Mastering your art and identity: how human beings can compete with AI

Marilyne Crépeau and Mike James Ross are consultants in Egon Zehnder’s Montreal office.

Leaders today are confronted with a new challenge: disruptive artificial intelligence tools that are simultaneously causing excitement and anxiety about the future.

The excitement often centres around what we can get rid of to save time. Many administrative tasks can now be automated and research and analysis can happen in seconds. AI agents can help us draft, summarize, analyze and even act on our behalf.

But there are also well-founded concerns. If AI can perform 30, 40 or even 60 per cent of my work, what happens to my role? How do I continue to evolve? How do I remain valuable? What does this mean for my children and the next generation entering the workforce?

Both perspectives can coexist. The key question for leaders, however, isn’t whether AI is good or bad, but what skills become more valuable in this new age?

Looking at a wide range of perspectives on AI’s impact across industries and regions, one particularly interesting perspective comes from the film industry. Actor and filmmaker Ben Affleck believes that while technology can transform how work gets done, the most meaningful creative breakthroughs (for example, in the arts) remain deeply human.

In 2022, Mr. Affleck quietly founded an AI startup called InterPositive, which provides AI-powered post-production tools that refine human-made film (sold to Netflix in March for US$587-million). When asked at CNBC’s Delivering Alpha conference in 2024 about the future of filmmaking and the possibility of AI replacing the entire film value chain from creation to acting, he explained that he wasn’t worried, as AI models are based on the past. In his words, they are “cross-pollinating things that exist, not creating anything new. Craftsman[ship] is knowing how to work, art [creativity] is knowing when to stop. Knowing when to stop is a very difficult thing for AI to learn because it’s grounded in taste.”

This is a crucially important point for leadership in the age of AI.

Creativity and, in turn, innovation has always come from people willing to challenge assumptions, connect unrelated ideas and explore questions that nobody else thought to ask. Yet many of today’s technologies are designed to do the opposite. Rather than focusing on what AI can do, perhaps leaders should focus on what only humans can do.

Authenticity is the superpower of the future

AI currently has a flattening effect, making everything seem the same. As it becomes easier to manufacture personality, writing style and opinions, authenticity becomes more valuable. In a leadership context, this means that those who can stand out from the pack are the ones who continue to add real value.

For years, leaders have been encouraged to develop a personal brand, this has now become an urgent need. The future belongs to leaders who have a deep understanding of who they are, what they stand for, how they think, what triggers them, what makes them different and why people trust them.

How do we do this? By identifying our distinct capabilities and our “segment of one”, we can get closer to a deep understanding of ourselves.

In our executive search world, references provide some of the most insightful perspectives on leaders and what makes them unique. Go on your own reference journey (or ask someone to do this for you). Collect perspectives from a diverse set of colleagues, superiors and employees. How do they see you, what are your superpowers and, importantly, what are the shadows of these superpowers. Every superpower comes with a shadow, and these should be seen as advantages, not things that AI should fix (without these ‘weaknesses’, you don’t have the superpowers). Take these inputs and synthesize them down to a single page. Stick it on your wall to help remember who you are and what makes you unique.

Fostering creativity

As Ben Affleck says, today’s AI systems are incredibly powerful, but they are largely built on historical information and pattern recognition. In the most difficult situations we face as leaders, they can only provide a portion of the answer. What remains less certain is their ability to imagine entirely new possibilities.

He also firmly believes that AI cannot (and will not ever) replace actors. “The chemistry and creative process of actors interacting in a physical room remain entirely beyond AI’s capabilities,” he said in that same CNBC interview in 2024.

The same applies to business: ideas, breakthroughs and leadership happen when people get together and push each other’s thinking. Creativity requires curiosity, divergent perspectives and human interaction.

To continue to develop and build their creativity, leaders will need be more intentional around their human interactions and how they are challenging their own biased perspectives. Focus on a true diversity of inputs, divergent thinking exercises and in-person interactions. Hire and surround yourself with people who think in ways that you do not, people from different industries, experts from your industry, people that come from different backgrounds than yours.

But you also need to encourage failure, fast pivots and divergent thinking through psychological safety. The best ideas emerge when people challenge each other, build on ideas and discover insights together. Be physically present with people. When you are in the same room, you can read cues that are much harder to get virtually such as hesitation, excitement, tone and non-verbal signals.

We are approaching a turning point in leadership. For decades, leaders were rewarded primarily for what they knew. In the decade ahead, they will increasingly be rewarded for who they are and how they can solve complex problems that were never seen before. As artificial intelligence becomes more capable, the challenge for leaders will not simply be in learning how to use AI. It will be in preserving the authenticity and creativity that make us human.

This column is part of Globe Careers’ Leadership Lab series, where executives and experts share their views and advice about the world of work. Find all Leadership Lab stories at tgam.ca/leadershiplab.