It is tempting to regard artificial intelligence as a threat to human leadership. After all, the very purpose of AI is to augment, improve, and ultimately replace human intelligence, which is still widely regarded, at least by us humans, as our key competitive advantage. There is no reason to believe that leadership will be spared the impact of AI. Indeed, it is very likely that AI will supplant many aspects of the “hard” elements of leadership — that is, the parts responsible for the raw cognitive processing of facts and information. At the same time, our prediction is that AI will also lead to a greater emphasis on the “soft” elements of leadership — the personality traits, attitudes, and behaviors that allow individuals to help others achieve a common goal or shared purpose.
As AI Makes More Decisions, the Nature of Leadership Will Change
It’s tempting to regard artificial intelligence as a threat to human leadership. After all, the very purpose of AI is to augment, improve, and ultimately replace human intelligence, which is still widely regarded — at least by us humans — as our key competitive advantage. There is no reason to believe that leadership will be spared the impact of AI. Research suggests that, in an AI age characterized by intense disruption and rapid, ambiguous change, we need to rethink the essence of effective leadership. Certain qualities, such as deep domain expertise, decisiveness, authority, and short-term task focus, are losing their cachet, while others, such as humility, adaptability, vision, and constant engagement, are likely to play a key role in more-agile types of leadership.