Leadership Tips

You may have heard the acronym WIIFM before. It stands for "What's In It For Me?" While it may sound selfish, it is one of the most powerful realities of human behavior. In fact, if you understand this principle, it will dramatically improve your ability to communicate, lead, persuade, motivate, teach, parent, sell, negotiate, and build relationships.https://toolstolead.com for my books and resources.

The fall semester brings with it the temptation to use AI irresponsibility. This post offers ways to use it effectively.

This episode is about being alert for the unexpected - because it will happen.https://toolstolead.com

The best leaders do not hire people who are less capable than they are. They hire people who are smarter than they are.Today, I want to talk about why great leaders hire people smarter than themselves, why insecure leaders avoid doing so, and how you can build a team that makes your organization stronger than you could ever make it alone.https://bamallama.org

We've touched on AI in a few recent episodes, but today I want to look at it through a specific and important lens: the role of leadership in navigating the relationship between human intelligence and artificial intelligence.I've been spending a fair amount of time lately working through a piece of academic research published earlier this year titled Influence of Leadership on Human-AI Collaboration. It's a serious piece of work, and I want to pull out the practical heart of it for you. Because if you are leading anything — a team, a department, a family business, a church — this matters for you right now.Here is the central idea: artificial intelligence doesn't operate in a vacuum. It doesn't implement itself, govern itself, or make ethical judgments about how it is used. That is where you come in. Leadership is the critical bridge between what AI can do and what AI should do in any human context.https://bamallama.org

The Johari Window is a simple but powerful framework for understanding self-awareness, and for anyone who desires to lead well—whether in the home, the workplace, or the church—it offers a helpful lens for growth. At its core, it reminds us of a truth that Scripture has long affirmed: knowing ourselves rightly is a key part of walking in wisdom before God and others.The model is built around four “windows” or quadrants that map what is known and unknown about us—both to ourselves and to others.

There is a pattern that quietly shapes the lives of many people, often without them realizing it. It is rarely loud. It is not always spoken. But it is repeated—over and over again—until it becomes a lens through which life is interpreted. It becomes a mindset.I call it the mantra of the victim.In truth, there is not just one mantra. There are several. These are the phrases people return to habitually. Sometimes they say them out loud, but more often they rehearse them internally. They may sound harmless at first—almost reasonable—but over time they limit growth, deflect responsibility, and ultimately hinder the fullness of what a person is meant to become.

Have you ever been told something you wanted to do was impossible?Maybe someone told you that you weren’t qualified. Maybe they told you that you didn’t have the education, the money, the connections, or the experience. Or perhaps the message was even more personal: you’re just not good enough.Most of us have heard those words in one form or another.The question is not whether barriers will appear in our lives. They will. The real question is this: what do we do when we encounter them?

For many people, this future feels unsettling. There is fear, anxiety, and even grief wrapped up in the conversation. Some see artificial intelligence as a threat to their jobs. Others see it as a threat to their very way of life. And to be honest, that fear is understandable. Change has a way of exposing our deepest uncertainties.There is no question that artificial intelligence is changing our world. What’s easy to miss is just how deeply it has already shaped our daily lives. In fact, AI has influenced us far more than most of us realize—and we often take it completely for granted.You can contact me at [email protected]

In this episode I’m going to do something different. I brought together several sources and loaded them in to Google Notebook LM. In case you haven’t heard of NotebookLM before let me take a minute to explain.  Notebook LM is an artificial intelligence, but instead of being build on the internet or millions of texts, it only uses the resources you add to each notebook. I found this an incredible tool. Not only can upload a variety of different document types, but it will generate all kinds of material from those documents, including a video, a mindmap, flash cards, infographic, slide deck, and more. One of the features I really like is the podcast generation. So I’ve asked it prepare a podcast from the materials I uploaded on the topic AI, Accountability, and Human Integrity.  Let me know what you think.This episode includes AI-generated content.