The Leadership Mindset

One of the most significant leadership challenges in the coming decade will be understanding how to inspire and motivate talent in an automated world. How can we prevent people from becoming narrowed, reactive, and burnt out as they adapt to working with AI co-pilots, in virtual worlds, and with robots??

What can previous waves of technology adoption teach us about what to do differently next?

Whilst previous technology-driven waves have been responsible for tremendous growth, there have also been big downsides. We’re now slaves to our inboxes, and too often, renewal is doom-scrolling, reducing our creativity and undermining our well-being. ?At the outset, we didn’t ask how we would adapt our ways of working to these technologies, so we were in charge.? The techno-optimism that generally prevailed when the Internet and mobile computing mushroomed isn’t there today. Most people I talk to are simultaneously excited and terrified in equal measure by what AI can and may do.? We need to use this realisation and ask new questions.

AI will be able to bring about incredible advances in healthcare, climate control and education, but only if we start asking different questions about how we want to work with it.? For example, do we understand our ethical principles when adopting the technology? ?To some, this may seem an overblown sentiment, but understanding the nth consequences of harnessing such powerful technologies may rapidly become an issue of future corporate survival.

I believe we have to start with these two fundamental questions:

?‘What are humans for in the automated working environment?’

And, ‘how do we continuously amplify human value so we don’t become sub-orientated to new technologies?

To begin to make sense of these, I think there are five starting points to consider in how humans create value in this new world:

1.??? Wellbeing – bringing energy, positivity, focus, and purpose-driven motivation to work and live rewarding lives with our families, friends, and communities.

2.?? Situational Understanding – open-mindedness to understanding and sense-making, particularly in complex, risky and ambiguous situations.

3.?? Creative Problem-solving – combining creative and pragmatic thinking to generate powerful options.

4.?? Judgement and Decision-making – challenging our assumptions and distinguishing between risk and uncertainty in our decisions.

5.??? Building and enriching Effective Relationships – creating inclusive, open environments for people to thrive.

Unfortunately, few organisations focus strategically on developing all five factors in their workforce beyond the $150-1,000 a year they invest in training per person. Instead, employees and managers are expected to develop these craft skills through experience. However, without the capacity for self-awareness across all these areas, I regularly observe the knowing-doing gaps that prevail in leaders, because intelligent people can easily confuse knowing things with doing them.? The gap between the workforce and the leaders we currently have and what we will need to be successful in an AI future signals a vast investment gap for most organisations.

This is and continues to be my belief. Still, I’m pleased to share that it was tested well for me in a workshop I ran a few years ago where a senior executive asked me to consider for a moment why they should want to increase their self-awareness, even though they knew it was possible — essentially, questioning what they would gain from doing so.? The question forced me to rethink my assumptions that self-awareness is a positive virtue or a priority for leaders, and indeed humans, for the future. ?I doubled down on the research and I was somewhat surprised by the small proportion of leaders who truly value it (less than 20%), and how seldom leaders really consider it, beyond being confronted with the ‘unpleasantness’ of a 360 report. Indeed, psychologist Tasha Eurich’s research underlines the extent of the current self-awareness challenge. While most believe we are self-aware, only 10-15% truly are. In other words, we don’t know what others think, and we rarely doubt what we believe until it’s too late.?

So, what is the case for building self-awareness, and why do I continue to believe it’s the source of what makes humans relevant and capable of prospering from the potential that AI will bring?

In the reception of one of the world’s leading companies, you’re greeted with their tenants of leadership that include: ‘No Jerks and Assholes ’. It’s an admirably candid goal that, by and large, I’ve experienced to be credible.? They mean self-aware leaders who don’t act out emotionally, have empathy and don’t let their ego drive decisions.

Beyond being jerks, leaders who have high intelligence and low metacognition—the capacity to think about their thoughts (their self-awareness)—find it difficult to challenge their assumptions and ideas in light of new information. This impacts and undermines the core sources of human value creation, not only for them but also for everyone they lead. It nets out at leaders being defensive about new realities: making irrational demands for 'proof' about uncertainty and ultimately resisting the very change they are responsible for delivering.

Without being self-aware of their body's state, they will misinterpret negative emotions not as unmet needs but as overwhelm, a lack of support, and incompetence from others. The underlying feeling of resentment this creates—not getting what they need—will (for those less aware) manifest in irritation and, over time, a sacrifice mindset that undermines them, their teams and families.

The unseen biases and blind spots that result from lower self-awareness, mean these leaders make many decisions based on partial information, micro-delusions, and past reference points more than what’s needed.? Without true understanding of who they are in different situations, they will fail to leverage their full strengths or seek support in making key strategic choices.

Low metacognition is also, unsurprisingly, equated with low empathy. In the most practical terms, this results in leaders who don’t understand how to motivate and inspire their people. They don’t appreciate how their behaviour impacts others, and thus, their ‘leadership shadow’ can be dysfunctional.

Quantifying the costs of low self-awareness in leaders is challenging, as the impacts are often indirect and spread across various dimensions of organisational performance. However, research by Firms of Endearment author Raj Sisodia shows that companies embracing conscious leadership outperformed the S&P 500 by 14 times and Good to Great Companies by 6 times over 15 years.

To really begin to answer the questions above then, and consider what humans are for in the automated working environment, we need to look a little closer to home and ask, ‘How intentionally are we all building the self-awareness we will need to continuously amplify our value and distinguish ourselves from our AI counterparts?’

In future articles, I’ll explore how to develop some of the key elements of the Leadership Mindset including what metacognition is and how it will enable us deeper, more practical means of increasing our self-awareness.

PS – although I don’t know the company, I find Permanent Equity’s 'no asshole' policy intriguing: https://www.permanentequity.com/content/our-no-asshole-policy

To discover more about building your mindset, take a look at:

Leading in a Non-Linear World

Building Wellbeing, Strategic and Innovation Mindsets for the Future

Available at:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Non-Linear-Innovation-Leadership-Jean-Gomes/dp/1119672724/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&dib_tag=se&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.6M1QOEyRC6GEYoXnl0IT6ZR_2Ggm7LLlJwGaMLBrlMp_jHyUMk-Gcyn0gDJqM_4CwIzjjn6YyL8y-B7OCdVVk6nMjZ6FdACWabGnFrFSYzEzwNsrJVu50z4SpjC7mY_eWzNt4Kf2IADPBw4J8w6y9Q.6STKPv7E6qREd5GNdoCfixyBQo4pLHstbHfgEo4hp4o&qid=1711972991&sr=8-1