The advance of artificial intelligence (AI) is unstoppable. In every industry and every role, this technology offers great potential to make our work more efficient and easier. Managers also use AI to make better decisions, but they must ensure that this AI-assisted leadership does not come at the expense of the human side of their work. After all, a good leader has many qualities that AI can never replace.

Not so long ago, AI was a technology that was mostly prevalent in certain departments of an organization. Consider, for example, the production lines of a manufacturing company. This suddenly changed about two years ago due to revolutionary developments in the field of generative AI and in particular the introduction of popular tools like ChatGPT. Suddenly, you didn’t have to be a data scientist or AI expert to get started. Now, most companies have explored the potential of AI in the workplace.

AI offers both opportunities and risks for managers

AI also offers potential for the role of managers in an organization. On the one hand, AI can help you analyze huge amounts of data, quickly recognize patterns, and make predictions that are helpful in making strategic decisions for the future. On the other hand, the technology also creates insights that help to make the management of employees in the team as individual as possible. In this way, managers increase the engagement and motivation of their employees. And they can focus more than ever on a work culture that attracts and retains talent.

There are also risks associated with AI-supported leadership.

Michael Verveckken, Managing Director Fujitsu Benelux

This all sounds very nice, but there are risks associated with such AI-assisted leadership. Leaders need to make sure that AI doesn’t take away the human side of their role. Everyone has used ChatGPT to write an email, but this can have a negative impact on communication with employees. No matter how strong the AI ​​is, these days the technology mostly produces quite monotonous and distant texts. You already need to be very adept at playing with prompts to generate results that perfectly match the emphasis of your leadership style or the general culture of your organization.

The dehumanization of the workplace

Artificial intelligence works best when the technology is paired with input from human users. Natural leaders have unique qualities that AI can never replace. Empathy is a good example of this, as is creativity and the ability to assess the ethical side of decisions. The latter is a key challenge for leaders who integrate AI technology into their daily work. After all, how can you be sure that the technology works fairly, transparently and unbiasedly?

Leaders who are blind to this will end up creating the opposite effect. While AI offers great potential to personalize leadership, it can easily lead to dehumanization or dehumanization of the workplace. With a work culture that is distant and leaves little room for personal interaction. In the worst case scenario, this leads to a sense of alienation among team members. Moreover, it can be detrimental to creativity and the development of innovative ideas. Finally, AI has no moral compass and leaders must be vigilant about making decisions that disadvantage or exclude certain people on their team.

People are the secret ingredient of AI-powered leadership

How do you integrate AI into your leadership style? First and foremost, AI should enhance the qualities of good leaders, not replace them. For this reason, there are some tasks that you should definitely not outsource. For example, develop strong relationships between your employees. Or encourage collaboration and innovation within your team. Also, make sure you always look at AI insights and decisions from an ethical perspective. AI is now ideally suited to help with time-consuming tasks like administration. Using technology immediately frees up time that you can use for the people-focused aspects of strong leadership.

Finally, the use of AI also requires ongoing training and education, both for managers and team members who use AI tools. People need to learn how to succeed with AI and use the technology responsibly and ethically. This is not only important in the workplace. AI is now part of our professional and personal lives. Sometimes we are no longer even aware that we are dealing with AI and that the technology is the reason we do something in a certain way.

In the coming years, the influence of AI will continue to grow. Therefore, leaders must continue to focus on maintaining the human side of their leadership. In fact, they must be more human than ever in an AI-powered workplace. AI-powered leadership requires a greater focus on human connection, creativity, and emotional intelligence. Leaders who use AI correctly can finally focus on what matters most: people.

This is a contribution from Michael Verveckken, Managing Director Fujitsu Benelux. Click here for more information about the company.