An Impact podcast with Wendy Lee, created for the Impact leadership playbook.
Rapid technological change presents organisations with both immense opportunities and significant challenges. How can leaders understand and implement these technologies without leaving people behind? How can they get better at learning to keep pace with these changes and help their people do the same? And how can they manage the risks involved?
"One of the things I speak a lot about with our clients is how the intersection of AI and human dignity is a really important thing ... Understanding that and being empathetic with your people is critical to helping them navigate through the change. If you don’t, that emotion will override their ability to do anything else."
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In this mini podcast (16 mins), created exclusively for the leadership playbook, Dan chats to Wendy Lee about navigating technological change. Based outside New York City, Wendy is Impact’s Global Lead for Client Service and Operations. Having spent 19 years at Impact working globally from both the US and Singapore, Wendy is known for her pragmatic and solutions-focused approach, her commitment to shaping Impact’s global culture, and her ability to recognise and develop the talents of others.
How can leaders improve their ability to navigate and lead technological change?
"I think the first thing is staying informed. It’s easy when things are moving rapidly and seem so complex to say, ‘I’m just going to wait until it’s done and figure it out from there’. I think it’s very important for leaders today to stay informed of what’s happening, not just for the technological details but the implications of what’s going on in turn and into your kind of role. Let me scan for things that are relevant; for example, 'I might not need to be a deep expert now but I need to be aware of it ahead of my people'. (...)
And sometimes what you get from your people as an initial reaction isn’t always the full picture. As a leader it’s about understanding, ‘what is the emotion underneath this reaction or behaviour that I’m experiencing?' We might label it as someone being dismissive or a technological dinosaur, but really it’s about something more human: a fear, a fear of being obsolete. One of the things I speak a lot about with some of our clients is how the intersection of AI and human dignity is a really important thing. So AI might take away my agency as a person; what does that mean for me as a valuable contributor to this organisation when an AI bot can do my job? Understanding that and being empathetic with your people is critical to helping them navigate through the change. If you don’t, that emotion will override their ability to do anything else."
What’s your top tip for a leader needing to drive technological change?
"I think it’s about being open and inclusive, so it’s not a top-down approach. If something is coming, it’s important to prime people by letting them explore a little bit, letting them be privy to some of the conversation about what’s going on, so that when the final change is decided, it’s not completely new and surprising. Because you’ll get more of a knee-jerk reaction from that as opposed to helping bring people along on the journey so that when it happens, it feels familiar already."
Listen to the podcast on Spotify
This mini podcast was created for our leadership playbook, an interactive resource capturing 45 years of learning about leadership.