AI Proof Leadership Skills

AI can draft the email, summarize the meeting, and even mimic a friendly voice. What it cannot do is make your team trust you, feel safe, or do brave work when the pressure is on. That’s where leadership gets real, and where the “AI-proof skills” conversation stops being hype and starts being a career advantage.

We dig into what the research is signaling about the future of work, including the World Economic Forum’s prediction that a major share of core job skills will change by 2030 and that empathy, active listening, leadership, and social influence are rising fast. We also talk about the practical reality behind the headlines: AI targets tasks, not whole careers, which means the leaders who only manage transactions are the most exposed, while leaders who can lead humans become more valuable.

From there we go deep on the skills AI cannot touch: trust building that drives engagement, creative problem framing that turns chaos into clarity, and resilience that keeps teams solving problems instead of stopping at “no.” We also connect psychological safety to neuroaesthetics, showing how environment, rituals, and small cues like visuals, plants, music, and feedback loops can change how people feel and perform. Finally, we challenge leaders to stop trying to “motivate” people and start removing demotivators that quietly drain energy, trust, and productivity.

If you’re navigating AI adoption, culture change, or leadership development, listen, share it with a manager or teammate, and then leave a review. What’s the one AI-proof skill you want to build next?

Follow us on LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/rhondajhale/ and https://www.linkedin.com/in/katieervin/

www.jolyean.com

www.katieervin.com

Check out Rhonda's Etsy shop:  https://www.etsy.com/shop/ThingsForge

Order Dr. Katie's book: https://a.co/d/5Fv02dP

Learn more about Catalyst LEADERs Institute:  www.katieervin.com/leaders

 
Theme music by Emma Jo https://emmajo.rocks/

Transcript

Welcome And Listener Shoutouts

Dr. Katie 0:32

Hi everyone and welcome back to the Path to Leadership. I'm Dr. Katie.

Rhonda Jolyean 0:36

And I'm Rhonda Jolene.

Dr. Katie 0:38

And we are thrilled to have you here at the Path to Leadership, whether you're a new listener, which I know we have some new listeners because our Germany person is sharing the podcast. We still don't know who you are, but you're sharing the podcast. So reveal yourself. We have several new listening locations throughout Germany, which is pretty exciting. Maybe just because we talk about Germany, it gets going.

Rhonda Jolyean 1:06

Yeah. Maybe what we're talking about today, our good old friend AI, is then tipping off German listeners. And we'll take it.

Dr. Katie 1:13

Yeah. Yeah. We will take it. So yeah, we're thrilled to have our listeners. Um, our Seyville, New York listener. Uh welcome, welcome. Um, we had a couple new people from Leewood, Kansas who haven't listened before. Ashburn, Virginia. It's so all kinds of fun. North Wales showed up again last week, Helsinki. So some fun locations.

Rhonda Jolyean 1:40

Yay! That's so I love it. I love hearing.

Dr. Katie 1:45

I know it's so fun to see to go onto the report and see. You know, you can tell the routine people that are constantly listening. We can't see names, but we can see locations and and then to see the new downloads is always so so fun to see the locations.

Rhonda Jolyean 2:01

Yeah, it definitely is.

Dr. Katie 2:03

Yeah. Well, and I'm excited for our topic this week and next week. And it's a topic we've we talk about AI all the time. And then we had Emma Kaufman, one of our listeners, and one of my good friends, and she does all of my. I always tell people if I'm on brand, it's because Emma did it and I'm not on brand, it's because I went rogue. Um but she said, you know, there's just so much out there about these AI-proof skills and behaviors that I think you and Rhonda should talk about.

Why AI Changes Leadership

Rhonda Jolyean 2:36

Yes, we have talked about AI a lot, and I think it matters, and it is also something that makes sense that we talk about because it is in the discourse universally these days. It's something that is never going to go away. And it is something that we talk about being another tool in your toolkit, and yet we aren't over the it's not a social media tool, whereas that was something fun back in the day that people were adopting or maybe not adopting, but it wasn't something. Oh, is this going to take over my job? Is am I gonna lose my job? There is a lot more fear around AI. And so there has to be a lot more discourse and a lot more upskilling that comes with AI. There is a lot more layers, there is a lot more ethics. There's so many, I mean, there are uh, you know, uh, what do I want to say? Not grads that are coming out. I mean, yes, grads that are coming out around AI, but there's gener, you know, school programs that are coming around this. So just our discourse is completely changing, and we need to be prepared as leaders and as people in the workforce to change with it.

Dr. Katie 4:03

Yeah, yeah. And I think when we think AI proof, like you know, the the theme that everyone's gonna lose their job, everyone's going to, you know, lose their job because of AI, you know, it's just when I think about leadership, you know, if you're in leadership, if you're leadership, if you're a leadership style, is mostly just telling people what to do, tracking their tasks, sending status updates, all of that. Yeah, AI can do all of that. But really, actually how to lead humans that that that people call them soft skills, I call them career and power skills. Really, when you're talking about leading humans, you're about to become the most valuable person at your organization when you have these strong leadership and career skills that we're going to talk about today.

Rhonda Jolyean 4:51

Oh, I know. I have never been more excited, and I'll preface this with that. I come from the knowledge career area. So I don't come from the mechanical or the very hands-on. So let's preface it with that. However, no matter what layer of the workforce you work in, I am very excited because this actually, and I will stress this to whomever I am speaking to, whether that be my mother who is a retired nurse, all the way up to my uncle who's a retired CEO at a tech company, this levels the playing field. Every single person has access to these capabilities, which means that for the first time ever, your individual taste as a person, your individual soft skills is going to make the difference in today's economy. And for me, as someone who is a feminist, as someone who fights for equal rights, that is something that is really empowering and really exciting in the discourse.

The Research On AI Proof Skills

Dr. Katie 6:04

Yeah, yeah, I completely agree. And and I think as we kind of start talking about what's truly happening, like what are we hearing? What's the research saying? And we've talked about this time and time again. Like AI is coming for those transactional things, the the transactional tasks, it cannot touch the human pieces to this. And leadership really is about those human pieces, which I think is so, so important. So a little bit from my side, from my type of work that I'm doing, what we're actually seeing and what the research is showing that I think is interesting, some of the prep for the for the show today. The World Economic Forum says that 40% of core job skills will change by 2030. And the ones that are rising the most are leadership, social influence, empathy, and active listening. And then McKinse comes in and says AI targets tasks, not careers, which we know. It's stripping out the transactional and the human stuff is what truly is left. And so what excites me about this is I mean, this goes back to my teaching from 2008 when I really created my leaders' curriculum. It's really that AI proof type stuff. And the stuff that I teach that AI can't touch is that that trust building, that psychological safety, the, you know, working people through change, the, you know, how people become more accountable and empathetic. And so it's really that that deep stuff that that I've been teaching, you know, since since 2008. But I know it also bridged bridges to your work. So I can't wait to hear that.

Psychological Safety And Neuroaesthetics

Rhonda Jolyean 7:50

Absolutely. And yeah, you know, for a long time, the World Economic Forum did have creative thinking as some of their top-growing skills. So I won't ever discount that. And as I always say, we all have creativity within us, we just have to grow it like a skill, just like active listening, empathy, etc. So we all have the ability to be creative. And for my world, when it comes to transformation and for the neuroaesthetics angle, when it comes to you know what you were talking about with empathy and creativity, AI is trying to, you know, pattern match that and it's trying to emulate that, but it will never be able to do that. And even though there are really scary things happening, like deep fakes, and I was just having a conversation this weekend, because it's a holiday weekend, you know, with some family members about what is true and what is false, and how it really adds to misinformation. There are certain things that we as humans will constantly be able to feel versus what we know absolutely. And your people, your employees know the difference. So, what really makes your employees as a leader, what makes your employees feel, as you said, psychologically safe versus unsafe? And AI will never be able to do that. We have to go back to even if they work remotely, do they feel like they have a voice? Are there those feedback loops? Do they feel if they work in an office that there are lots of plants around and they can they get that dose of dopamine because they have the ability to have music on in their headphones, or they have time to have feedback loops with each other and have moments of gratitude, etc. Things that we've talked about in other podcasts around those neuroaesthetic tactics. All of these human-centered things are what is going to set you apart as a leader from AI. AI is never gonna bring that. You know, you can get those tips, sure. You can look up what are some neuroaesthetic tactics. I mean, you can Google anything, you know, you can use AI as Google for sure. And Google does have Gemini, which is AI. But you AI will never be able to come into a workspace and make someone feel psychologically safe. Only a human being can do that. So that is where neuroaesthetics and the work that I do sets people apart. And also, as we talked in our generational podcast, generationally, you know, Gen Z, Gen Alpha, they are becoming way more tactic-driven and tangible driven. And that will always be a human feeling. AI will never be able to create that, it will always be based in tech.

Dr. Katie 10:56

Yeah, yeah. And it's interesting you said that because I had coffee this morning with an individual, and he we were just talking about kinds of stuff, and he said, I'm 61. I still do my cubby, like he still has the Franklin Covey journal. And it took me back to the joy of going into the Franklin Covey store and having that, you know, that. And he said, you know, every week I fill out my, you know, my little bookmark of what I'm gonna do for the week and all of that. And I feel like we're we're swinging back to that. And I and I I feel this no research, no, no back into that, but I feel like AI is freeing us up so we can go back to some of this creative stuff. We can go back to some of this neuroaesthetic and tactile pieces that maybe we didn't have time to do before.

Using AI Well Versus Poorly

Rhonda Jolyean 11:47

Well, that is a positive way of looking at it. That is, you know, we've also talked about how, and this isn't for us to solve in this podcast, but as leaders, if you're listening to this, it is to note you can also use AI for bad and nefarious reasons. You know, if you don't utilize it, as Katie just said, about freeing up your people's time to get back into upscaling. So then teaching people how active listening, empathy, upskilling them to be the next middle managers, et cetera. If you just take out the, you know, 10% of the lower work that people are doing and then fire people, that's gonna create a toxic culture for the people who are still there. And instead of upscaling people and saying, okay, this bottom 10% of your job is gonna be gone, and instead we're going to develop your skills so then that way you can contribute to these, you know, these goals that we have at the company, etc. And here's the why, and here's the it's everything that we've discussed in all of these podcasts. So yeah, you can definitely use AI to cut all of these things, and then you it's kind of like a choose your own adventure, right? You start with AI, and then you can use it for the positive, or you can definitely go over here and be like, and then we're just gonna cut you out. And by the way, we're seeing this more and more with companies and how they're choosing to do the wrong thing, and then how that is showing up negatively for the people who work there in the press, you know, and then their stocks go down. And let's face it, if your bottom line is money, stocks reflect that. So people who are doing the right thing are going to win out in the end.

Trust Building As A Core Skill

Dr. Katie 13:36

Absolutely, absolutely. So we're gonna do a, you know, one of our short, quick blast um podcast next week where we're gonna talk about skills, but I want to go deep on a couple skills in this one and what's going to make people the MVP of the organization, what the ones that are truly worth worth the the gold. So, a couple skills I want to talk about. So, the first skill I want to talk about is trust building. And anytime I the word trust comes comes to mind, I always think about Corey Shear. He we've got to have him on the podcast. I've had him on previous podcasts before you were co-host. But I I think we would have such a cool conversation because his doctoral research is around trust and his whole company is is trust. But it's interesting because the latest Gallup numbers managers account for up to 70% of the variance in team engagement. And AI, they can't build trust. Like AI cannot build these relationships in your organization. They just it can't be done. Uh a leader, a manager has to do that.

Rhonda Jolyean 14:43

Yeah, it goes back to what we talk about, the vibes, the feel. That is that is human-to-human connection.

Creative Problem Framing That Sticks

Dr. Katie 14:49

Yeah, yeah. And it's really the the leaders that create the connections to the organizations that people are safe for, you know, that we know this. We know people stay in organizations because they have good leaders, good connections, good relationships. I did a session last week for an organization. I have an assessment that people can take that ties to my doctoral research. And it's it's really interesting because this small organization here in Kansas City, over 70% said they have a friend at work. And we know that having a connection, having a friend at work, having a best friend at work, being able to trust your manager, people are going to stay and work harder for that organization.

unknown 15:38

Yep. Yeah.

Rhonda Jolyean 15:39

That human connection for sure.

Dr. Katie 15:41

That it is. So trust building is a skill. The other, another skill um is creative problem framing is is a skill that AI will never be able to replace.

Rhonda Jolyean 15:55

Well, yeah, and people, it's like, again, this is an example of how it AI is simply a tool. And I always think about this if I had children, and you know, it's like what a 16-year-old using AI puts into, you know, they could they could create a prompt, you know, it AI runs on prompts and code. And so what a 16-year-old that has no idea about how to, you know, if both this this 16-year-old and I have a goal of creating a workshop for leaders based on certain criteria, with certain research, with certain examples in life experience, etc. What that 16-year-old puts in is going to be vastly different than what I put in because of vibes, experience, you know, life, skills, all of these things, because we are two different human beings at two different points in our life with two different layers of creativity. AI is simply the tool, and that what you put into it is what you're gonna get out of it. So, again, the medium is the same that we're using. So you can think about it as a canvas, right? So the 16-year-old and I using the canvas, we're gonna get two separate paintings at the end because of who we are. So AI will never replace us at the beginning, us, you know, the 16-year-old and myself. Yeah, but what will change is the output. And we as leaders have that opportunity to refine the input that we put into it. And that's exciting to say, wow, we can get really, really good at thinking about what we've learned, things that we can bring from other jobs. You and I, I mean, things from our peers, we talk all the time about, hey, have you, we don't say, have you used this prompt or anything like that, but we say, you know, I really use AI for my meal prepping, or I really use AI for social media, or have you thought about this for event planning or whatever, you know? And you get ideas from other people, etc. And you know, what AI again will never replace is the feeling that we as human beings give to each other. You know, we look around, you know, from a neuroaesthetic perspective, we when we engage with things like art. So going back to the painting example, when we engage with things like art, we get a hit of dopamine, oxytocin, and serotonin. And it's the same when we as leaders create environments that are inviting, that are psychologically safe, that are fun and engaging. You know, we talk about not just another pizza party, but perhaps an engaging work workshop or meeting or just a you know club or you know, something that we do at work. And AI will never be able to replace that. It tries, right? Because AI and people try to flood markets with all of this stuff, like buy me, consume me. I'm I'm your best friend on social media and I can make you happy and all these things, but there is a difference because eventually you start to get tired and you think, what am I missing? And what you're missing is those human vibes. And again, you as the leader have the ability to connect in person, remotely, et cetera. And that's what you people will never be able to, or AI will never be able to replace. So I think that that's something that cannot be understated and that people really forget when it comes to thinking about this as a tool instead of this. I don't know. People almost think about it as this ominous being almost.

Dr. Katie 20:08

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, it's so funny as you're talking. I was thinking about did you ever watch the show? It was new this year, unfortunately, it's already been canceled. It's DMV, and so it's a group of workers. DMV was canceled. Oh my god, we love DMV. It's already so sad. I know it's so disappointing. But one of the characters in DMV was doing this chatbot, but he didn't realize it was a chat bot. Do you remember that episode?

Rhonda Jolyean 20:34

Oh, yes.

Resilience Under Pressure At Work

Dr. Katie 20:35

He thought it was his best friend, so he went to the holiday party to find his best friend, and you know, they name the chat bot. And but to your point, like they do really good at creating this conversational as if it is human, and it's and it's just it's not, you know, there's there's not that person that you can go and connect with and and have that relationship with at the holiday party. It's it's so transactional. And and listening to you talk, it made me think of that that DMV episode. Yeah. But another skill that AI can never replace is resilience as a leadership behavior and just resilience as a human behavior. And when I think about this, I think my clients at you know, going back to last week's podcast about generations, and they get so many people get mad at that generation Z and generation generation alpha because they can't creatively problem solve, which is what we just talked about. They just they don't know how to do that, and it's not it's not their fault, but but being able to build resilience skills, being able to learn about calm under pressure and the ability of team cohesiveness and stress management, that's a skill as a leader that we have to to be able to teach and we have to be able to bring to to our organization. And and I I have a client that is really working to build these skills because what they're finding is, and it's not just the younger generations as we become more and more dependent on these types of activities where the answer is no, and people just stop. And it's like, but no why, no what, like no how, like no, we still have to solve the problem. We still have we have to be resilient. I can't just be like, nope. We can't do it. We we have to figure something out. And so that's something that a skill that we're going to have to continue to build as a leadership skill.

Rhonda Jolyean 22:45

Yeah.

unknown 22:46

Yeah.

Dr. Katie 22:47

And and and it's funny because I I when I think about the resilience skills, and and I may have said this during the Generations podcast, but I say it all the time. Like we grew up us as older individuals, we grew up where all the answers weren't available to us. And so we had to creatively like I loved pick your own adventure books. And audience never had pick your own adventure books. Like it was just like, here's the story. Oh yeah. And and I think we're missing that and being able to just restart video games. Like we had a you know, we had a bag of quarters, and and we had once a week we would go and try to get to the next level on Donkey Kong and Miss Pac-Man. And and we had to work together. We had to create these conversations and what worked for you and what didn't work for me, and and all those kind of things. And and that just doesn't the the the younger generations just don't have the benefit of that anymore.

Remove Demotivators To Boost Engagement

Rhonda Jolyean 23:45

Yeah. Well, and again, that goes back to how they're going more into that world building because that daydreaming is building that serotonin and the oxytocin and all of that and the dopamine hits. And with that, again, if you translate that into being a leader, you have the ability to help people. This is kind of an exaggerated statement, but to help people build worlds, like as a team, you can build your own world as a culture with your team to then help build that psychological safety for your own team. And that's something that, again, we you've said it before, AI cannot help build that psychological safety. But if you build that little mini verse for yourselves and in a tangible way or intangible way via remote, then that and build that psychological safety, then you know, that will help with those, you know, dopamine hits with the vibes, etc. And that will then help people build that trust towards you. And again, that's something that is part of your toolkit to help AI proof yourself.

Dr. Katie 24:59

Yeah, yeah, I love it. Well, and the last skill we're gonna talk about, and then next week we're gonna do this like bam, bam, bam, or in our leadership brief. We're gonna hit a bunch. But this one is near and dear to my heart, but I know we talk about it a lot, is it is removing demotivators. I I tell people all the time, we talk about in organizations, we need to figure out how to motivate our people. And it's like, no, stop, stop that. They're motivated on day one, but what are those demotivators? And AI can't feel the vibes in an organization. AI can't, you know, have those conversations. Only you as a leader can really do that. You as a leader can make people feel safe and happy at work. You as the leader can improve your communication, improve how you delegate, improve how you you know raise people's voices. It's really the the human aspect of that. And that's really why people stay. And so I think that's a really important thing to highlight.

Rhonda Jolyean 26:04

Yeah. I mean, when people going back to the whole AI is gonna take my job, if that's the rumor mill or the perception in your culture, that our brain's going to perceive that as a threat. And then people are gonna shut down, they're not gonna be as creative, which means productivity is going to go down, which means then you as a leader are going to not be as successful, your team's not going to be as successful. So leaders who are able to help people be creative and flourish and have that psychological safety that we've been discussing are going to be more successful, period. Yeah.

Dr. Katie 26:45

Yeah. And those are really those measurable pieces, those are not feelings. Like we can measure productivity and engagement and and things like that. And it's really, you know, when I I think the the importance of this, this isn't, you know, leadership speak or HR speak. It's really when people can bring their full selves, when they really feel like they're part of an organization, when they feel like they're more than a number, that they're seen, that they're not just passed off to a bot or to an AI, but they're it's funny because I do some writing for an organization and and I the latest email I got, it's funny because when you submit your writing to be published, it's you have to certify that it's not written in AI. Okay. Click certify not in AI. But then I got an email last week and it was like, use our AI bot to see which topics would be a best fit for you. And I sent it back to the founder of this group and said, Under I understand the efficiency that you're trying to get to, but the reason why I love writing for them is for their vetting process, that not just everyone can write for them. And I said, uh my concern is that you're you're trying to automate make this so you're losing some of that that personal review.

Rhonda Jolyean 28:09

Automatic is the word I was. Good for you pushing it back.

Practical Homework For Leaders

Dr. Katie 28:13

Yeah, yeah. So which demotivated me from writing another article for them. So we'll see what his response is. He hasn't responded. So, like I said, we're gonna do a leadership brief. We're gonna actually record it right after this because you're running away and and having some some fun. So we're we're we're adding this, but we always like to do these kind of so what's or the homework or the things to think about. And so I think a couple of things for people to think about. For me, one is really auditing that leadership behavior, not just the title, but think about really in the last 30 days. What have you done to build trust, to be create safety, to develop someone, not just manage, not this transactional, but what have you done to really lead? And if you can't answer that quickly, there's a gap there. So you really need to think about these skills we've talked about that we're gonna talk about next week. What is that that you need to do?

Rhonda Jolyean 29:09

Yeah. Another thing that you can do is you can use creativity as a leadership tool, not a personality trait. And that again helps bring in people who don't believe that they're creative, even though everybody is. And but we know we have a lot of assumptions to overcome. So this doesn't have to be a big thing. This can just be 10 minutes of starting a meeting, having people, you know, making it a game. If games are part of your culture, you know, you can do game storming, which is a very well-known leadership tool. You can look it up, it's free on, you know, Google and anything like that. It's a book as well. You can also do things like looking at a picture and having people think about what it brings to mind, or looking at maybe some artifacts of your culture and having people make up funny stories or anything. Think about your culture first and then think about what would work when it comes to something easy and unstructured and visual, perhaps, or even a song if that would work for your culture. It doesn't, again, it doesn't have to be big, could be just really unstructured, but make it be out of the norm so that people get used to the idea of something creative. I mean, you don't even have to call it that, if that's uncomfortable, but then that way they start to get a little bit more psychologically safe and help build that trust around you as a leader.

Dr. Katie 30:42

Yeah. Oh, I love that. I love that. And I think it's important also to name the anxiety in the room, to talk about it, to to have these discussions and pretending they're not is really bad leadership. Like it's out there. It's people are talking about it, it's trending. Well, and and shameless plug. So one of the people that reached out to me when they bought my 52 weeks of leadership, they were like, I'm so excited. I'm buying it for they have a team of seven, so they bought it for the whole team and they are adding it to their Monday morning leadership meeting. So 52 weeks of leadership. So each week, which so when you were talking, you made me think like each week they're going to go through the journal together and talk about these leadership skills, and it allows them to have these deeper conversations. So I encourage leaders like share this podcast, have the conversations, talk about the skills, and build these skills in the people that work for you to help them grow and thrive.

Rhonda Jolyean 31:45

And it's non-AI.

Dr. Katie 31:48

Right. You're having a conversation. Yes. Yeah.

Rhonda Jolyean 31:51

Human to human.

Dr. Katie 31:53

Well, and so, you know, for me, as as we're wrapping up, you know, I've been doing this since 2008. Even longer than that, but really this type of work so much longer. And and we've talked about this before. It's not about inspirational speeches, it's not about this like rah-rah, you know, motivation. It's how it's the as I affectionately call the so what. What are the daily practices? What are the behaviors we're doing each day? And that's the stuff that is AI proof.

Rhonda Jolyean 32:23

Right. Yeah. And for me, it is going back to what I said, this is such a level playing field now. You really have an opportunity as a leader to not only be successful, but to really stand out. And the people who are going to be on the forefront and making waves, if you will, are the people who take things like neuroaesthetics seriously, who bridge the gap between productivity and creativity and innovation, are the ones who are going to be designing the environments where curiosity and creativity can happen. You are going to be the people who are rising above AI because your team is going to feel more psychologically safe and you're going to be sticking out in good ways for helping bring those environments together for your team, but then also being more successful because your people feel different in this culture where AI is trying to take over.

Listener Prompts And Closing

Dr. Katie 33:33

Yeah. Oh, I love it. Oh, I love it. Yay! So fun. Emma, thank you for the topic discussion. She said, you know, this is just so on point, and it highlights Rhana's work and your work and it allows us to go deeper on the things that we're so passionate about. So, Emma, thank you. Shout out.

Rhonda Jolyean 33:51

Yeah, totally. And if other people always have things that they want uh us to cover, please message us. We'd love to.

Dr. Katie 34:00

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And we want to hear from people, right? We want to hear, you know, what were the skills you picked up from this? You know, what were the conversations you had in Germany? Hi, good talk. Uh good, good Morgan. We want to hear from you.

unknown 34:17

Yeah.

Dr. Katie 34:19

So, well, thank you everyone for listening to this week's Path to Leadership. We appreciate you listening. We appreciate you sharing the the comments and the reviews on your social or on your podcast platform that you listen on. We're just so thankful for you. Yep, absolutely. All right, we'll talk to you next time on the path to leadership. Bye, everyone.