Can AI Be Useful for Leaders?
Artificial intelligence (AI) is everywhere—your team members likely already use it to ask questions, manage schedules and complete daily tasks personally and professionally. As a leader, you are always looking for ways to improve. With a growing number of organizations adopting AI-powered tools, it may be time to consider how artificial intelligence can be applied to leadership.
The Rise of AI in the Workplace
According to a 2024 Gallup poll, about a third of employees involved in production, healthcare, administration and white-collar work have integrated AI into their regular business practices. As it continues to grow and become more optimized and accurate, that statistic is only expected to increase. Still, many people have shied away from using it—especially in professional settings—largely due to concerns about its privacy and security as well as a lack of familiarity with the technology.
The Most Common Uses of AI at Work
Current use of AI in leadership tends to center around automation, generation and organization. Here are some of the most common ways leaders incorporate AI into their work:
- Decision-making support: While a computer can’t make a decision for you, it can accelerate your decision-making process by providing insights to support your thinking and narrowing down options based on what you’re looking for. AI pulls from perspectives across the internet, allowing you to get a fuller picture.
- Communication: Chatbots and auto-responses are great troubleshooting tools, both internally and in client-facing scenarios. The right AI program can offer guidance so you can provide in-depth answers to questions about workflow, products and projects, freeing you up to handle more complex requests.
- Scheduling: Creating a schedule can feel like trying to solve a complex equation, and it’s in areas like this where AI truly shines. Simply enter your data for upcoming meetings or events, and let your AI assistant handle the rest. It can even create sample schedules or handle client scheduling to reduce mistakes.
- Note–taking: Some people find note-taking helpful during meetings, but others see it as a distraction. When you have AI taking notes, you can focus fully on the conversation and refer back to specific quotes in the future.
The Benefit-Risk Analysis of Using AI as a Leader
With the right prompts, AI can eliminate repetitive tasks from your workflow, provide you with new ideas and even centralize and analyze your data. Some of the greatest benefits leaders using AI may see include:
- Boosting productivity: As the ability to automate tasks is one of the top benefits of using AI at work, it is no surprise that one of the greatest benefits people cite is increased efficiency and productivity. Depending on your responsibilities, you can save hours every week with AI, allowing you to focus more on connecting with team members personally to increase engagement and drive performance.
- Improving team knowledge: Using AI in leadership trickles down—when you have your workflow organized and supported, you have more time to work with your team. For many leaders, recognizing the benefits of AI in their own work is the push they need to incorporate it into their teams’ workflows and training programs, ensuring they have every tool available to help them succeed.
- Discovering new perspectives: When you ask your team or even other leaders for feedback on your work, their response is limited to the knowledge they have and the experiences they remember. Asking AI the same questions can provide extensive answers and resources from an objective viewpoint that may direct you toward actionable methods of improvement.
Still, there are some risks that any AI user should keep in mind:
- Disconnection: Perhaps the most significant downside of using AI as a leader is the potential for disconnection. Many people feel that using AI, especially for communication purposes, delivers superficial results that make it a challenge to connect on a human level. Even people who are unaware that you use AI may be able to recognize when you are, leaving them feeling less valued or important.
- Ethical and privacy concerns: AI continues to be a hot-button topic in the public sphere, largely due to the ethical concerns surrounding it. For example, environmentalists raise concerns about its sustainability. Also, because it is still new and evolving, there are minimal laws surrounding the use of AI data—namely, who can access it and how private it is.
- Accuracy concerns: AI is learning new information every day, but it doesn’t always get it right. Hallucinations should be one of the largest concerns of anyone who uses AI. Instead of providing factual answers to questions, it may give you incorrect or fabricated information. When you use AI in the workplace, you should be sure to fact-check any content it delivers.
For many organizations, the risks are well worth the rewards of improved workflow and learning capabilities, while others remain hesitant. Ultimately, whether you use AI, and how much of it you use, is a personal decision only you can make. If you are leaning toward incorporating AI into your workflow, make sure you do so with the critical skills leaders need to navigate this ever-evolving tool through our e-book.
Become a Future-Ready Leader With CLS
Today, AI is the leading disruptor, but tomorrow’s may be something entirely different. Technology is always evolving, but early adoption can help you and other leaders in your organization stay ahead.
That said, new technology won’t replace the human-centered skills required to lead others and build relationships. That’s where our Situational Leadership® Essentials course comes in.
The Situational Leadership® Essentials course teaches leaders how to match their leadership style to each employee’s needs for specific tasks. The course emphasizes active listening, clear communication and other human-centered skills to build genuine connections and foster trust.
Sign up for the Situational Leadership® Essentials course today or reach out to our team to learn how The Center for Leadership Studies (CLS) can help you create a future-ready workforce.
