Why AI cannot lead

"Why AI Cannot Lead" - recent keynote on "Leadership in the age of AI".

Ever since my best-selling book came out on AI - "How AI Will Change Your Life" - corporate audiences have been asking about LEADERSHIP - what it all means in the age of AI?

For 20 years I have taught on many leadership programmes at Business Schools.

Let’s be clear. Leadership is fundamentally different from management.

AI will wipe out layers of management, but will increase need for leadership. Leadership is a uniquely human role.

AI will take over many roles from humans, but cannot lead them. AI can fool us on dating apps (perhaps), fool us on the authenticity of emotions, but can’t fake leadership. (extract from best-selling How AI Will Change Your Life)

Management is about following rules, systems and processes.

Management is about making things happen that leaders have already decided should happen. Keeping things on track, delivering on targets, executing instructions, implementing strategy and reporting on progress.

Leadership is about changing the rules

But leadership is about building the mission on which that strategy is based. Leadership is about a compelling vision of a better future.

It is impossible to lead without such a vision. And the stronger that vision, the stronger your leadership will be.

Leadership is about taking people on a journey to a place they may hardly be able to imagine. Leadership is about bringing change, which usually means breaking existing rules, inventing new ways of doing things.

Leadership can be about taking an entire organisation, community or nation in the same direction. Inspiring maybe 250,000 or more people to march in step together, aligned to common goals, with shared purpose, culture and values.

Leadership means building trust. Leadership is about inspiration, passion, authenticity, emotion.

Leadership almost always means breathing the same air, winning people over, creating friendship and loyalty, personal engagement, providing encouragement, warming hearts.

Building a Better Business

Some years ago, I wrote a book called Building a Better Business.

It described a simple four-word phrase as the basis of all leadership, management, marketing and motivation. The basis of every political speech that has ever won an election: every mission statement depends on it, as well as every change-management programme. It is impossible to change an organisation without relying on my four-word phrase.

I started offering a reward of EU20,000, donated to a charity of choice for anyone who could find a single exception. A single effective advert or marketing campaign that was not built on my catchphrase. A single example in all of history of a leadership speech that won an election, without my proposition at the heart of it. That reward has never been won. So what is that four-word phrase?

Building a Better World