With nearly 30 years of experience, Ken is an IT executive at Hermès, a French luxury design house of leather goods & lifestyle accessories.
I recently came across an article about the 2023 word of the year and was pleasantly surprised that the word was “authentic.” The article suggested this was driven by the rise of AI-generated content that can make it difficult to distinguish real from fake. To me, this begs the question of where we should draw a line between generating and consuming synthetic content versus maintaining the human factor of authenticity in our communications.
There are numerous perspectives on this debate, but let’s explore its impact on people and technology leadership.
For decades, we’ve been taught to lead authentically—to be vulnerable and real, to be compassionate and understanding and to lead by example. These leadership qualities are all based on the principle of being human. A vast number of industry disruptors have succeeded by being as un-corporate as possible, flattening organizational charts and empowering teams by making them more matrixed and less hierarchical. The formula seems to have worked so well that even larger, more traditional businesses ultimately gravitated toward breaking long-established barriers to incubate innovation and foster thought leadership. A lot of it was made possible through meaningful human-generated content…until recently.
Enter GenAI And The Age Of A Perfectly Composed Email
“ChatGPT, act as a technology executive and write a concise note to the team, commending their hard work and getting them excited about next year’s projects.”
If you’ve tried something like this, I am sure you’ve been impressed by the result. Eloquent language, with just the right words and no spelling errors—copy, paste, tweak it a little and hit send. It’s efficient, effective and almost flawless. And free. What’s not to like?
Yes, it is brilliant. And I agree with those who suggest we are on the brink of an AI-generated content revolution. So, do I use it? No, not for these purposes. And my reasons are the same points I used to describe how amazing this technology is. So why might someone choose to take an inefficient, less effective and possibly flawed approach to communications when leading people? The answer is simple: authenticity. The more perfectly composed the message, the less it may resonate with today’s audience.
The Patina
I am fortunate to work for a well-known global brand in the luxury retail space. The objects our craftsmen design are some of the world’s most renowned, and the artisanship goes back generations. Our clients who acquire these objects generally fall into one of two categories—those who collect and preserve them and those who use them for their intended purposes.
Let’s take, for example, an iconic leather handbag. Indeed, some are beautiful enough to display in your home museum to impress your house guests. But to me, it’s more exciting to see one that’s well-traveled, with scratches and blemishes—what is referred to as the leather patina. It shows character. It tells a story. It gives the object some personality.
Why not apply the same principle to your leadership? Content full of passion and, yes, patina is the difference that your audience will likely appreciate. The little flaws—within reason—can make it authentically perfect.
The Trademark Of Imperfect Verbiage
It would be fair to admit each of us leads and speaks in our own bespoke ways, using our favorite words. Mine are “nuance” and “context.” I use both perhaps too often. It’s almost a trademark of my communication. These often-called “parasite” words become the fabric of our personality. Sure, I can prompt GenAI to create content using these words, but their utilization would still be too perfect to reflect my imperfect communication pattern, lacking the individuality of my style.
I often remind leaders on my team to consider their audience. What makes a great leader is knowing when to be corporate and, importantly, when to not. Our audiences are starting to develop a very sensitive palate for synthetic content and—by association—synthetic leadership. They will somehow know when authenticity is replaced by efficiency. This could inadvertently discount your leadership potential and may alienate your team. That perfectly composed content will not exhibit the true compassion and connection they expect despite all the right words and its artificial perfection.
Let me demonstrate with a real-world example. My younger daughter plays piano. Since she was little, each of her performances was rewarded with gifts and nice notes of encouragement from a “music fairy.” However, one day, the fairy had a very busy day at the office and only had a few minutes to compose this letter. Naturally, the fairy used a certain digital helper to compose this note, prompting a perfectly pitched whimsical message.
The fairy proceeded to print the said masterpiece, leaving it in my daughter’s room, along with a gift. The piano performance was a success, and my daughter ran straight to her room as soon as we got home. As she started reading the letter, she looked up at me, squinted her eyes, and said, “I think the music fairy used ChatGPT for this. It doesn’t sound like her.” My daughter was nine years old at the time. Do you think your high-performing teams of professionals can spot the same thing in the way you communicate with them?
Strike The Balance
To be clear, I am not against AI as a leadership tool. I am convinced it will revolutionize most if not all, industries. Its economic potential is tremendous. I am only suggesting we should be careful with the hype cycle of generative AI when it comes to the possible erosion of the human element in leadership.
As AI becomes the norm across all aspects of our daily lives, it may become too easy to outsource our content generation activities to this incredible technology. But especially as leaders in IT, it’s our direct responsibility to achieve the right balance between driving gen AI-powered systems for our businesses and maintaining the human element around authentic people leadership.
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