Nick Leighton, CEO and bestselling author. Exactly Where You Want to Be – guiding leaders in business growth and AI strategy.
Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming the way leaders approach their organizations, automating everything from data analysis to scheduling. This technological shift is liberating leaders from tedious operational work, but it also introduces new challenges. By leaning too heavily on algorithms for critical decisions, leaders lose the critical core human qualities that build trust and drive innovation.
This isn’t just a hypothetical concern. It’s a direct threat to the very essence of effective leadership, particularly when it comes to keeping employees engaged and motivated.
I recently coached a founder-CEO who had enthusiastically implemented AI across their business. But the feedback from their leadership team was clear: People felt like they were working for the tech, not with it. Through our sessions, the CEO rebalanced their use of AI by carving out time for weekly team check-ins that focused on emotional dynamics, not metrics. The cultural turnaround was almost immediate.
Multiple international studies over the years have shown that countries with shorter workweeks can outperform peers on productivity per capita (for further reading, try the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)). The message for leaders is that working effectively provides a better competitive advantage than working longer hours.
While AI will continue to push productivity, leaders need to balance this with a focus on the human side of leadership, allowing them to blend technological advantage with irreplaceable human qualities.
1. Delegate, Don’t Disengage
AI is a powerful tool for delegation. It can analyze vast datasets, generate reports and identify trends in seconds. Leveraging AI can free up valuable time to focus on high-impact human activities like mentoring, fostering key relationships and brainstorming the next big idea. However, it’s critical that leaders don’t lean too heavily on AI and become disengaged from strategic planning and decision-making.
When faced with a major strategic decision, take a moment to step away from the screen and think through the problem independently before consulting with AI for the answer. This practice, combined with seeking diverse perspectives from your team, not only improves the final outcome but also demonstrates that you value human input over blind reliance on technology.
2. Supercharge Your Soft Skills
Machines are the perfect tool to handle the “what” and “how” of business operations, but human leaders are best equipped to tackle the “why.” Emotional intelligence, empathy and clear communication are now more critical than ever for inspiring and aligning teams.
AI can provide you with data-driven insights into market trends or financial performance, but it cannot authentically motivate a team through a difficult quarter or mediate a sensitive interpersonal conflict. These moments of human connection and strategic inspiration are where a leader’s true value shines.
Now is the perfect time to invest heavily in soft skill development. This can be accomplished through dedicated leadership training or professional coaching for yourself and your team. By honing these uniquely human capabilities, you become an indispensable resource to bridge technology with human connection and innovation.
3. Use AI To Help You Lead Your Team With Empathy
AI tools can be invaluable for analyzing employee sentiment, processing feedback or identifying burnout signals. Your role as a leader is to act on these insights with genuine human connection and support instead of just reading a dashboard. For example, a system might flag a team member’s declining activity in a project management tool. An AI-led manager might simply assign them more tasks to boost productivity, but a human leader will use that insight as a starting point for a conversation.
One of my clients saw a productivity drop flagged by an AI-powered project tool and was ready to push harder. Instead, they followed our coaching plan and scheduled a face-to-face check-in. It turned out that the team member had just become a caretaker for an elderly parent. That conversation led to a flexible work arrangement that kept the employee engaged—and loyal. AI raised the flag; empathy kept the team intact.
One of the biggest challenges with AI is psychological insecurity among today’s workforce. Many see the potential loss of thousands of jobs. As a leader, it’s critical that you approach these sensitive decisions with compassion and clear communication, not as an impersonal, algorithmically driven process.
4. Redefine Productivity Away From Hours Worked
Historically, productivity has been measured on the standard of the number of hours worked. With AI having the capability to optimize work, output increases.
Traditional productivity metrics simply won’t apply to employees who are effective users of AI. This creates the opportunity for leaders to redefine performance based on value-based indicators that aren’t time-bound. For example, instead of tracking the number of hours marketing spends on creating social media content, you should measure the engagement, reach and business impact of their content. By focusing on these objectives, you can create a more efficient, focused and motivated team.
Leaders are starting to receive top-down pressure to leverage technology to optimize and reduce the size of their teams. You must be prepared to justify the value of your team. By using value-based performance metrics, it’s much easier to demonstrate how the team is able to focus on high-value, creative tasks that wouldn’t be possible otherwise. This new approach to productivity positions your team as a strategic asset rather than a cost center.
5. Embrace Vision-First Leadership
While AI can predict the future by leveraging historical data, only the human mind can create your team’s vision by embracing intuition and imagination. Your role as a leader is to articulate a compelling future and inspire people to build it. The vision must be designed for the company, with AI supporting it, not dictating it. Your job is to paint a picture of where the company is headed, creating a shared purpose that data alone cannot provide.
Final Thoughts
As AI and technology continue to evolve, leaders must not lose sight of what it means to be human. True leadership in this new era is measured not by technological proficiency, but by our ability to leverage AI’s power to create time.
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