by Rachel Walter, CPTD
One of the central ideas in Amplified Leadership has become even more important as organizations race to adopt AI: technology is an amplifier, not a substitute for leadership or sound performance systems. Giving people access to AI does not, by itself, create better performance. If we add AI to an inefficient workflow, an unnecessary approval process, a poorly designed role, or a decision no one has clearly defined, we may simply accelerate the dysfunction.
The opportunity is not to ask, “Where can we add AI?” but rather “Now that AI is available, how should this work be done?”
AI adoption should force us back to the work itself. What outcome are we trying to produce? Which tasks still create value? Which can be eliminated, automated, augmented, or fundamentally redesigned? Where is human judgment essential? What decisions can now happen differently? And what capabilities do people and leaders need in the redesigned system? The performance gap is rarely solved by placing a new tool on top of yesterday’s process. We must reconsider the process, workflow, roles, measures, and expectations surrounding it.
This is also where leadership becomes critical. In Amplified Leadership, I argue that technology and AI should multiply human capability rather than simply increase activity. Leaders create the conditions in which people can question established ways of working, experiment with new ones, and determine whether technology is (measurably) improving the outcome. The measure of successful AI adoption is not how many people use AI, how many prompts they write, or even how much time they save. From a performance improvement perspective, the question is: What can the organization now accomplish that it could not accomplish before?
In this video, ISPI Board Member Rachel Walter discusses how leaders develop sound judgment, challenge ingrained habits, and make choices that align performance with values.
Rachel Walter is a member of ISPI's Board of Directors and the Chief Innovation Officer (CIO) at ansrsource. She is the author of Amplified Leadership: Partnering with AI to Develop People, Purpose, and Performance.
