Decision Making, Ethics and Bias in AI Leadership
Every role is ripe for disruption in the broadening world of generative AI. Everyone is asking themselves how will my role be different going forward? Many are asking if they will even have a role in this new world order. Leaders are no different. The leadership landscape has significantly evolved in response to the AI revolution, impacting various aspects of organizational management and decision-making.
Data Driven Decision Making:
Let?s start with the obvious: data driven decision making. While using data to help make decisions is an old concept, data driven decision making frameworks didn?t materialize until the early 2000?s. With the ever increasing amount of data, these frameworks provide strong structure around incorporating data into the decision making process. With the advent of generative AI, these frameworks are all the more critical. With the explosion of data and ease of accessing and consolidating, thanks to generative AI, leaders need to understand their own DDDM process. If you don?t have one, then you will be left behind.
Ethics and Upskilling:
Moving on to one of the most important changes in leadership in a post generative AI world, the ethical implications of AI in the workplace. For businesses generating AI models, there are many considerations on biases, accuracy, liability, safety, etc, however, we are more interested in the ethics for leaders consuming AI. The obvious question, what level of automation and staff reduction should coincide with this new advancement in technology? Should anyone be automated out of a job?
I recently sat on a fight with a person whose job was writing table of contents. When I asked about the autogenerating ToC features in Microsoft word, she was dumbfounded. The ability to automate her job has been around for half a decade and she had no idea. Should her role still exist? It?s a tough question to answer for any leader but here are my thoughts. Job reduction through automation has been accelerating at an increasing pace for centuries. We now sit in a world with one of the tightest labor markets in history. Automation does not mean reduced headcount. It does mean a change in roles.
With our current speed of innovation if you do not study anything new, your skills will be entirely outdated within 2 years. That?s a staggering number. That means the most important thing for leaders in this new world is upskilling and reskilling employees. This table of contents writer doesn?t need to be let go. She can write other things. She can proof read and complete 10-100x the number of table of contents she once could.
This same speed of change also affects leaders directly. Their own skills will be outdated in the same timeframe. So leaders, like everyone else, must be reskilling. Leaders will need to be both a user and owner of reskilling within an organization. The AI era demands leaders who are not only tech-savvy but also adaptable, continuous learners. They need to stay abreast of emerging AI trends and technologies and understand how these can be integrated into their business strategies.
Bias in Algorithms:
Leaders will also need to understand AI and machine learning well enough to understand inherent biases introduced into such systems. If you are a leader and do not know the differences between things like false positives, false negatives and the correlation in algorithm accuracy between the two, you are going to struggle with bias in this new world. Statistics and machine learning will grow in usage in the board room and leaders will need to have basic levels of understanding to continue having value in their roles.
Increased Efficiency and Productivity:
Like all roles, AI will increase the productivity of leaders. AI tools and automation have streamlined many routine tasks, allowing leaders to focus on the more strategic aspects of their roles. With routine tasks being automated, leaders are increasingly focusing on fostering innovation and creativity within their teams, encouraging out-of-the-box thinking and novel approaches.
AI's predictive and generative capabilities will further be used for scenario planning and crisis management, helping leaders to anticipate potential challenges and prepare more effectively. Leaders will be able to better determine the most likely scenarios and produce more robust plans faster. This will lead to further productivity gains within an organization as strong plans will be in place for the most likely market scenarios.
Emphasis on Human-Centric Leadership:
Despite the technological focus of generative AI, there's a growing emphasis on human-centric leadership, prioritizing empathy, emotional intelligence, and employee well-being alongside technological advancements. Leaders in this new world order will not only need the technical prowess to understand and maneuver in the increasingly technical world but also have increased emotional intelligence to guide their employees in this constantly changing environment. Change management will just become management so we will need to make our employees comfortable in a continuously changing landscape.