Elizabeth Coffey
Founder and CEO, Spark Leadership Ltd
Of course, the extraordinary processing power of AI
means that technology will lead in this sphere. As AI
becomes increasingly sophiscated in some of the
‘so. skills, the balance of power will shi., with leaders
taking a more creave, inspiraonal and movaonal
role in the partnership.
What role will leaders be playing in a new world
aer technological and economic transformaon?
Technology has been impacng the shape of our
economy for thousands of years.
Leaders have always a) designed or spoed gamechanging approaches early, b) leveraged them to their
advantage and c) perfected them. For example, the
people who first recognised that you could use stones
to sharpen a spear head made deadlier weapons to
kill their prey than their neighbours, They could
protect and feed their communies more effecvely than
those around them, which
improved their chances for
surviving and thriving (both
physically and economically),
especially during mes of
scarcity.
What part are leaders playing in contemporary
transformaon of the global economy? Why and
how are they doing this?
Today, leaders are responsible for envisioning,
architecng, strategizing and leading prey much all
the large scale transformaon happening in the global
economy. What movates them? Various drivers.
Steve Jobs and other creators have flashes of
inspiraon about how a new product could transform
our experience—for example, the iPod allowed us to
play the soundtrack to our lives everywhere we go. It
also changed the technological
game and everyone’s expectaons, thus revoluonising the
industry.
“HUMANS WILL
LEAD THE
PARTNERSHIP
WITH ARTIFICIAL
INTELLIGENCE”
Similarly, leaders of today—
and of the future—will create,
idenfy, leverage and perfect
emergent technologies in society to benefit their
communies, whether they be organisaons,
governments, tribes, families or geographic regions.
What/who would be playing the higher role:
technologies (arficial intelligence) or leaders?
To orchestrate social and economic transformaon
requires high level competencies in both emoonal
intelligence and in thought. While AI are beginning to
be taught basic human emoons, it will take significant me for them to achieve the ability to lead the
complex and subtle elements of large-scale change.
Sophiscated leaders leverage tone, pitch and body
language to communicate successfully with other
people. They exude energy and enthusiasm, which
movates their followers. They can touch people
physically, throw a hug or a pat on the back, which—
research shows—creates a sense of connecon and
warmth with others. At this stage, it is difficult to
imagine a me when AI will have these abilies that
equal or surpass leaders.
In these ways, humans will lead the partnership with
arficial intelligence.
Other leaders are thinking
about business survival and
growth. They consider right
sizing and expansion
opportunies in products,
services and geographies.
The most senior leaders oversee the process of turning a vision into a strategy,
turning a strategy into an operaonal plan, and
communicang and movang their colleagues and
other stakeholders to deliver the necessary changes.
This is a protracted hands-on process. Generally,
enterprise-wide transformaon in global
organisaons takes around two years to deliver fully.
All organisaons are also considering how best to
manage market compeon, regulatory changes,
environmental shi.s, security issues, talent
requirements, etc. All these external forces prompt
change planning and execuon, cra.ed and led by the
organisaon’s leaders.
In addion to the more mundane aspects of planning
and managing change, leading and driving transformaon effecvely requires a lot of emoonal
intelligence, strong strategic influencing skills and
persistence. Imagine the difference between the
virtual trainer on your wrist movang you to do ten
more press-ups versus a live personal trainer right
next to you. Which would be more effecve in
pumping up your volume?