4 Crucial Skills Leaders Need To Engage Workers

With the influx of AI tools and solutions people are either panicking or they are adapting.

Recently I spoke with an executive in a branding firm who said that they are embracing ChatGPT, DallE and other AI tools.

He said that although AI tools are scary with what they can do – creative output from AI is only as good as the creative inputs expertise of a human.

I have been using ChatGPT 4 for a variety of things and found that the branding executive is right – the better the human prompt the better the AI result.

As a pragmatic optimist I believe that the rise of AI is an opportunity for all of us to be better humans.

In my book, Super.Crucial.Humans. which was published in 2022 I share insights and strategies on how we can leverage these fast changing times for inspiration.

As leaders it is our obligation to be inspirational, to lead change and to model adaptability for our teams.

If you are a leader and you are feeling burned out or frustrated by people it’s likely because you have lost touch with your ‘why’.

Why do you do what you do?

Why did you want to be a leader in the first place?

There are four crucial ‘human’ skills needed to lead yourself and to lead others.

Compassion

Compassion is not the same as sympathy – sympathy is pity for someone’s reality – compassion is empathizing and being present with someones reality.

Having compassion starts with yourself – if you pity yourself then you are in victim mode.

When you have compassion for yourself you accept, and acknowledge your feelings.

Sincere compassion for yourself is the foundation of being able to have compassion for others.

Robots, AI and computers cannot feel compassion therefore they cannot develop solutions that include this skill.

The more we can increase our compassion the more we can humanize our leadership and elevate our impact on others.

Creativity

While many of us may think we are creative the rise of AI reveals that we need to elevate unique human creativity.

Unique human creativity is centered around real time solutions regarding relationships.

For example, as a leader you may have a challenging situation with an employee that requires you to take a new approach.

With hybrid working – many of the traditional leadership approaches no longer work.

Real time creativity is the ability to pivot and to solve inter personal challenges quickly, elegantly and with positive outcomes.

Conscious Communication

At the very least leaders need to have baseline communication skills.

Baseline communication skills includes assertive communication, negotiation skills and conflict management skills.

Conscious communication requires elevated abilities to leverage intuition, heightened ability to read behavior cues and ability to adapt to diverse personalities.

Again, AI and robots cannot communicate with emotional intelligence. AI and robots are logical – they replicate the logical mind.

Collaboration

Leaders who can collaborate with multiple stakeholders will win the future.

In the past a leader may have felt that the only person they need to please is their boss or their board or their shareholders.

In today’s and the future reality a leader needs to see ‘everyone’ as vital in creating success.

As leaders you see the importance of collaborating with other department leaders, and other industry leaders, as crucial to your performance success.

An evolved leader has developed their collaboration skills to the level of being inclusive and to consistently ask for input.

If as leaders we are constantly focused on developing the above four skills we will remain relevant.

Relevance is the ability to add value.

As the speed of technology innovation continues to ramp up we have two choices – be afraid or be vigilant.

Choose to be vigilant about focusing on what you can control – which is to elevate your human skills.