What leaders need to know about AI

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is bringing massive changes to the workforce. To prosper, leaders need to learn how to blend hard skills offered by machines with softer human skills to gain greater insight and move their strategies forward.

Soft skills

These soft skills will help leaders to thrive in Industry 4.0:

Cognitive readiness

Leaders need to be ready and able to navigate the complex and unpredictable challenges inherent to the highly disruptive world of Industry 4.0. Key factors that determine mental preparedness include skills, knowledge, abilities, motivations, and personal dispositions.

Critical thinking

Leaders must be able to engage in reflective and independent thinking. It’s about active learning rather than being a passive recipient of information. Critical thinkers question ideas and theories rather than merely accepting them. They seek to determine whether the opinions, arguments and findings represent the entire picture and are open to finding that they do not.

Emotional intelligence

Emotional intelligence, also known as EQ, is the ability to identify and manage one’s own emotions and the feelings of others. It includes these three skills: emotional awareness, the ability to harness emotions and apply them to thinking and problem-solving, and the ability to regulate and manage your feelings where necessary so as not to cloud your judgement.

Hard Skills

Leaders can lean on machines to provide these hard skills in Industry 4.0.

Predictive capabilities

Data mining is becoming increasingly popular as businesses use predictive analytics to make smarter decisions. This enables a company to anticipate future events and trends by studying historical datasets. AI, coupled with machine learning, gathers insights from incoming data and responds to emerging trends.

Reducing decision fatigue

When business leaders have dozens of daily decisions to make, errors can crop up due to mental fatigue. As a result, some executives are streamlining specific decision-making processes through AI and machine learning to free up some of their time and reduce mental fatigue.

Multitasking

While leaders must focus on the bigger picture, they must also make the right call on various issues. This often leads to value creation in one or two areas only, neglecting the rest. By absorbing vast amounts of information, machines can reflect the probability of specific choices and give leaders more time to add value across the business.

How we help you

At We Explain Stuff, we create space for leaders and their teams to have strategic conversations. We do this through our online strategy workshops. Once we have clarified your thinking with a strategy workshop, a video is ideal for explaining complex subject matter.