The emergence of artificial intelligence has left multidimensional effects on companies across the globe. Leading corporations in a post-AI world initiate quick learning and exploitation of organisational knowledge as senior managers anticipate future needs and build collective support and understanding to respond to new trends.
Many CEOs consider the success of artificial intelligence as something which only requires investment in the field of technology and deny the importance of leadership. But there is a change in the leadership style, followed by the emergence of new conceptual skills that will drastically change business models. Artificial intelligence will enable businesses to predict the future and this will be, and already has been, a competitive advantage.
Artificial intelligence has not come to replace humans, but to improve human capabilities.
Big and multinational companies such as Google, Apple, Alibaba, Tesla, and Toyota, which happen to be among the most successful companies in the development of artificial intelligence, have increasingly focused on the leadership aspect of artificial intelligence. These companies have realised that the leadership aspect of artificial intelligence cannot be outsourced, and leadership tasks cannot be left to algorithms and robots. The integration of leadership and automation requires abandoning aspects of traditional leadership and moving towards a new leadership style called adaptive intellectual leadership.
Four key pillars of adaptive intellectual leadership
Adaptive intellectual leadership is forming as we encounter artificial intelligence. As Denise Rousseau, professor at Carnegie Mellon University, and the founder of Evidence-Based Management Collaborative teaching and practice, once mentioned in an Academy of Management meeting: “If you do not love the goals that you have then love the goals that you are near.” The nearest goal for executives today is to embrace the clutches of artificial intelligence.
At first, they may face fear and insecurity, but accepting this challenge and change is necessary to enter the age of artificial intelligence. Many CEOs set high goals for their businesses and human resource divisions and attempt to motivate them to achieve the goals. Leading in a world of artificial intelligence requires a focus on the integration of AI into those broad technology domains, followed by better training and development. In fact, this leadership style relies heavily on the phrase that Farshad Asl, leadership expert, mentioned in his book. He argues that our mind is powerful, we need to think bigger, we need to dream bigger, we need to act bigger, because we can create a much bigger version of our lives when we embrace artificial intelligence. This leadership style should include four key pillars:
Developing an inverted organisational pyramid
Leading in artificial intelligence requires a contrast from the traditional pyramid hierarchy. Ken Blanchard, one of the best scholarly practitioners of leadership, argued that leadership is not something you do to people, it’s something you do with people.
Fostering a learning culture
The newly equipped leader in the artificial intelligence age will have to expand the culture of learning, trust in the organisation and use a trickle-down leadership strategy that reaches everyone in the value chain. In order to do this, the CEO and C-Suite must be fully trained in the nuances of AI, and then provide training workshops for other employees as well as for the customers and suppliers along the value chain. Through these workshops, CEOs will help develop the learning process and trust throughout the organization.
Building multidisciplinary teams
The AI concern is nothing new, robots have been threatening humans for decades. Thus, many employees resist change due to fear of being replaced. The visual disappearance of toll-booth personnel leaves an imprint in workers’ minds that they will be next to be usurped. Does this replacement mean removing humans from the future business model? The answer to this question is “no.” The main reason that AI cannot replace humans is the fact that humans have adaptability while AI may be limited in its adaptability. The cooperation between humans and artificial intelligence leads to improved analytics. AI and humans working together can provide better ideas to solve organisational problems. Workplaces need to create extraordinary synergy between humans and artificial intelligence by developing multidisciplinary teamwork skills for their workforce.
Developing an AI strategy
CEOs who seek to develop artificial intelligence skills may become highly capable strategists. Success in the age of artificial intelligence is highly dependent on being continuously engaged with the organisation’s external environment. CEOs must incorporate artificial intelligence into their organizational strategy and use various digital tools to develop their continuous engagement with the external environment to maximise their agility in response to environmental threats and opportunities. Embracing an artificial intelligence strategy also encourages higher goals that set the precedent of acquiring and storing knowledge in a knowledge-management database.
by Mostafa Sayyadi and Michael Provitera
Source: peoplemanagement.co.uk
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