through it? Humility to ask.

What do you need to feel confident using this? And then humility to suggest, let's test this together before we scale. Here's a simple phrase you can use with your team.   I know the business, you know the work. AI might know productivity better, so let's figure this out together.  Humility doesn't mean indecisiveness.

It means asking the right questions before you ask. Here's a quick planning tool to help you with this.  Create a simple worksheet. With four sections, one concerns I have about ai. Two. Dream about cases that you could use AI at in your industry or in your business. Three, how will test or prototype these ideas?

And then number four, how I'll invol, how involved my team in the process.  Humility builds trust. And it prevents expensive mistakes.  The fourth consideration your employee's experience is your product. Think about that.  Here's a leadership mindset for you. Your employee experience is a product as you are constantly designing it, whether you mean to or not.

Every tool. Every workflow, every system delivers an experience for your employees and how your team feels about that experience determines whether they adopt it or resist it  if they feel valued, equipped, supported. You build trust and performance,  but if they feel unseen, untrained, or overwhelmed, even the best tech is going to fail.

 So try this with your leadership team. Assign someone to give a 30 minute intro to AI session with your leadership team.

Demo one AI tool that could help your team, whether it's uh, notion ai, grammarly chat, GPT, doesn't matter. Just pick one and then ask, which part of your job could this help with? What would make it easier to try? Bridge the gap. Don't just toss in software.

 And the fifth consideration is be a guide, not a magician. AI is not a magic wand and it's actually not a strategy. It's a tool.  You're still the leader and your team doesn't need a magician.

 They need a guide. Someone will, who will communicate clearly, involves them in the process, sets expectation, explains the why. And checks in after and during implementation.  Here's your challenge. Stop asking, how should we use, how should we use ai? And start asking, how do we use AI to make our team stronger?

Let me give you an example of what that could look like.  Something you could do. I will, for example, spend three hours as a leader researching AI tools for our department, use AI to draft a one page summary. Present to my team and ask for feedback. Choose one to two pilot ideas to test next month, and I'll assign a point person to track usage and input.

Reevaluate in 60 days and refine.  That's not magic. It's just continuous improvement as we do with all tools. Here's your next steps for leading well in the age of ai.  One, define the problem first. Don't adopt text just because it's hot. Know the pain points you're solving. Two, bring your team in early before rollout.

Invite feedback. What concerns you? What excites. Three. Simplify the learning curve. Use plain language. Offer one-on-one coaching. CR cheat, create cheat sheets, et cetera, whatever's going to help with the learning curve. Number four, monitor the people impact after implement, after implementation. Ask what's easier, what's harder, what's missing?

And then number five, champion human-centered designs. Any tool you adopt should empower people, not necessarily replace them.  Here's your leadership challenge for this week. Pick one tool or system you use regularly. Ask, what's working well? What's frustrating? What would make this better? Is there an AI feature application that could help use the process above and start building the right balance Today?

I hope this episode added value to your day and made you think more about AI and how to integrate it with your team. If you'd like to leave a comment,  I'd love to hear how are you using AI in your workplace? What are some of the, um, challenges that you've overcome as you begin integrating AI more?

Please hit like and subscribe as well. I'd like to continue to grow this channel. Until next time, I'm Jonathan Hankin, your change agent, coach. Keep questioning, keep growing, and keep leading change.