Introducing our new interview series on AI in leadership development 🤩
Growing leaders in any company is hard, and it seems to be getting more complex in today’s world of economic uncertainty, remote & hybrid work, and changing employee expectations around growth and development opportunities. At the same time, we’re living through a technological breakthrough in the AI field that comes with new developments and use cases seemingly every other week.
It made us wonder:
- What are the biggest challenges or obstacles in developing leaders?
- What does leadership development actually look like today in different kinds of companies?
- What’s truly working, and what are the common mistakes and pitfalls to avoid?
- In what ways can new technology help, and where does it fall short?
We decided to dive deep on this by talking to as many experts as possible in a diverse array of different companies – from fast-scaling startups, to globally recognized brands. We gathered perspectives from a mix of L&D specialists, Chief People Officers, Consultants, and company executives.
We’re so excited to share everything we learned with you!
We’ve talked to 20+ experts so far (and counting). Over the next several weeks, we’ll be publishing these interviews on our blog, and highlighting key trends, themes, and quotes here in this summary post.
Hot off the Press: Our Latest Interviews 🔥
👉 Alexis Ehrlich (Manager of Leadership Development & Coaching) on setting new managers up for success
👉 Bill Brown (Chief People Officer at Think People.Culture) on the key skills of great leaders
👉 Selen Turner (Global Talent Director at Cordis) on meeting leaders where they are
👉 Kelly Mendez-Scheib (Chief People Officer at Crunchbase) on the importance of horizontal growth
👉 Rafael Roldan (Chief of Staff at Paytrix) on the power of peer coaching
👉 Yogi Mueller (VP of Leadership & Talent Management at Bluegreen Vacations) on the mentorship gap and the flip-side of convenience
All Interviews 📚
👉 Alexis Ehrlich (Manager of Leadership Development & Coaching) on setting new managers up for success
👉 Andi Summers (VP Talent Management & Total Rewards at Palmetto) on crafting great development programs
👉 Bill Brown (Chief People Officer at Think People.Culture) on the key skills of great leaders
👉Candice De Goede (Head of People at Hohm Energy) on the importance of soft skills in a high-growth remote company
👉 Carol Braddick (Consultant & Coach) on how companies are using AI to support leaders
👉 Erin McCann (Head of People Operations) on developing leaders in startups
👉Hamutal Oren-Fox (Chief People Officer at Snappy) on fostering a leadership mindset
👉 Hina Zahid (Head of OD and Capability Development at Coca-Cola CCI) on digital learning for aspiring leaders
👉 Holly Pyatt (Leadership Development Manager) on the promise (and potential pitfalls) of AI
👉 Karen Masco (Leadership Development Manager) on the key to a great development program
👉 Kelly Mendez-Scheib (Chief People Officer at Crunchbase) on the importance of horizontal growth
👉Kerry Isherwood (Senior Manager – Leadership at Virgin Atlantic) on coaching at scale
👉 Kirstin Johnson (Talent Development Lead) on supporting future leaders
👉 Paul Holba (Sr. Manager of Org. Development and Training at AAF International) on introducing new programs in a 100-year-old company
👉 Paul Verwilt (COO at Mediahuis Group) on fostering leadership in times of change
👉 Rafael Roldan (COO at Paytrix) on the power of peer coaching
👉 Selen Turner (Global Talent Director at Cordis) on meeting leaders where they are
👉Wiebke Rowedda (HR Director at LVMH) on bridging the gap from theory to practice
👉 Yogi Mueller (VP of Leadership & Talent Management at Bluegreen Vacations) on the mentorship gap and the flip-side of convenience
Key Insights 💎
While it’s hard to truly summarize hundreds of pages worth of insights (the transcripts from this project easily could have been a book), here were several trends and themes that stood out for us.
There are many ways to define leadership, but at the core of most is a key idea: it’s about what you do, not who you are. 💎
It’s important to see beyond formal people management roles when identifying and developing leaders. 💎
The skills that leaders need are rapidly changing and highly context-dependant. 💎
People are often promoted to leadership roles based on technical skills, but need support with soft skills
A key challenge is to enable continuous learning and avoid overwhelming people 💎
The new generation of aspiring leaders demands a flexible, engaging, & actionable learning experience. 💎
There’s a huge opportunity in leveraging AI for practice scenarios and simulations to help leaders build confidence, as well as to create personalized development plans 💎
Want to support & develop leaders in your company?
Try Bunch! It’s combination of a digital trainer and AI coach to enable aspiring leaders to level up in just 2 minutes a day. Each person gets an entirely personalized leadership learning journey that is broken into bite-sized chunks and delivered via a fun & convenient mobile app. As an HR leader, you’ll also get rich insights into how to support them best, and input into what skills they’re building.
