Why Leaders Should Care About Tech
Insights for leaders navigating a digital world.
Welcome to Leading Digital - a three minute read designed to help you ask better questions, make smarter tech decisions, and lead with confidence in today's digital environment.
Technological Change is Societal Change
With the rise of AI, the discourse on the history, ethics, and impact of digital technology has entered the mainstream. The declaration that all of society needs to shape the future of technology has come with it. I couldn't agree more. Technological change is societal change. And it can be shaped towards outcomes that are positive for our organisations and communities.
But that won't happen by accident.
There are many levers to pull in ensuring technology is shaped by our collective vision for the future and not the other way around. No matter what it is that you're leading - be it a business, team, charity, sporting club, or family - you are a part of shaping that future. The large collective change is a fucntion of all many smaller decisions made by people like you.
"I'm not in charge of AI, how will I change the future of technology?!" I hear you ask. You don't have to be the CEO of OpenAI to have a hand in this. Taking the time to understand the impact of technology on the people within your sphere of influence is the place to begin.
For some communities, technology can open up a world of opportunity that wasn't possible before. Think of the impact of working from home on someone with a disability that makes working outside of home difficult, or of digital audio guides in tourist locations for the visually impaired. Understanding the potential benefits in your own context is huge.
As leaders, one of our biggest challenges is balancing those opportunities with risk. Some are obvious - handing important decision making tasks to a system with only a fraction of the context a human decision maker has. Some risks are less obvious - moving more and more human interactions like call centres and checkouts to digital and thereby reducing our regular interactions with unique, wonderful, challenging human strangers.
For every leader this will be a unique set of considerations. I encourage you to think about them deeply and speak about them widely.
Take action!
This fortnight, take a little time to read about the cutting edge technology in your own industry - the stuff that seems a little crazy.
If you're in education, maybe that's adaptive learning systems with AI or simulated high-risk training using augmented reality. If you're in consulting, maybe it's McKinsey's generative AI system. If you're in aged care, maybe it's humanoid robots. If you can't find anything message me, I'll help you out!
If you find something you wouldn't personally implement, think about why you wouldn't. Is it because of the way your community thinks about technology? The impact it might have? A lack of capability to implement it?
Do you think leaders have a responsibility to shape the way tech impacts society? Leave a comment below or send me a message. I'll be back in a fortnight with more on digital leadership.
Scarlett
