52% of CEOs are exploring the benefits of humans and machines working together, and 39% are considering the impact of AI on their future skills needs. Even as knowledge workers are fearful of losing their jobs to AI, many are already augmenting AI in their everyday work lives to stay relevant.
These technologies unlock critical human skills, including problem-solving, leadership, EQ, empathy, and creativity. The future of work demands the prioritization of these power skills.
So, the question in front of learning leaders is: how can we best enable humans to build these essential human skills?
Offering virtual and classroom courses is not enough. Employees need to build these skills over time and learn to recognize when to pivot and when to apply a new framework to enhance their soft skills.
Coaching as a framework has been a part of improving workplace performance – especially as part of the performance management process. But today, the power skills needed for leadership are not just restricted to senior management.
We are already seeing the rise of a coaching culture in performance management, which equips people to enhance their leadership and behavioral skills.
Because today’s diverse workforce demands an enabling work culture centered around Coaching and learning, these ‘softer’ aspects are not only a ‘good to have’ but a ‘must have.’ Coaching is a powerful tool to elevate the employee experience, primarily when the human workforce works with the machine workforce.
AI and People
Despite the advent of machines, one constant remains—employees’ desire to feel valued, respected, and appreciated by their organizations, regardless of where and how they work. Employees want better learning avenues and career advancement opportunities and wish to invest in their growth. Gen AI can create personalized learning content and learning journeys, but human impetus shall continue to drive on-the-ground learner engagement, transfer of learning, and learning impact.
Hence, the right organizational leadership is critical to helping people achieve their best and driving high performance and productivity. Here is how.
AI and Its Impact on Leaders and Leadership
Leaders must be exceptional in multifaceted decision-making—bringing the vision and strategy to life, developing technology infrastructure, resource allocation, attracting and retaining the best talent, upskilling the workforce, managing change, and much more. As work increasingly happens at the cusp of human intelligence and machine intelligence, leaders’ roles are evolving from traditional decision-makers to visionary orchestrators of human-machine collaboration.
The following are the benefits of artificial intelligence for leaders:
Predict Future Business Outcomes: By continuously leveraging the power of data, companies can improve accuracy, reduce errors, and optimize operations, leading to better outcomes and increased profitability.
Talent Development: AI is increasingly becoming integral to leadership development by helping learning and development professionals and HR professionals identify the essential skills and qualities that make successful leaders. AI-powered leadership development programs can help organizations identify, assess, and develop the best candidates for leadership positions. They offer the advantages of increased engagement, improved organizational results, and greater accuracy in determining potential leaders.
Coach Employees: Communication and collaboration are essential for effective change management. AI can help analyze data from employee surveys and performance reviews and gain insights to design tailored talent development strategies and targeted coaching interventions. Such data-driven Coaching can help aspiring leaders reach their full potential.
Coaching Leaders: AI can help leaders gain insights into their performance and behaviors by curating personalized coaching journeys suited to their leadership style. For example, automated feedback systems can help leaders identify areas of improvement. AI-powered digital coaching platforms and tools are the next step in providing personalized guidance and coaching for leadership development. It can even enhance power skills like self-awareness and reflection, improve decision-making, and enhance empathy.
AI has emerged as a transformative force in the business landscape. It presents leaders with new opportunities to increase competitiveness and growth and allows organizations to develop leaders more effectively and efficiently. The future may see the rise of AI coaches—AI-powered tools that provide focused, personalized, scalable, and cost-effective leadership development coaching.
Amidst these ingenious possibilities, it is essential to note that the AI advantage is not without its threats and risks.
Creating the New-Age Digital Leader
Ethical concerns around AI abound—data privacy, bias, and transparency. Another leadership priority is the need to reskill the workforce for an AI-driven future. As a result, new-age leaders must possess a nuanced understanding of AI technologies and their implications for their businesses and society at large. To begin, leaders must be willing to invest in collecting and processing the correct data and build adequate data infrastructure to make AI more robust and accurate.
The advantages of AI for leadership are real but realizing these calls for increasing AI literacy for leaders. Leaders must study and understand AI deeply to navigate its risks from an ethical, data, and regulatory perspective. They must also build AI skills across the organization. Building digital literacy is a prerequisite to reaping the benefits of AI. It equips one’s people with AI skills and drives AI adoption.
Way Ahead
At the core, contemporary leaders must champion a culture of innovation and experimentation, fostering collaboration between humans and machines to drive sustainable growth and positive social impact.
Artificial systems will become the trusted advisor to the C-level executive and will be the ones to provide indisputable, data-driven insights. Communicating with transparency is a crucial way to establish trust and efficiency in this journey of AI enablement. Transparency is essential for the AI that guides and supports leadership, but it will also be crucial if the AI will lead people. This is not because machines could replace leaders in the foreseeable future. Nevertheless, the difference between leadership that uses AI as a source of information and leadership that AI drives is very blurred.
Organizations can realize AI’s positive impact on leadership only when leaders themselves can inspire and mobilize teams toward a shared vision of digital transformation.
Watch here how Coaching is changing the learning ecosystem in India.
Sources:
1. https://hbr.org/2023/09/reskilling-in-the-age-of-ai
2. https://hbr.org/2024/06/how-ai-can-make-make-us-better-leaders#:~:text=AI%20can%20both%20make%20leaders,how%20they%20make%20people%20feel.&text=Humans%20have%20always%20been%20better,big%20changes%20these%20tools%20cause.
3. https://www.forbes.com/sites/karadennison/2023/03/14/the-impact-of-artificial-intelligence-on-leadership-how-to-leverage-ai-to-improve-decision-making/
4. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2024/05/ai-is-changing-the-shape-of-leadership-how-can-business-leaders-prepare/
5. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/jobs/mid-career/leadership-empowerment-in-the-ai-era-strategies-for-success-from-isb/articleshow/108577880.cms?from=mdr
6. https://trainingindustry.com/articles/leadership/understanding-the-role-of-ai-in-leadership-development/
7. https://www.iese.edu/executive-education/leadership-ai-strategies/
8. https://journalofbusiness.org/index.php/GJMBR/article/view/102724/1-The-Impact-of-AI-on-Leadership_JATS_NLM_xml
9. https://elearningindustry.com/navigating-the-future-how-ai-amplifies-executive-coaching-benefits
10. https://www.forbesindia.com/blog/technology/how-ai-coaches-are-transforming-leadership-in-tech-companies/#:~:text=AI%20Coaches%20in%20Leadership%20Development&text=These%20AI%2Dpowered%20tools%20utilise,leadership%20effectiveness%20and%20organisational%20performance.
11. Workforce of the Future: The Competing Forces Shaping 2030, PwC