Blog Posts
Navigating the Three C’s of Effective Remote Leadership
Remote leaders often wonder what the most important skills are for leading virtual team members to drive results and keep …
AI has the potential to change the way we work forever. For some of us, this is an exciting possibility; for others, it is frightening. Either way, it is an undeniable truth. We need to adapt to prepare for this future. However, adapting doesn’t mean we need to throw out everything we know. Many of the qualities that make a good leader today will be the difference in rising to the occasion to lead an AI-enabled workforce. The best leadership practices are ones that can be molded to meet the needs of any situation.
The Situational Leadership® Model is the most successful and widely adopted leadership training model available. It’s guided leaders through the past 55 years of change. It breaks down the leadership process into four simple steps. When understood fully, these four steps prepare a leader for any circumstance. Here’s what these steps involve and how they can be adapted to this new world of AI.
In short, this step is about knowing exactly what you are leading your team member for. It might be a task, such as “reviewing AI-generated content for accuracy,” or it can be a skill like “critical thinking,” which can then be used in a variety of AI-related tasks.
AI has the potential to enable people to complete many more tasks in their day-to-day. In many cases, it might be the AI itself completing the task and individuals managing and reviewing those outputs. Given the increased speed of work, leading individuals for every one of their tasks is inefficient. These tasks will change too often, and there will always be new tasks. There’s simply not enough time in the day for a leader to be involved at this level of development.
Instead, skill development will become more critical than ever. Skills can be applied across a variety of tasks, and there are new skills that people need today to effectively and safely leverage AI. Some of these include:
This step is all about understanding an individual’s current ability and willingness to complete a task or use a skill. In other words, are they currently demonstrating the skill, and do they want to?
Let’s look at ability first. It’s important to know that there is a key difference between ability and capability. “Are they,” refers to ability. “Can they,” refers to capability. These are not interchangeable and can lead to extremely different results. When your team members have AI at their fingertips, it’s more important than ever to understand this difference. In many ways, AI expands what we’re capable of. It gives us unprecedented ability to generate information that sounds right. However, AI is not a replacement for true ability or expertise.
In this way, AI might make it more difficult to understand where your performers are at developing a skill, which is why it’s more important than ever that leaders can ask the right questions to diagnose Performance Readiness®. Some questions you might ask to probe further into someone’s ability might be:
Now let’s look at willingness. Willingness can be driven by confidence, commitment or motivation. When it comes to AI-related tasks, the first question we need to consider is whether our team members are willing to use AI in general. There is a lot of uncertainty around AI and some people still fear that it will replace them. Make sure you take the time to truly understand whether your team members are confident, committed or motivated to work in this new ecosystem. Facilitate open and honest conversations where they can share their concerns and apprehension or their excitement and confidence.
Once you know where your team members are starting with their ability and willingness for the specific task or skill, you can use this knowledge to inform your leadership approach. There are four leadership styles determined by different levels of direction or support needed.
As you develop skills in your team members that prepare them for AI-powered tasks, you will need to flex between each of these leadership styles.
You can also leverage AI to practice your leadership approach! You can use AI tools such as ChatGPT as a testing ground by describing the situation and asking it to role-play as the person you are trying to lead. Remember, these AI tools are not experts in leadership, so it’s important not to rely on them for advice and guidance but rather as a starting point for self-reflection.
This step represents the ongoing practice of leadership. Just because someone reaches an expert level at a specific skill doesn’t mean they will stay that way forever. Performance is always changing as the tools we use and the settings we use them in evolve. As AI tools evolve, you will need to stay attuned to your team members’ needs as their skills develop and regress. This is a changing frontier, and we’re still learning best practices. Regular check-ins are an important part of “managing the movement.” Ask your team members how their new skills are supporting their work or where you can provide further support or direction.
The Situational Leadership® Model is one example of how tried and true leadership skills can be adapted to today’s workplace challenges. Eventually, AI will be a normal part of everyone’s everyday work, the way the internet is now. Then there will be another new technology or innovation that drives the next wave of major change. That’s why it’s important to invest in leadership training that is evergreen and prepares your leaders for the future, even when we don’t know what that future holds. Take the next step in developing leaders who can adapt and thrive in any environment. Learn more about our Situational Leadership® Essentials course for mastering the Situational Leadership® Model today—and see how the right leadership training can strengthen and safeguard your team for whatever lies ahead.
