Leadership has become harder than ever. A fast-changing world, plagued by ongoing uncertainty, growing complexity, and rising levels of manager burnout, is causing tremendous instability within organizations. Leaders at all levels struggle to execute their roles, putting pressure on employees above, below, and adjacent to them.
Today, roughly three out of every four organizations say their leadership pipeline is inadequate, in part because leadership development is failing to keep pace with demands. At their wit’s end, many organizations have embarked on a search for novel leadership development solutions.
In this search, a common discovery is artificial intelligence. AI’s promise lies in its ability to generate, synthesize, and analyze information in real time. However, the market has yet to produce a solution that helps leaders specifically — until now.
From our library of more than 60 peer-reviewed research papers and white papers, plus the insights of about 200 Ph.D. scientists and subject matter experts, NLI has created the world’s first AI leadership assistant: the Neuro Intelligent Leadership Enhancing System, or NILES. With NILES, organizations can finally equip their leaders with specialized, real-time mentorship they can trust.
Today, NILES can offer advice, explain scientific concepts, and present thoughtful leadership strategies, all in the flow of work. Soon, it will serve as leaders’ mentor in their pockets, capable of setting reminders, analyzing text and emails for bias, sending predictive nudges, and more. As AI ushers in a new world of work, NILES is the tool that will help leaders evolve and adapt.
Current AI solutions don’t go far enough
While AI has become more sophisticated over the past several years, general AI chatbots are too simplistic to help leaders improve human skills, such as empathy, growth mindset, and providing feedback. For one, the AI models aren’t properly trained on the foundational science behind these concepts. In addition, when asked for advice, they tend to provide laundry lists of ideas with no indication of which are most likely to succeed.
What leaders need is a platform that offers tailored information, based on their specific job functions. Just as lawyers and scientists use tailored AI tools to help them crawl through legal briefs and research journals, organizational leaders need real-time help navigating the tricky waters of holding feedback conversations, settling disagreements, organizing meeting agendas, building presentations, and so on.
Neuroleadership, as a field, has been advancing the science of brain-friendly leadership for more than two decades. In addition to publishing dozens of research papers, NLI has written thousands of articles and delivered learning experiences to more than 60% of Fortune 100 companies. These insights into human behavior are what we’ve infused into NILES, bringing together all the wisdom NLI has gathered to date and delivering that wisdom through a friendly chatbot. It’s the tool all leaders need to flourish in their ever-changing roles.
Where NILES is today and where it’s going
Think of NILES as the pocket coach that can help you think through any leadership problem you may face. Today, it’s set up to teach leaders about the science behind neuroleadership, package that science into helpful explanations for understanding others’ behaviors, and offer valuable next steps for leaders who crave not just information but also an action plan. And it does all of this within the normal flow of work.
For example, if a leader is a few minutes away from going into a performance review that she knows will be difficult, she can tell NILES the situation and ask about possible sources of threat and reward the employee might experience. Drawing on its vast database of research, content, and data, NILES can provide recommendations for how to structure the review and which phrases to use (and which to avoid), all based on NLI’s SCARF® Model of social threat and reward.
Without NILES, the leader would’ve been forced to scramble and prepare on her own or hope someone nearby could provide last-minute advice. But in just a minute or two with NILES, the leader was able to get smarter about the science of social threat and reward, build her confidence, and deliver a better review.
Over time, NILES’ abilities will evolve to provide even more sophisticated help. For example, it will be able to use geofencing data to set smarter reminders, such as, “When I get to work, remind me to build relatedness with the new team lead.” NILES will be able to search leaders’ calendars for important meetings and supply them with material ahead of time to help them prepare. It will also be able to scan the email debriefing of that meeting for any potential sources of social threat. In each of these cases, NILES doesn’t just work for leaders; it integrates into their schedules to work with them.
The future of AI at work
Leadership development faces a vexing challenge. Today’s leaders need help, but the only people who can help them are other leaders who themselves are overwhelmed, uncertain, and scrambling to adapt. While organizations can (and do) hire outside help, not every firm can make such an investment. But every firm needs to develop its leaders.
AI is poised to bridge that gap, and NILES stands ready as the most innovative and transformative tool available to leaders at all levels. Using NILES regularly frees managers to focus on strategic aspects of their job, rather than everyday firefighting. NILES empowers leaders to solve their own problems. And, as more leaders within an organization begin using NILES, they can form a common language around neuroleadership, becoming smarter together and helping one another as NILES helped them.
This is how AI can help organizations win — not by replacing people and doing their jobs, but by supporting them with the skills that make organizations more human. To learn more about NILES, download NLI’s white paper, “Artificial Intelligence Becomes Neuro Intelligence: Transforming Leadership Development With Real-Time AI Support,” here.
