Mastering Self-Leadership in the Age of AI

When AI elevates your leadership practice, who will you become?

"The path leading others is the path of self-mastery."

It’s clearly no longer about when or if – it’s about how we engage with AI responsibly to enhance our work and success. Yet, we can’t go anywhere near this path without first recognising the most critical leadership path being our own self-leadership. AI is reshaping the tasks and decisions we handle, but self-discipline, focus, and emotional mastery remain timeless. Take a recent study from Harvard which showed leaders with high emotional intelligence performed up to 20% better, even within tech-dense environments.

And there’s a great upside to levelling up our commitment to self-leadership too:

Self-discipline is closely linked to increased dopamine levels which in turn reinforces the brain’s reward system for focused effort – nice feedback loop huh! So, as we engage with AI tools to enhance our work, free up more time - training our brains to find satisfaction in disciplined engagement will not just result in more productivity — we will be thriving!

If you don’t believe me check I recently heard this statistic:

82% of highly effective leaders maintain regular practices for mental resilience, from mindfulness to personal accountability.        

Do I have your attention now?  🧐

For me, this is super important. It’s a foundational aspect of Digital Leadership 2.0 that ability to harmonise both our responsible use of AI with our commitment to self-leadership.

Those of you who have followed my dedication to pioneering digital leadership for the last 13+ years will know that my opening statement is often – This isn't about the technology, it’s about people!  This is still the same for Digital Leadership 2.0 - even more so. What we do is only equalled by who we are as leaders, therefore as we adapt and evolve using AI to enhance our leadership, we should be focussing on self-leadership to draw out our authenticity and to maintain our humanity. That’s the core of Digital Leadership 2.0. Our ability to evolve with and in an AI-enabled world to open up time and opportunity to be more authentic - so we can lead in business and life for the betterment of humanity. That sounds like a lofty goal, probably something you would likely associate with a Gandhi or a Mandella-type icon, but not anymore. The gift of the age we live in is that every leader can and should have a focus on making the world a better place. Iconic leadership could be democratised if we use AI to our advantage. Making responsible AI contribute to this by giving us more time, enhancing our strengths and helping us develop new skills to level up to this.

Why not start today with this simple power-up?

Set a 3-minute timer and write down as many self-leadership qualities as you can think of that you would like to strengthen. Then, choose one and start to visualise the results and outcomes of this quality in your leadership - what are others saying, how are they responding to you differently? How are you feeling and behaving differently as leader? Remember, the power of visualisation is a proven leadership quality we should all be cultivating.

Digital Leadership 2.0 is so much more than AI and other emerging technologies, it’s equally about how we lead others from the front, this can only be achieved when we have developed and integrated self-leadership for an AI-enabled world into our practices. If you would like to know more about the exciting new Digital Leadership 2.0 programme and even get a place on the first live public cohort starting end of November, click on this LINK for more information and application details.

“Culture shifts by looking up – what change, evolution or transformation can people see in you as a leader?”

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