AI, The Leadership Advantage

Paula: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to another episode of Chatting With the Experts where I speak with women experts from Africa, from the Caribbean, and in the diaspora who share my mission, which is to educate, empower, and encourage women globally. Today’s topic is
From Fear to Fluency: Why Learning AI Is the New Leadership Advantage.
My guest, who will join me in a minute, says AI is no longer a future conversation. She says it’s already shaping how we work, lead communication, and grow. And she’s gonna explore why the fear of AI is understandable but no longer sustainable. She’s a business transformation strategist.
She’s an executive coach, speaker, author, and the founder of VWH Consulting, and she’s had [00:01:00] over 35 years of experience in technology, leadership, organizational change, where she helps executives and organizations lead through disruption, strengthen performance, and prepare their people for the future of work.
There’s so much more I can say about her, but what I’ll do is let her do that herself. And with that, I want to welcome Dr. Vicki Wright Hamilton to the show. Welcome to the show.
Dr Vicki: Welcome. Thank you so much. It’s my pleasure to be here.
Paula: Thank you for saying yes. I don’t take that for granted. Wow. You said-
Dr Vicki: No, I’m the one, I’m the one that’s honored.
Thank you.
Paula: Oh, thank you, Dr. Vicki. You say that the fear of AI is real, but avoidance- Mm-hmm … is risky. Let’s delve…
Dr Vicki: yeah
Paula: … into that because, yes, AI is here, and we hear about it every day, and there’s so many people [00:02:00] whose heart, whose hearts are in their hand when they hear about AI. So let’s talk about that.
Dr Vicki: One of the things I like to bring as an analogy to put all of your audience at ease, because it’s something we all can relate to. Decades ago, hundreds of years ago, how do we get transportation?
Through wagons and horses.
Paula: Mm-hmm.
Dr Vicki: Mm-hmm. Today, we have electric cars. Today, we have cars that drive themselves. So what has happened is technology has evolved. I think we all can agree to that. When technology evolved from the wagons and the horses to the cars that drive themselves, it changed the behavior of how we operate, how we work, how we get around, and what we do.
AI is no different. AI is a technology tool enabler. It is to help you. [00:03:00] So what we have to do is, we can ignore it, but it’s gonna impact our lives, and we can take it as simple as I wanna call my bank and get an answer. You get a chatbot. What’s a chatbot? That recording that comes on that says, “Oh, I’m intelligent enough to help you.
What do you have a question with? Oh, I can direct your call. I can answer this. I can answer that.” The evolution of technology. You interface with it whether you like it or not. Now, we can keep our head underneath the covers and say, “I don’t wanna know about AI. Don’t talk to me about AI.” “I don’t like technology.
I don’t embrace technology. I hate technology.” But if you don’t embrace it, technology’s gonna do it to you rather than you understanding how to use it and leverage it. So I think it’s important that no matter where we are in our life, no matter [00:04:00] how young we may be or how older and wise and matured we may be, we’re going to touch it every single day. And so we need to understand it because it’s not gospel.
It’s not like this thing that’s like, oh my God, it’s gonna control everything. It’s an enabler to help you. The hype around AI is all because of the excitement of the capability. No different than the hype of a car driving itself or going to an electric car. From a wagon to a horse was, “Oh my gosh, we don’t have to take 15 days to get there.
We can get there in an hour.”
Paula: Mm-hmm.
Dr Vicki: So it’s no different in terms of the hype and excitement. The challenge is we’ve allowed that hype and excitement to set the biggest thing that can be against us, which is fear. I’m going to [00:05:00] let it scare me, not embrace it.
Paula: I love that. I love that. We’re going to let it scare us and not embrace us.
Because, you know, fear is so easy to replicate. You start with one person. Remember, there was a game we used to play. You know, you tell somebody something, and you whisper it, and by the time it comes around to you, it’s completely different.
Dr Vicki: Telephone Game. Yep.
Paula: Yes, Telephone Game.
Yeah. Yes. And so that’s why another thing you spoke about was that AI fluency’s actually a leadership advantage, right?
Dr Vicki: Yes. So AI fluency is a leadership advantage because AI is affecting every single individual that you lead, that you guide, every organization you try to embrace their business strategy to take them to the next level and to reach the goals they have.
Paula: Mm-hmm.
Dr Vicki: So the deal is leadership [00:06:00] is no longer absent of that AI. We have to recognize that AI is disrupting. No different than the covered wagon to the electric, we had disruption when we got the cars. So as an example, I live in Atlanta, Georgia. They have a lot of the cars for Uber that have no driver that come by and pick you up.
There are a number of people like, “You bring one of those cars to my house, I’m not getting in it. I don’t trust it. I don’t like it. I’m not getting in it. Don’t ask me to get in that car. I do need transportation. I do need somebody to get me from point A to point B, but I don’t trust that car.” And what’s happened is that leadership, that’s a disruption.
So leadership has disruption in the workforce just like we have disruption when I wanted transportation.
Paula: Mm-hmm.
Dr Vicki: So because of that, the people that we are [00:07:00] guiding and that we are leading, technology as a tool is not human. It’s not emotions. It’s not human. It’s not that human interaction. It’s not building that relationship with a human So when people are involved, they still are human.
They need the hugs. They need the love. They need the reinforcement. They need the conversations. They need to embrace each other of, of being able to talk to one another. That’s not what this machine is gonna do. Now, you can create a agent to be your friend, to have conversations with you. You can do all that, but it’s not the feeling.
It’s not the humanistic, scientific feeling. It is a thing feeling. It is a machine feeling. So as long as you are leading people, and people are worried about these machines taking over their lives, you now [00:08:00] as a leader have to understand it so that you can counter it. You have to embrace it so that you can leverage it, and so you have to understand it so you can help others to know this machine is not human like you are.
This machine is only as good as we train it. If I train it to be crooked, it’s gonna be crooked. If I train it to be bad, it’s gonna be bad. But I can only train it to do certain task, the mundane things to take off of your plate Now let the truth be told, humans would like that mundane thing I have to do every single day to go away.
But I don’t want you to replace my job of the parts I think about, the brains I have to use, the strategies I have to think about, the ways I have to invent. I don’t want you to take that away from me because now you’re taking away my ability to think [00:09:00] and to grow and to be a person. So leadership means I have to help you see things differently so that I can help you learn and grow, still grow on the trajectory of moving forward, but embracing some of these things that are gonna help you do it quicker, faster, easier, and cheaper while you’re growing so that you begin to embrace it and not be afraid of it because you don’t understand it.
Paula: Got you. So you, in other words, are saying that leaders need to be able to lead their people in a way that they understand. There’s a big difference between embracing AI to help in productivity and knowing that AI is there to help, not to replace you, but to enable you.
Dr Vicki: That’s correct. It’s an enabler.
Paula: Mm.
Dr Vicki: It is here to enable you. It is here to help you. It is not a replacement. replacement It replace task, not people. And so what happens is, here’s [00:10:00] why it gets disconnected. If I am a person that does a repetitive task and AI comes in to replace that task, we automatically associate it with replacing that person.
Mm. ‘Cause now I don’t need that person to do that task. Mm-hmm. But leadership that truly embraces this says, “Hey, wait a minute. You have graduated.” Just like we do in school, from grade school to middle school to high school to college to trade school to military, whatever we do. Mm-hmm. We graduate. Mm-hmm. So you have graduated from doing this mundane task that now this tool’s gonna come in to do.
We’re going to help you graduate to the next class and enable skill sets for the next thing you’re gonna be enabled to do. Here’s where we go wrong. They go, “Oh, I got that AI. It’s gonna do that task. I don’t need that person doing that mundane, that mundane thi- the, the, the maintenance and doing the monotonous thing anymore.
I’m gonna cut [00:11:00] that person.”
Paula: Mm-hmm. “
Dr Vicki: Bye. I don’t have to pay for you anymore.” They’re not thinking about intellectual property walking out that door.
Paula: Yes.
Dr Vicki: They’re not thinking about the asset walking out that door. Mm-hmm. They’re not thinking about how when that person was doing that, they learned information nobody else knows.
Knows. Mm-hmm. Let me take that person and now graduate them from that- task and enable them for the next one. So let me train them on the next one. That is what I call the leadership gap. And I wrote a tool, a process, about this leadership gap, because we’re not doing ourself justice, because we’re not willing to train and enable the next capability.
Instead, we’re willing to say, “That saved me a dollar. Let’s go. Bye.”
Paula: Got you. So you wrote a tool, but that’s part of what, um, I think that’s called [00:12:00] change management. How do we… how is that put across the organization? Because a lot of businesses are in business to make money, to improve that bottom line, to, to make a profit.
How many of them are really willing to sit down and look at the individual and say, “I see you as a person. I know that AI has come in. I know that your task is being, uh, uh, replaced by this AI that’s doing that repetitive task, but I see you, and I see what else you have been doing apart from this repetitive task.
And I can, you know, as you say, graduate you. I can move you up into something else.” How many people, how many organizations see that?
Dr Vicki: Let me say this to you and mark my words, whether I’m living here to see it one day or not, those that are successful are the ones that will do it. Those that don’t, they’re gonna pay a heavy price for it.
Mm-hmm. Period. And that is why there’s so much conversation [00:13:00] about this, ’cause we don’t have a lot of companies who are doing that.
Paula: Mm-hmm.
Dr Vicki: We don’t. We have a lot of companies saying, you say we’re in business to make money. Mm-hmm. I have my own business too. Mm-hmm. But I would rather have AI go and do my repetitive task on my calendar and ask my executive assistant that’s working for me, “I need you to go write a proposal. I need you to go attend this meeting. I need you to go build these relationships with these individuals that’s gonna bring some money in here.” Mm-hmm. “That’s what I need you to go do.” That’s relationship building.
Paula: Mm-hmm.
Dr Vicki: So I’d rather train you to go do that than to go do this on my calendar. Mm-hmm. But I have to see the value, and companies are not looking at the total spectrum of the value. Now, why did that happen? And that’s not all their fault. And here’s what I mean by not being all their fault. The hype and the words that have been spread about AI.
Oh, it’s gonna do that repetitive task and it’s gonna save you $100 a month.
And they go, [00:14:00] “Oh, I could save expenses, save $100 a month. I wanna do that.” Any business owner is trying to reduce expenses. But because they gave you the hype of the savings, what they did not do is tell you what’s gonna happen if you lose.
If you don’t leverage it and you just do this side, and you don’t think about the growth and you don’t think about the opportunities, this is where you’re gonna end up. So right now, we have major corporations that are not thinking like this. And then the CEOs and the CIOs and the SVPs sitting around, “How come we didn’t get all the value we said we were gonna get out of this?”
Duh, you’re not leveraging the assets that were there to help you so that you can maintain that value. Instead, you heard the hype that AI can reduce this. True fact, it does. Can it reduce those mundane tasks where you can reduce money? Absolutely. But does that mean that you’re not looking at the next thing for where that growth is coming?[00:15:00]
You’re upskilling your people. You’re giving them capabilities so that they can move to the next thing so that you’re not having to start from scratch. ‘Cause here’s what we do know, Paula Every time we replace a position, it costs us mega dollars. Mm. I don’t care. Talk to anybody who’s gonna be honest.
You have all the knowledge, you walk out the door. You’ve been here five years, you know how we work, you know the culture, you know the insides, you know the outs, you know everything we do, right? And you could be the mail handler. You could be the person that comes in and does certain tasks that are repetitive.
You could be that person. But you learn about the business along the way as you were involved, right? So what happens is you leave. I still need a task done, but I gotta go hire somebody. So the time between somebody comes in- Yes … that work isn’t getting done.
Paula: Yes.
Dr Vicki: Then to [00:16:00] hire somebody in, now they come in, they gotta get up to speed.
There’s a time period they’re gonna be here. They’re still not giving any, they’re not giving up to speed because they gotta learn. All of that’s a price tag. I want you to take that price tag and compare it to the price tag of what you save because you did that repetitive task. Yes. We don’t do comparisons like that.
Paula: Don’t you- So who is talking to the CEOs? Who is talking to the CFOs? Who is conveying those crucial methods that saying yes. It’s a balance. It’s a scale, so what you lose on one side, you haven’t made up on the other side, so you’ve lost. Who is having that conversation?
Dr Vicki: Well, um, I’ll tell any company who wants to have that conversation, here’s my contact number. Call me.
Paula: Thank you.
Dr Vicki: You know, we can have that conversation. How about that? But what I will say is, is that you have a lot of reputable research firms. You’ve got the big six firms. You got a lot of people who are starting to [00:17:00] have these engaging conversations and talking to leaders to try to help them to understand some of the things that need to be done.
What I will say is there’s not enough of the conversations happening, and it has to be at all levels. You know, we have companies at every level. We got small size companies. We got medium size companies. We got enterprise-wide companies. Everybody needs, I don’t care how small you are or how, or how big you are, everybody needs it on a sliding scale.
There’s not one who’s exempt from it, that should not be having these kinds of conversations. And so what I will say is there are businesses out there to support all levels.
Paula: Mm-hmm.
Dr Vicki: Now, I work with some big companies, some big corporations. I work with mini size companies. I work with small size companies. Because the framework of the conversation is the same. It may be different in terms of the application of certain steps that are applicable to their size, but the framework is the same. So we have to begin not to be [00:18:00] afraid as leaders in companies to bring this up. If you are an executive or a leader or someone who’s working with people in your organization, you need to be in an environment where you can bring these conversations up, to at least begin to talk about them.
And what that means is the people in the organizations that have the power of influence, and let me tell you, the power of influence is not just by a title. You do not have to have a title to have a power of influence. But it’s the ability to be able to talk in terms that the company, the board, everybody can understand.
So we’re not having the conversation as much as we need to. There’s a lot of publications out there. There’s a lot of firms out there doing research, et cetera. So what I would say is not so much how many of us are having the conversation, as I would say how many of us in that conversation on the receiving end are willing to [00:19:00] listen?
Paula: Key point. Key point. So it’s not a lack of conversation, this is more the listening problem. Application. Because after then you listen, then you gotta apply it, right? So there are steps to follow. Oh my gosh. Dr. Vicki, I could continue talking with you, but I’m looking at time. Now, for those, as you said earlier on, you are willing to have a conversation with those who need to have it.
Dr Vicki: Mm-hmm.
Paula: Mm-hmm. Can you tell them how to get in touch with you, Dr. Vicki?
Dr Vicki: The one beautiful thing is, is all my socials are by the same @Vicki, V-I-C-K-I, WHamilton. Every single one of them, whether you’re on LinkedIn, whether you’re on Facebook, Instagram, um, whether you’re on Twitter, whether you’re on YouTube, it doesn’t matter.
It’s just the same Um, you can also reach out to me, um, on my website at Vicki, V-I-C-K-I, Wright, W-R-I-G-H-T, [00:20:00] Hamilton, H-A-M-I-L-T-O-N.com. Set up a discovery call with me. You can book it right there on the site. Let’s have a conversation. Let’s talk because I believe that the more we talk about this and have the right conversations with the right people, and they’re willing to listen, we’ll change the world.
But right now, we’re going through a lot of chaos. We are going through that storming period of something disruptive and new because people don’t understand it, but more importantly because some people are not willing to listen and hear it. As we get more leaders in organizations, I don’t care whether it’s private, public, non-profit, it doesn’t matter.
Everybody needs to be willing to have a conversation to listen, to understand, so that therefore they have the knowledge to make the appropriate decisions rather than making these decisions and then now we’re reading articles and saying, [00:21:00] “Why are CEOs saying they’re losing money on AI?” I can answer that question for you.
Why you were losing it years ago and why you losing it now. We’ve got to be willing to have the hard conversations. Mm-hmm. Because disruption means growth, but growth can come with chaos if you don’t approach it correctly. So please reach out. I’d love to have a conversation with anybody who wants to talk about the trajectory of this, ’cause one thing’s a- sure, AI’s not going away, just like a car, from a, a wagon and a horse to a car didn’t go away.
It just continued to evolve. As she said, AI is not going away, just like
Paula: the internet didn’t go away. Here we are. Here we are. Remember, everybody remembers, you and me. Yep,
Dr Vicki: the internet boom.
Paula: Yep. So here we are. And as I promised you, I said, my guests empower, educate, and empower women and, uh, encourage women globally. So if you’d like to be a guest just like Dr. [00:22:00] Vicki Hamilton has been on this show, please reach out to me on my website, which is chattingwiththeexperts.com.
I’m also on LinkedIn as Paula Okonneh or on my business page, which is Chatting With Experts. I’m also on Instagram. My handle there is @chat_experts_podcast. And we have a YouTube channel. Please subscribe to that channel to hear more conversations like this. Dr. Vicki Hamilton’s episode will be out there very soon, and there’ll be others similar to her.
And now, Dr. Vicki Hamilton, let’s open up the floor to all who joined us so that we can continue with this very engaging conversation, because as you said, disruptions are here to stay, but it’s how we handle it. Because human beings, AI may be here, here to stay, but human beings are also, they’ve been here since way before time, and we’re not going anywhere.
Or are we?
Dr Vicki: No, we [00:23:00] aren’t.
Paula: I thought as much. Thank you so much for being a guest on Chatting With The Experts.
Dr Vicki: Thank you, and I’m looking forward to having conversations with your audience.
Paula: They’re here. Thank you.