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Leadership Matters

Introduction

Hi There!

Welcome to the first ‘Leadership Matters newsletter from Leadership at the Crossroads. I aim to offer something stimulating, practical and certainly, digestible for busy leaders in action. I hope too it is provocative and entertaining! The vision is to stimulate thinking, conversation and personal insight to promote the best in leadership

I have taken the liberty of sending this not just to people who have signed up via my new website but also to those friends and colleagues I have worked with over the years. If this is something you don’t want to receive please let me know. Otherwise -please tell your friends!

Best wishes,

Steve Carter

The Big Idea
Leadership News
Leadership in Action
Quote.

The Big Idea - ChatGPT

Have you tried using ChatGPT yet? ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence chatbot developed by OpenAI and launched in November 2022. It is a powerful tool that can respond to questions asked in everyday language and provide in-depth answers drawing on a vast network of sources and data.

As a senior leader, it's important for you, to not leave the utilization of these new systems to other, presumably younger members of your organization. By playing with ChatGPT yourself, you can better understand how it can be impactful to you and your role as a senior leader. This will also allow you to have more informed and insightful conversations with those directly working on the transformational impact of this tool within your organization.

ChatGPT is incredibly intuitive, so you don't need any special training to use it. Experimenting with it myself, I have found that senior leaders can benefit in several ways, including:

More informed, faster, and responsive decision-making based on instant access to vast amounts of data from a variety of sources.
More effective communication by having the system 'write your copy' to ensure clear and impactful messages.
Better risk management and opportunity spotting.
Enhanced strategic planning and goal setting.

However, it's important to remember that ChatGPT or similar tools cannot replace the responsibility of senior leaders. These tools can make mistakes and occasionally produce nonsense. We are still in the early stages of AI development - seeing the Model T Ford not the Mercedes - and these tools are not perfect. Nonetheless, the speed of innovation around these systems means that substantive impacts on the way leaders operate will happen not in years, but months.

In my career, I have seen many innovations, but ChatGPT is undoubtedly the most profound and transformational. As a senior leader, it's important to stay ahead of the curve and embrace the potential of AI tools like ChatGPT.

Leadership News - A big weekend for Andy!

A big weekend is coming up for Andy Farrell, the Englishman who coaches the Irish rugby union side. He is doing a great job, in a game which is only the fourth most popular participation sport in Ireland, the country is now ranked number one in the world.

He faces an England side captained by his son Owen on Saturday knowing that a win would result in Ireland achieving a Grand Slam by beating all the northern hemisphere teams in a season.

What's his secret?

Building on success rather than sitting on it. The previous Irish team manager, Joe Schmidt had built a very successful side even if it had fallen short of expectations at the last World Cup. Farrell did not go about changing the culture wholesale but instead, saw the fine-tuning, particularly in the way people were treated, that needed to be made.
Taking the brave decisions to get the right leader.. According to Peter O'Reilly in the Times, Farrell gave the role to Jonny Sexton, who everyone else told him was too old and too injury prone. The result is one of the most potent partnerships in world sport.
Trusting his judgement and his intuition. Farrell it is said is not blinded by the data and is comfortable acting upon decades of experience in team sports at the highest level
And perhaps most of all, focusing intensely on the need to build buy-in and trust from all his players to ensure they raise their game to world-beating levels.

The Big Idea

A mindset to succeed. Most leaders get that mindset is a great driver of performance. They will grumble about someone not having the ‘right attitude’ or approve of another’s ‘can-do spirit’. They might acknowledge that their own ‘head is not in the right place’ at the moment. A leader might celebrate someone else’s ‘positivity’.

But the question then arises is how do ‘I’ as a leader respond to this - how do I lead in such a way that creates a ‘mindset for performance’ in others? The answer is to consider the component parts of mindset and address them. There are three key questions:

Awareness – Is this person really aware of the expectations you have of them? Are you certain they know what decisions they are expected to take and do you hold them accountable for taking those decisions? Do you think you share with them what ‘good’ looks like?
Confidence – are you confident that they are confident that they can take those decisions? Have you reviewed with them to identify what they see are the challenges?
Motivation – do you believe they are motivated to do this? Do they emotionally connect with what you need them to do?

Quote

“Leadership is not about having the right answer but getting the right answer.”

Steve Carter

www.leadershipatthecrossroads.net

Steve Carter