AI Is Changing The Role of a Manager

3 hours ago
3 min read

I learnt a new term recently. Cognitive surrender.

It is the uncritical acceptance of AI-generated outputs in place of one's own internal reasoning, deliberation and intuition.

Effectively, the term we are using to describe AI doing thinking for us.

I also learnt about an AI tool that can be used in teams to script a difficult conversation that you might need to have with a colleague. You literally hit a button and out pops a script for a conversation based on a personality type that has been categorised into one of four colours.

Wowee! It blows my mind.

But not in a “tell me more, I’m so fascinated, I need this in my life” kind of way. More in a “this is terrifying me” kind of way.

By the way, I don’t hate AI. I will happily admit that I was an AI-resister for a long time, and a late-adopter, but I don’t hate it. I think it can be incredibly helpful, and I’ve come to realise (pretty quickly) that it is hard to resist something that has become embedded in the way we now work. And it is, it is embedded in and revolutionising the way we work.

And because of that, the role of the manager is also changing. Organisational and structural tasks, planning, delegating, assigning tasks and workload…more of this can be supported or taken away by AI.

But what we really can’t outsource is what makes us human. Yes, an AI tool might be able to generate a sentence structure and tell you how feedback “should” be given.

But it isn’t actually in the room with you.

It doesn’t see the nuance of what is happening day to day. It doesn’t have the full context of the situation or the history between two people. It can’t see the small shift in someone's facial expression when something lands badly and it doesn't notice that you have suddenly become defensive or that your tone has changed.

AI can't replace the human ability to empathise, actively listen, read the room, ask a better question or adapt in the moment.

Our human capabilities become more important now than ever.

How we connect, how we critically think, how we understand context, nuance and bias. How comfortable we are holding two opposing truths without needing to rush to get the “right” answer.

And these are skills that will make a difference for all of us, whether we have “leader” or “manager” in our job title or not. I don’t think the answer is to stop using AI. I think it’s to be much more conscious about what we choose to outsource and what we want to keep practising ourselves and using our brains for.

Here are three small things I’m doing to help me practice this day-to-day:

Notice when I change my mind - An old colleague of mine used to say he had “strong opinions, lightly held”. He would have always done enough research on a topic to have a confident, clear view, but curious enough to change it when new information came along. I've started paying more attention to what I have changed my mind about and why.
Ask, don’t tell - Rather than jumping in with the answer when someone comes with a problem, ask a few more questions first “What have you tried?” “What do you think is going on?” “What options do you see?” “What am I missing?” It might take a little longer, but you’re helping someone practise their own judgement and problem-solving rather than becoming reliant on you for the answer.
Think before I ask (The obvious one!) - When I’m stuck on something, I’m trying to spend more time working out what I think or how I might solve the problem before I open ChatGPT and ask it to rescue me even if what I come up with is messy or half-formed.