Can AI make you a better leader? Discover how integrating artificial intelligence into your leadership toolkit can revolutionize the way you identify and develop talent in your organization. In this episode of Things Leaders Do, host Colby Morris uncovers actionable strategies for leveraging AI to pinpoint future leaders, tailor development plans, and enhance performance management—all while maintaining a people-first approach.
Learn how to harness AI-powered tools like High Review, iMetrics, and Cornerstone On Demand to gain deeper insights into your team's potential. From analyzing performance data and communication styles to crafting personalized learning experiences, Colby provides practical prompts and real-world examples to help you get started. Tune in and find out how AI can amplify your leadership effectiveness and bring out the best in your team.
Can AI make you a better leader? Discover how integrating artificial intelligence into your leadership toolkit can revolutionize the way you identify and develop talent in your organization. In this episode of Things Leaders Do, host Colby Morris uncovers actionable strategies for leveraging AI to pinpoint future leaders, tailor development plans, and enhance performance management—all while maintaining a people-first approach.
Learn how to harness AI-powered tools like High Review, iMetrics, and Cornerstone On Demand to gain deeper insights into your team's potential. From analyzing performance data and communication styles to crafting personalized learning experiences, Colby provides practical prompts and real-world examples to help you get started. Tune in and find out how AI can amplify your leadership effectiveness and bring out the best in your team.
Welcome to Things Leaders Do, the podcast that uncovers the secrets of becoming an extraordinary leader. If you're a leader who's constantly seeking growth, inspiration and tangible ways to level up your leadership, then you've come to the right place. Remember, the world needs exceptional leaders, and that leader is you. Now here's your host, colby Morris.
Speaker 2:
Hey leaders, welcome back to the TLD Podcast. This is the podcast where we explore the habits, the practices of effective leaders. This is where my job is to try to help you get better as a leader faster. I'm your host, colby Morris, and you know what? Today we're going to dive into a topic that I think is truly transforming the way that we lead and that we manage, and it's one that, unless you've been under a rock, you've heard it and you've probably even tried messing around with it a little bit, and that's AI. Yep, we're going to look at how we can use AI for leadership development. We're going to look at KPIs and we're going to look at performance management.
Speaker 2:
Now, I know that some of you are thinking. You know, ai is just for tech companies. It's not for you know, people first leadership and I know I do. I harp on people first leadership. That's what I believe. That's the flag I carry. Okay, it's a fair argument, but today what I want to do is show you how you can use AI and, when used correctly, you can enhance your leadership practices, you can keep your people-first mentality intact. So how are we going to do that? Well, I'm glad you asked because I have a podcast about it. So AI can seem intimidating. No-transcript See. It's here to support us, helping us augment our capabilities and to help us make some better decisions. But remember, ai does not replace the human touch. It enhances it or, ideally, it can enhance it. So how can leaders use AI effectively? Again, I'm going to break this down into three key areas, which are leadership development, apis and performance management. Leadership development is crucial, I mean. That's why I have this podcast right.
Speaker 2:
As leaders, our goal is to bring out the best in our teams and if we use AI, it can help you identify potential leaders and even personalize their development plans. And here's how you can use AI to analyze patterns in performance data, communication styles, even social interactions. That will help you identify team members who exhibit leadership potential. Especially when you're interviewing. It's not just about who's hitting their targets, but who's collaborating effectively, who's showing initiative, who's hitting their targets, but who's collaborating effectively, who's showing initiative, who's mentoring other people. You can use AI-powered tools like High Review or iMetrics in order to identify high potential employees. These platforms they use AI to analyze candidates, employee data, and all that to provide insights that you know, as you and me, may not be immediately visible through our traditional assessments. Okay, we can feed this information into those platforms and get more information, quicker information quicker.
Speaker 2:
Other potential leaders once they're identified, you can use AI to help create their personalized development plans. You can analyze their strengths and their weaknesses, even type in and input their learning preferences. Ai can recommend tailored training programs. You can ask it for resources and even potential mentors. You can implement AI-driven learning management systems like Cornerstone On Demand okay, that's a pretty good one. Or degreed Okay, those adapt the learning needs of your team to the program. Okay, ensures that each potential leader gets the right support at the right time.
Speaker 2:
So how do you do that? You know, if, say, you just wanted to go into chat GPT, say you wanted to just go into Gemini or Claude, one of those, and you're like, how do I come up with an assessment? How do I come up with programs or some sort of development for this employee or some sort of development for this employee? I'll tell you some simple prompts, and these are the ones that I use when I'm trying to figure out an issue with a potential leader or a leader that I'm working with. So I go in to usually check GBT, but sometimes I do go into Gemini, depending on what type of feedback I want to get, and I tell it something like this Act as a learning and development specialist in leadership.
Speaker 2:
You are working with a leader who struggles in, let's say, having difficult conversations. You want this leader to be successful and you need to create a development plan for having difficult conversations with employees. Give me three major points to work with this individual on how they can become better leaders and have difficult conversations and hit enter. Now that's just kind of a basic. If I know in my head you know what I've read Kim Scott's Radical Candor, read Crucial Conversations then I can add something like that and say include top points from Radical Candor by Kieln Scott and how to Be Vulnerable using Dare to Lead by Brene Brown. And then I hit enter and it's going to give me points from those books that I can include in that development program. It's pretty amazing. You can right there on the spot in the span of probably 15, 30 seconds Probably takes you longer to type it than it does to get the feedback as long as you are very specific with how you want it to work and you tell it how to behave, how to act. The rest of it's pretty simple. Okay, you just have to be pretty specific with it.
Speaker 2:
All right, let's move on to defining relevant KPIs. See, ai can really help you identify the most relevant KPIs by you can put in large amounts of data. You can highlight the metrics that truly matter. You can say you know, look at this and give it all that data. Okay, what this means is we can focus on what drives performance rather than getting lost in that sea of numbers. Okay, you can feed at that. You can use tools like Domo or Tableau I've heard it called different ways. You can call it what you want to, but you can use either of those to analyze historical performance data that can use that to recommend KPIs that align with whatever your current strategic goals are.
Speaker 2:
These business intelligence platforms or you may know them as BI they provide these insights and can help you visualize data effectively. Now, with AI, we can move from let's call it reactive to proactive management. Real-time monitoring allows us to see how we're performing against our KPIs at any given moment. You can have a dashboard that's AI powered, that can give you real feedback in real time and show you how everyone's doing. Show you how you're doing. Predictive analytics can forecast future performance and identify even potential issues before they become problems. It's almost like cheating you can see down the road beforehand. It's pretty nice. You can integrate AI-powered dashboards like Microsoft Power BI or Sisense or something the other day that's called a Sisonze or something Sisense. The other day it was called a Cezanne or something Cezanne and they provide real-time updates on your KPIs Okay. They use predictive analytics to anticipate trends Okay. And if you can anticipate trends, you can take corrective action early. Okay, that's pretty nice.
Speaker 2:
So how do you do that? What are some commands you can give it? You can say something like act as a chief operating officer who specializes in kpis, or act as a kpi expert in, and you give it the field. Some kpis that I am working to develop are these. And you give it the field. Some KPIs that I am working to develop are these? And you list one, two or three what are some other KPIs that I should be working on or focusing on in order to assure true performance and then maximize for impact on the business? And hit enter. It will suggest to you additional KPIs you could be using, as well as how to enhance the ones that you're already using. You can just tell it that you can say read these KPIs. How can I enhance these three KPIs for maximum impact? And make sure you tell it what you're trying to maximize. The more specific you are, the more specific feedback it's going to give you.
Speaker 2:
All right, let's talk about performance management systems. Ai-driven performance management systems can provide you continuous feedback based on the data collected from the various resources, and that allows you for more timely and relevant feedback, and that is what helps employees improve continuously. You can adopt AI performance management platforms like BetterWorks or 15.5, and those facilitate regular feedback loops, not just the annual event it's not just surprise, it's time for your annual eval but something that you are proactively managing throughout the year. And, by the way, if you didn't listen to last week's one-on-one the podcast about one-on-ones that's a great way to make sure that you're managing and developing your people. Just today, we're talking about using AI as a part of that process.
Speaker 2:
All right, one of the biggest challenges in performance management I don't know if you agree or not, but it's bias. Okay, ai can help reduce that by providing just data-driven insights. Okay, when things are more objective and less subjective, it's a lot easier to get non-biased performance evaluation metrics. It's a lot clearer of a picture when you're not biased because you think this one person is a really high performer. When maybe they're more of a middle performer but you view them as a high performer because you really like them or you've got a great relationship with them okay. When it's more subjective the data-driven parts of it it can change the picture and it's important to remain vigilant. Okay about the data being used. Okay and the algorithms. But AI can bring more objectivity to those evaluations. You can use AI tools like SavoCloud or Bamboo HR and those can help you assist in performance reviews. But you should always combine AI insights with the human judgment. Remember we're trying to remain people-centered leaders, people-focused leaders. Make sure your data is diverse. Okay that your algorithms are regularly audited for bias.
Speaker 2:
You want to make sure that you're looking at the right things, and you can even ask AI how to do that. So again, how do we do this? You can tell it. I want to develop this person in this area. Act as a talent development expert. Write a performance management system, performance management action for an employee who needs to develop, and tell it what you want to develop in. Give me three main points where this should happen. I'm currently measuring in this, you know, maximize those for impact, as well as develop the other three points, and hit enter and it'll truly give you a well-balanced type of performance management program, and you can even tell it to give you resources to help develop. You know what books, what resources could I use in addition to this to create that, and it'll suggest that. So it's pretty amazing.
Speaker 2:
So, as we wrap up today, I want you to remember AI is supposed to be an ally. It's not a substitute for human connection, and not at all. But as leaders, we have this opportunity to use AI to increase our capabilities, but not replace our empathy or understanding. You keep the focus on your people. Use AI to free up time from your administrative tasks so you can spend more time connecting, mentoring, leading. Those are the things that we want to focus on. So, again, you've heard me say this lots of times. If you're finding value from this, please like share what all the kids are calling it these days. Just take a screenshot, send it to a leader that you think could benefit from some of this information. I'd love to continue to connect with you.
Speaker 2:
Thank you to everyone who reached out last week for the notes on the one-on-ones and the forms. Sent quite a few of those out and really want to thank everyone for that. If you haven't connected with me, you can do so on LinkedIn. The link is in the show notes. Would love to connect with you. Have't connected with me? You can do so on LinkedIn. The link is in the show notes. Would love to connect with you, have a conversation with you if you'd like. If I can help with anything, please feel free. If you'd rather email me, you can do that. My email is colbyatnextstepadvisorscom, but there's no E in next. It's just NXT, colby at NXTstepadvisorscom. And, of course, you can reach me on our Instagram page. Things Leaders Do so. Again, thank you for joining us. I appreciate everything. Again, you just being a part. Remember leadership isn't just about making decisions. It's about making a difference. Be smarter, use tools that help you get better faster. And you know why? Because those are the things that leaders do.
Speaker 1:
Thank you for listening to Things Leaders Do. If you're looking for more tips on how to be a better leader, be sure to subscribe to the podcast and listen to next week's episode. Until next time, keep working on being a better leader by doing the things that leaders do.
