How To Leverage AI Leadership Strategies for Business Growth with Jonathan Mast

Have you ever felt hesitant to jump into the world of AI? Many of the business owners and leaders I’ve worked with have faced this exact challenge: how to adopt AI while maintaining strong leadership and empowering their teams.

In this episode, Jonathan Mast and I dive into AI leadership strategies that can help you overcome these concerns. We start by addressing the common fears surrounding AI, like job displacement and its impact on team dynamics. As the conversation unfolds, we explore how AI is actually a tool that amplifies your existing skills and creates new opportunities.

By using AI to save time and streamline tasks, you can free up more capacity for what truly matters—leading with resilience and empowering your team to grow. We also discuss the ethical considerations and how to use AI responsibly, ensuring your leadership remains grounded in trust.

If you’re ready to stop fearing AI and start embracing it as a leadership advantage, this episode offers the strategies you need to move forward with confidence.

Connect with Jonathan Mast:
If you're ready to dive deeper into AI and leadership, Jonathan Mast invites you to connect with him for more valuable insights and resources. Visit his website at jonathanmast.com/linktree to explore exclusive content, including the replay of this webinar, as well as additional tools and strategies to help you implement AI leadership strategies in your business.

Books Mentioned: Good Leaders Ask Great Questions by John Maxwell

Ready to Finish 2024 Strong?
Don’t wait until December to address your challenges. There's a few months left in 2024, now is the time to plan for a strong finish! Book a free strategy call with Dr. William Attaway to create a plan for impactful results. 

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to AI in Leadership
• 4:00 Overcoming AI Adoption Hesitation
• 9:27 AI as a Tool for Empowering Teams
• 15:39 Ethical Considerations in AI Leadership
• 26:21 Practical AI Leadership Strategies for Business Growth
• 31:29 AI as a Leadership Development Tool
• 41:47 Leveraging AI for Time Management and Business Efficiency

Transcript

Dr. William Attaway: 0:00

Hey, welcome to the new episode of the Catalytic Leadership Podcast. I'm so glad that you are here. Today is a little bit different. I'm going to share with you a webinar that I recorded with Jonathan Mast. So many people are talking about AI in our world, particularly in the entrepreneurial and the digital marketing space. Ai is responsible for so many of the things that we're seeing on social media graphics, copy, social media posts, so many different things but does that have any bearing on leadership? Is there any way that leaders can leverage this tool in a positive, in an ethical, in a useful way? That's what our conversation is about. Ethical, in a useful way. That's what our conversation is about. So today I want to share this with you, in case you missed it the webinar that Jonathan and I recorded in September.

Intro/Outro: 0:54

Welcome to Catalytic Leadership, the podcast designed to help leaders intentionally grow and thrive. Here is your host author and leadership and executive coach, dr William Attaway.

Jonathan Mast: 1:12

Guys, I want to welcome you. I'm Jonathan and I'm thrilled to have with me today Dr William Attaway. We're going to talk about leadership and AI and while we're going to talk about that, I'm actually making a post in my Facebook group because, as we logged into our editing software today, dealing with things leaders deal with, sometimes, we find out that, well, guess what? Facebook's changed their rules. I needed to add a description to the event and, of course, my Restream software didn't give me any way to do that. William, I don't know about you, but as leaders, we never run into things like that that happen unexpectedly, do we?

Dr. William Attaway: 1:43

No Leaders, we never run into things like that that happen unexpectedly, do we? No? Why on earth would the unexpected ever happen when you're sitting in the leadership chair? Come on, yeah, exactly. I think resilience is one of the most important tools in a leader's tool bag. That's what predicts whether a leader is going to be successful long-term or not, if they are resilient and able to handle the stuff on the fly, like I'm watching you do right now.

Jonathan Mast: 2:08

I don't know if I'm doing it well or not, but we're doing it. We're dealing with it, trying to get things posted. I've got a big audience on Facebook and I wanted to go live there and, as I mentioned, I was live yesterday and everything worked fine. We go today and it's like where do we do it? We'll figure that out. The good news is we're going to talk today about leadership and AI and I know, william, a lot of people, especially leaders, are struggling right now to understand where does AI fit into their leadership? Where does it fit into their organizations? How does it affect their teams? From your perspective, have you been hearing anything from leaders or do you sense anything from? I know you do a lot of coaching and consulting. Tell me what you're hearing and sensing from leadership as it relates to AI in your world.

Dr. William Attaway: 2:54

You know, I think one of the things I'm seeing is a reticence, like just a like I'm going to hold back and see where this goes, not an eagerness to jump in. Even people who are typically on the bleeding edge, people who like change, they're a little more reticent with this one. Because what is this going to mean? What is this going to do? How does this help me to lead more effectively? How does this help me to lead in a way that is going to truly make a difference? And because those answers are not readily apparent, I think a lot of leaders are just kind of standing back, watching and listening right now.

Jonathan Mast: 3:31

I think that's probably exactly it From my perspective. Of course, I'm biased, William. I'm a huge nut for AI, so I'm biased and think that anybody that's waiting is making a mistake. But yet I know. I was just talking yesterday to somebody and they actually expressed the concern that maybe they've waited too long, and I'd like to address that and let them know anybody know that's thinking about it. We are still on that initial cusp, that initial wave of AI. We've not missed anything.

Jonathan Mast: 3:59

So if you're coming and listening and going, okay, how do I do this in my organization? First and foremost, I guess I want to reassure everybody. It's not too late and that may be a surprise to some people that we're even mentioning it, but that came up as a big concern yesterday in one of my meetings and I want to make sure just, we're really clear. It's not too late. We are on that. On that, we're past the bleeding edge now. We're not on the bleeding edge, but it's time to start considering that and bringing that in.

Jonathan Mast: 4:27

From your perspective, William, as we take a look as leaders, as I look at it, I see that we've got not only the concern about how do we use it individually, how do we do that, but probably even more impactful on the organizations we lead is how do we guide and lead our team to do this? And I'm curious from your perspective, just as we talk about leadership and that, how does a leader interpret when there's a new technology like this, something that's I'm going to use the phrase game changing, which I know everybody says? Oh yeah, he uses that all the time. So does Jonathan. How does a leader evaluate something like this and figure out whether one is it right for their organization? And, if it is, how do they effectively lead and guide their team? Who's looking to them for guidance?

Dr. William Attaway: 5:17

I think it's really important to remember that leaders go first. Right Leaders are the ones who are out front, and everybody on the team is going to follow where and how you lead most often. So if you're shy, if you're reticent, if you're not the one who's going to begin to step into these waters, it's more than likely your team's going to follow that lead. You got to be careful there, because leadership is a heavy responsibility. As leaders, as one of my mentors says, your words weigh 10,000 pounds, whether you want them to or not, and that is true with AI just like anything else.

Dr. William Attaway: 5:56

Right, what you say, how you lead, you're setting the tone, you're setting the pace for your team.

Jonathan Mast: 6:03

That's so good, that's so good, that's so important. And you know, that brings up, I think, one of the things that is probably, as I talk to leaders, probably the most common thing. I hear the fear that they feel their teams have that AI is going to replace them. Now, william, you know my perspective. Again, I'm biased. I believe AI is a tremendous amplifier. In other words, it amplifies skill and experience.

Jonathan Mast: 6:30

And will there be people that are going to be displaced because of AI? Yeah, absolutely there are. Just like when the Industrial Revolution came out and we had the internal combustion engine, there were jobs that no longer exist. Well, the one I'm thinking of still exists in Fremont, where I live. I'm thinking of buggy whip manufacturers.

Jonathan Mast: 6:49

The internal combustion engine came out, all the buggy whip manufacturers said, oh, what are we going to do Because we don't need to whip that engine? Now, I live in a community that has a lot of Amish in it, so there probably is actually a buggy whip manufacturer somewhere around where I'm at, in the county where I'm at, but admittedly it's not nearly as popular of an industry as it was years ago. How do you talk to leaders that are worried about that displacement? Again, I think, overall, most team members are going to work through that fine and we're going to find this is going to be an evolution that's going to impact everybody positively, but there will be some displacement. That's going to impact everybody positively, but there will be some displacement as leaders. How do we address that overwhelming fear and it's certainly being fed by the media in some respects that AI is simply going to cause us to fire everybody on our teams and do everything ourselves?

Dr. William Attaway: 7:41

I think that's a great question, Jonathan. That's so good. The reality is that how we lead, the tone that we set, is what they're going to most often absorb. If we lead from a place of fear, guess what? That's contagious. They're going to catch that and they're going to operate from that environment. If, however, we lead from a place of confidence, they're going to catch that as well. Think about it this way I love the buggy whip example. Here's another one. This is something that I think you and I could relate to. When I was growing up, my grandfather had an eight-track player in his pickup truck yes, Right, and he had a case in the floorboard where he had all of his 8-track tapes. Right, I mean these big old honking tapes.

Dr. William Attaway: 8:26

They were massive, they were massive right, and you just plug that thing in. It's like plugging one of the old tape. You know, massive thing, what happened to the people who produced 8-track tapes in those cases?

Jonathan Mast: 8:39

My guess is they pivoted and started producing cassettes and then CDs and who knows now what, but there's always a pivot. From my perspective, am I correct in that? There's always a pivot.

Dr. William Attaway: 8:51

If we lead with resilience, if we try to cling to what was and refuse to pivot, refuse to exhibit that resilience, our team is going to follow that lead and we're going to have them clinging to an anchor as it goes down. That team is going to follow that lead and we're going to have them clinging to an anchor as it goes down. That's not going to be helpful. As leaders, we have the opportunity to lead into the next chapter and say hey, you know what? Change is a part of life. Change is a part of business, industry. It's part of the culture. We can either say we're going to surf these waves or we're going to try to just hang on to the last one.

Jonathan Mast: 9:27

Not something.

Dr. William Attaway: 9:27

I recommend.

Jonathan Mast: 9:29

So good. Well, you know and that makes me think so as leaders, we also know that we're always trying to surround ourselves with the best teams, the best people on the best teams and, candidly, since COVID that's been it's always been tough, but since COVID it's really been tough because it seems like everybody that wants to work is so it's hard to do that, do you see? I mean, am I incorrect? And this just came to me as we're talking here Are there opportunities for leaders to actually grow their teams effectively by the way in which they embrace and handle AI going forward?

Dr. William Attaway: 10:07

100%. This is a new skill set and what I want for everybody on my team. I want them to continually be developing and growing Right, individually, in their skills, in the talents that they have. I want to help them develop and grow those, and my job as a leader is to help them. There's this idea that leadership is about getting things done, and I think that's a wrong perspective. Leadership is not about getting things done. That's what happened when you were an individual contributor. Leadership is about getting things done through other people, and part of that is helping to develop our team members. Part of it is helping them to move toward their aspirations, their goals, their dreams. That's one of the joys of leadership. As we do that, we're helping the organization, the business, to accomplish our objectives, to be sure, but isn't helping them to develop their skills, helping them to learn the resilience that we know is a predictor of success? Isn't that that we know is a predictor of success? Isn't that also part of leading well, with all diligence?

Jonathan Mast: 11:12

I believe it is. What are you seeing, jonathan? First, I want to commend you on that. I absolutely believe what you're saying. Yeah, I believe that that leadership, like you said, is not just about us getting things done, but is getting things done through our teams, through those that we're working with and leading them, and I believe the vast majority of people are looking for that leadership.

Jonathan Mast: 11:28

I think you know, with the things that are happening with AI again, for those that you may not know, me, I'm a huge proponent of AI. I believe it amplifies skill and experience. In other words, to me, what that means is, if you know, I'll use myself, I am not a heart doctor and no one should ever, under any circumstances, want me to cut into your chest to get to your heart. It's a bad idea. Now, I could use chat, gpt and quad and perplexity and all these other tools that are out there to learn a lot about what it means to be a heart doctor, but I'd still never, ever, be qualified to cut into somebody to do that. And while that's a bit of an extreme example, I think it's relevant because you know we take a look at all these industries that are out there and some industries are embracing AI, some are not, but as an amplifier or multiplier, if I'm an expert at what I do already. So let's say, on a scale of one to 10, I'm between a seven and a 10. And let's just say that AI amplifies everything by three times. Now, all of a sudden, I'm a 21 to 30. That's a lot better than a seven to 10. So it's a huge help. At the same point, maybe I'm not really good at what I do, so I'm only a four, but if I multiply it times three, now I'm a 12. What's that mean? It means AI just allowed that average person to indeed potentially be better than one of the experts, but if the experts embrace it, they're going to be again that much further ahead by that much larger of a factor, because you can AI again.

Jonathan Mast: 13:03

Ai, folks, if you're not familiar, the AI doesn't think on its own. Ai takes your inputs. It's great at organization. It's great at data analysis. It's great at remembering things sometimes not the things you want, but it's great at remembering things, and I think there's so many areas within our organizations that we can use it.

Jonathan Mast: 13:21

I just I so love what you said, though, about as leaders. We need to lead here as well. This is something that I'm guessing. All of our teams, whether they love AI or not, are really looking to us as leaders to go okay, what are the cues we need to be taking? Because I need to know.

Jonathan Mast: 13:40

I hear in the media I should be worried, I'm going to lose my job.

Jonathan Mast: 13:43

Maybe, you know, let's say, maybe I'm a factory worker and I'm I'm my job's putting widgets together and I'm worried about that.

Jonathan Mast: 13:50

Is there a reason to be worried?

Jonathan Mast: 13:51

And the answer is maybe I don't.

Jonathan Mast: 13:54

I don't know. It depends, but the reality is, if a leader can ensure his team or her team that we're going to embrace AI, because this is where we're going as a world, we can't stand in front of it and go, nah, it's not going to happen. It's coming. So what we're going to do as an organization and as a team is we're going to embrace it in ways that allow everybody to win. It allows the customer to win because they're going to get more value. It allows the company to win because we're going to likely be able to be more efficient, but it also can allow the team to win by allowing them to grow in their skills, deliver more value and possibly maybe get out of a job they don't love and into one that they could love, because AI might now allow them to amplify or multiply their experience sufficiently that they can be really competitive in an area that maybe a year ago they couldn't have been. So I don't know if I'm answering your question, but that's kind of how I see it. Yeah, a hundred percent.

Dr. William Attaway: 14:55

It also frees people up to pursue other things that they're passionate about, you know, even inside your organization, your business. Here's an example I've got a team member and she helps me with the podcast that I host. Right, and we now release two new episodes a week. And you were just on the podcast here recently.

Jonathan Mast: 15:13

Yeah, we just talked recently.

Dr. William Attaway: 15:15

Catalytic Leadership Podcast. So check out Jonathan's episode. So much wisdom that he was dropping there. You know, one of the things that we've used AI for in our business is something simple, and that is creating show notes, transcripts, titles of episodes. Ai is great for that it is. Now does she take that and does she use that exactly as it pops out of the box? Not hardly.

Jonathan Mast: 15:39

Probably not. I hope not. Yeah, exactly.

Dr. William Attaway: 15:42

But it's a starting point and it saves her hours of time. Then she is able to take those hours and invest them somewhere else, based on how she is wired and gifted, and she adds incredible value. Now you could say well, you know, you took her out of that job, you eliminated a job. No, it freed her up to add value somewhere else. And this is what. I think we need to be thinking as leaders.

Jonathan Mast: 16:11

Absolutely. I mean, we can think like a bureaucrat and go oh my goodness, they lost a job. They lost a job, technically, they lost part of a job. But we can think as leaders and go yeah, but we were able to grow our team. We were able to provide them with value and truly create a win-win situation by allowing them to do things that they're more passionate about Oftentimes, in my belief, things that will probably pay more money down the road as well, because they're going to be able to deliver more value.

Jonathan Mast: 16:40

You know, as I talk to, I have a large national client I work with and their teams. Some of them are worried and I'm like look, if you can embrace and learn how to leverage AI, how many of you have extra time in your day, every day to day? And not a single hand went up. We were talking to a room of 80 recently and 80 of their leadership. How many have extra time every day? Not a single hand went up. How many of you have extra time most days? Not a single hand went up. How many of you would like it if you could have an extra 30 or 60 minutes a day, every day, to either get more stuff done, to learn more, to advance things you're interested in or, for that matter, maybe to grab a book and just read something, and almost every hand went up.

Jonathan Mast: 17:26

And that's where I see AI playing into our teams. Is that, truly, by embracing AI in most roles, we can save our team 30 to 60 or more minutes daily, and that gives them the time to one think more about what they're doing and do a better job in the other seven hours of work they're doing for us, and it also gives them an opportunity, as you pointed out, to grow and become more valuable to the organization and, as a result, more valuable for them as well. You know I do think you know will we, as leaders and employers, lose some people? Yeah, we're going to, because sometimes they're going to embrace it and move up faster. But ultimately that's good for them and ultimately, I think that's good for the organization that we're leading, because it defines us as an incubator that brings people in, amplifies them, allows them to grow and then, as needed, either promotes them or helps them transition to something that's more valuable for them and that makes us a much more desirable organization to be a part of 100%, a hundred percent.

Dr. William Attaway: 20:03

When a team member feels like that, you are for them, that you want to help them accomplish not just the goals of the organization, the business, but their goals as well, they lean into that. I want my team members to understand that I want them to leverage this tool in a responsible and ethical way, to be sure, but I want them to learn the skill set, because this is one that's going to serve them going forward. It's not just going to help the business Of course it is, but it's also going to serve them. It's going to help them. Why, as a leader, would I not be out front with those type of goals?

Jonathan Mast: 20:38

100% agreed. Another thing I made a note of I wanted to talk about, william, is I know a lot of the leaders I talked to. They're concerned about this concept of AI and ethics and all everything related to it, and I'm going to jump in with my opinion. I'd love to have your perspective on this. My belief, right or wrong, is that we only have we really only have a problem with AI ethics if we had a problem with our leadership ethics prior to AI. In other words, I don't think AI is bringing with it new ethical concerns the core of our ethics. If it was there a year ago or two years ago, it's automatically going to flow over into AI. And I'll give you an example. I'm in the process.

Jonathan Mast: 21:24

Our family's in the process of getting a new minivan not an exciting vehicle, no Lamborghinis or Ferraris at the mast. I was told's in the process of getting a new minivan not an exciting vehicle, no Lamborghinis or Ferraris at the mass household. But we're looking at a new minivan and yesterday I ended up texting back and forth. Now I've defined what we want, we figured it out, so I'm doing some price shopping and I reached out to a number of dealers through the manufacturer's website and I said hey, I'm price shopping, here's what I want. I simply want to know what the best price is and I'm willing to go in a couple hours to get that best price if it makes sense. If you don't want to quote me, no problem, I'm okay with that. I got a quote back from text message back. That was great. I'm communicating, everything seems really good.

Jonathan Mast: 22:00

And then all of a sudden, the person on the other end of the line is like but I didn't say that and I'm like wow, I thought I read this right. But admittedly, I had a couple of dealers I was talking to, went back through and I looked at things and no, actually you did say that. Well, then I started arguing with me and I thought to myself for just a moment hang on, I have a feeling I'm talking to a bot here, not a human. Now I tell that whole not to point out the problem with the bot, but the ethical choice in my mind that the manufacturer made to not inform me up front that I had an option. This was after hours, the dealership was likely closed and I knew that, and they immediately started sending me text messages, which was great. I want that response. I'm an ADD guy, give me, let's get this done.

Jonathan Mast: 22:51

But they never once said would you like to talk to a human in the morning or would you prefer to talk to a bot right now? Had they done that in my mind, now I'm not. I'm not mad. I don't think they're bad people because they didn't do that, but that's an example, in my mind, of one of those ethical decisions that we need to make as a business when it comes to AI.

Jonathan Mast: 23:15

Do we let our audience, our customers, our prospects know that they have options? You can talk to a human if you want to. I want to talk to you If I wanted to. That meant I'd have to wait till this morning, or I could talk to an AI in this case, car salesman or whatever they want to call them that would answer my questions, that had model information, that could look at inventory, could probably even give me pricing, which is what we got in an argument about, because I found out they only authorized the bot to give list price. Well, that's okay, but had the bot simply said you know, I'd love to give you the best price possible, but I'm only a bot, so here's the best price I'm able to give you is list. If you'd like to talk to a sales rep in the morning, I can take your information and have them call you. That would have went over very differently than what we ran into.

Jonathan Mast: 24:03

So maybe not a good example, but one that literally just happened yesterday. And I'm not calling the manufacturer unethical because of the way that happened, but I think that's an example of the type of thing that comes in the same thing about. You know, we hear about deep fakes. Well, if I'm a manufacturer, would it be ethical for me to go out and take Walt Disney and recreate Walt Disney and say that Walt Disney was telling everybody that they should work with white beard strategies? No, that wouldn't be, because Walt Disney died before I formed the company, so that of course wouldn't be ethical or moral. But with AI now some people are like, well, but I could do that, but if you wouldn't have done it before, you shouldn't do it now. I don't know. That's a long diatribe on my part about that. What do you think? We talked ethics, leadership and AI. Where do you see all that coming together, william?

Dr. William Attaway: 24:52

It's very much like what you said earlier in this conversation, jonathan. It's around amplification. When we first met, you were speaking at a conference that I was attending as we talked afterwards, one of the things that I took away from that talk and that you've shared here is that AI is an amplifier. It amplifies what is, and I believe that is true exactly like you're describing. When it comes to the ethics and the way we conduct business, it is going to amplify your ethics, your integrity, your systems.

Dr. William Attaway: 25:28

If you would operate in a way that's a little more on the less than transparent side, let's say, then that is likely what's going to come through when you begin to work with AI. If, however, you have a high standard of integrity, you have a high standard of ethics, then that is what you're going to. That's what's going to be amplified as you use this tool. This is a tool. It is not a substitute for you and your ethics and integrity. It's simply going to amplify what is. I love what you said. I think that example is fantastic and, in my opinion, I think we need to lead in this area with transparency. I think we need to lead in such a way that people know exactly who they're talking to exactly what's going on here you know, so that there's no confusion.

Dr. William Attaway: 26:13

I never want there to be confusion, people thinking, oh, I'm talking to William, actually you're not, you're talking to a machine. I never want that. I never want that conversation to be possible.

Jonathan Mast: 26:23

Yeah, oh, and I totally agree with you on that, and I think that's I love the way you brought that in, though about the amplification on on, not just skills, but amplifying our, our ethics as well. You know, if, if, again, if we're willing to play loose with the truth, ai may give us the ability just as it allows me to get things done faster and all that, it may give me the ability to do that faster as well, and that can be a very slippery slope. So I think it's reasonable that leaders pay attention, but I also want to encourage leaders. This is not an area in my mind that we need to be again fearful about. We talked about that earlier in the podcast. I don't believe AI is anything to be feared. I think it is something to be used, and you know it reminds me of a cartoon.

Jonathan Mast: 27:06

I'm a sales guy and have been for years. William and I have a cartoon somewhere. I don't have it up and bring it up, but it's, if you can imagine, back in biblical times when they fought, you know, hand to hand, swords and shields and everything else, and there's a cartoon and there's the general is sitting up on a hill, a rise, looking down over his, his forces, and they're fighting and everything else, and there's a gentleman standing in front of the tent, but it's actually behind where the general's looking and he's got this massive gatling gun and he's trying to get the general's attention going. General, general, generals, I don't have time, I don't have time, I don't have time, I'm too busy, I don't have time. Obviously, the joke there is that I don't have time, I'm too busy, I don't have time. Obviously, the joke there is that I think, as leaders, we always need to be willing to take a little bit of time and look at things and understand how this may benefit our situation. Or may not be the best analogy, but it was a great cartoon and I think you know AI is similar.

Jonathan Mast: 28:04

I think, as leaders, we have an opportunity, not only to our teams but to the organizations that we're leading as well, to embrace AI and figure out how can we use it in ways that add value. I often talk to people about there's three key things that I think AI can do for any person or business. One save time, and again we just talked earlier, nobody has enough time, so that's a good thing. Two, I think, as an organization, it can increase our profits largely due to the time savings, because we can then get more stuff done, have greater efficiencies.

Jonathan Mast: 28:39

But the other thing we often don't talk about and I want to encourage leaders to think about is effective implementation of AI in your organization can also help you deliver more value to your audience. That could be your shareholders, that could be your customers, wherever, and it can deliver more value without you requiring more revenue from them. So imagine you had that ability to take every one of your clients and, without increasing the stress on your team, without increasing the costs that were coming out of your pocket to deliver them more than they got yesterday. How could that not benefit the organization and everybody within it? And I think that's one of the things we need to be looking at as leaders when it comes to AIs how can we leverage these tools and tools they are, as you said. How can we leverage that?

Dr. William Attaway: 29:34

I think that's spot on. When we leave from a place of fear, then we see everything as a threat. It's a threat to the status quo. It's a threat to the status quo. It's a threat to what is. As leaders, we have to approach this with a different mindset. We have to approach this not with I have to hold on to what was. We have to think about what could be, maybe what should be. We have to think about how do we do this better, how do we make it better? How do I serve our clients better? How do I serve our clients better? How do I serve our team better? That's what we get to do as leaders. If we try to hold on to what was, if we reject change and we reject innovation, then, as leaders, what's going to happen is we're going to try to operate in stasis, holding everything steady. Stasis does not exist outside of a laboratory and, as a recent podcast guest shared with me, it's really hard to do in a laboratory.

Jonathan Mast: 30:32

I bet.

Dr. William Attaway: 30:33

You're either growing or you're going the other direction. Stasis doesn't exist, and so when I think about this in terms of leadership, I think about we are either going to lead toward greater effectiveness and greater efficiency and greater impact, which I think is what every leader wants, or we're going to go the other direction and we're going to start to drift. Nobody ever drifts into excellence. We only drift into mediocrity or worse.

Jonathan Mast: 31:05

That is so good and so profoundly true. I believe, absolutely profoundly true. Well, I believe AI is providing just a huge opportunity for leaders to step up. Let's talk for just a moment about, maybe, people that desire to get into a leadership role. I'd love to hear your perspective, william. Do you think AI is an opportunity for prospective future leaders to be able to, to move forward in a manner that helps them become the leader they may desire to be?

Dr. William Attaway: 31:40

Absolutely. I use AI a lot. I use it daily and I use it in ways that maybe some of the leaders listening are not thinking about. I use it as a brainstorming tool. Right, I want to learn more about something, I want to think differently about something, and so I've built it and prompted it in such a way that it is going to operate inside of a framework that I've given it right In the context of what I do as an executive coach, working with founders and entrepreneurs, with agency owners, with business leaders. I want it to operate in that framework, in that context, and I will ask it specific questions that are going to help me to think differently than I'm going to think on my own. It's almost like a thinking partner in some ways, but it's going to leverage things that I would have to spend hours researching it's able to do in seconds, and so this is something that I believe any emerging, any new leader who wants to develop, who wants to grow, begin to use it that way, begin to use it as a brainstorming tool. Hey, if I'm in this position, you build the prompt.

Dr. William Attaway: 32:46

If I'm in this position, this is my current station, this is my current role in this type of industry or company and I would like to explore moving in this direction. I'd like to explore this role. What are some books that would be helpful for me to read? What are some podcasts that would be helpful for me to listen to? What are some skills that I need to be developing now that five years from now, I'm going to be really glad I started developing now? I believe AI can be helpful in answering some of those questions with data. That would again take me much longer on my own to research and find. What do you think, jonathan?

Jonathan Mast: 33:24

Well, again, I am in total agreement with you. I'm a lifelong learner and one of the things that probably initially drew me to AI was the opportunity that it gave me to learn so quickly. I love to learn about disparate things. You know my 17-year-old son. He's into battleships of World War II. I'm not, but I want to do things with him.

Jonathan Mast: 33:47

And in the old days, figuring in old days and, by the way, that was a year or two ago figuring out how to learn about those battleships in a manner that I could connect with him would be difficult and, candidly, it would take a lot of time on my part and it's not that it's time that's not well spent, but it's not time with him. So I'm not sure I see the value. And, fathers, you're welcome to disagree with me, but I want to do things that are going to let me spend more time with him, not things that are going to take me away while I'm trying to learn about things to spend more time with him. And I remember very clearly I was actually driving to an event to pick him up from an event. I had about a 20 minute drive and I just recently discovered and this was a while back that they have a voice feature on ChatGPT. That'll let me talk to them.

Intro/Outro: 34:34

Isn't that great.

Jonathan Mast: 34:36

Oh, I love it. I absolutely love it. And so I literally had a conversation with ChatGPT while I was driving to pick up my son and for anybody that's worried, karens or Nellies or whatever out there I did it all hands-free so it was all safe. But I had a conversation and what was amazing is, by the time I got to pick him up, I don't know how it would compare, but I now knew about five or six different battleships that he talks about. I understood where they were made, I understood what battles they were in, why they were significant and all kinds of other things that would have literally even doing an internet search would have taken me hours and hours and hours of poking and prodding and guessing, and literally AI just gave me the information, because I could ask it questions. I could say so tell me about the German battleship, the Bismarck, that he keeps talking about. Why is that interesting? What's notable about that? And it told me how it was built and how, what battles it was in and all kinds of other things that were unique about it. And, amazingly enough, then, when I picked up my 17-year-old son and we just started chatting on the ride home, I said, hey, you know, I just recently learned this about and he looked at me like I was some alien, not in a bad way, but he was like, how did you learn that? And we then had almost a half hour conversation. I remember we got home 20 minute drive and we were still talking about battleships and I'm thrilled because it allowed me to connect with my son in a way that I would have probably never been able to connect before. And I know that's a personal story, but I still think it's an example.

Jonathan Mast: 36:11

You know, I was talking to a CEO of one of my clients the other day and he was sharing how he and he is. He's just, he loves his team, he loves his employees, he wants the best for them, but it's hard. He's he's managing in this case about not directly, but he's got about 180 employees. It's hard to keep up on what they're all doing and what they're interested in and everything else. And I talked to him about the fact that you know we can use AI to help in this, because we can actually help you be able to prep for a meeting. Okay, william, I'm meeting with William in 10 minutes. What do I need to know about William? What can I be reminded of about his family status, his kids, where he lives, his passions. He's interested, what he's been doing the last two years in our company, what he's been doing the last two weeks in our company, and literally within seconds. Now that information can be brought to him as a CEO and he can form a better relationship with those team members and people may go oh but Jonathan, that's not being sincere. Of course it is. If he wasn't sincere, he wouldn't learn it in the first place. If he wants to now, ai gives us that ability to do that faster. So I think it's a tremendous tool for learning, as you shared, and I would encourage leaders and wannabe leaders to really leverage it to pursue things that they're passionate about.

Jonathan Mast: 37:28

Or you know one of the things that happens probably to you you've got more books behind you than I do. You've got bigger bookcases, but people are always recommending books to me and I make a habit. I buy them all. I just buy them because I love books. I mean I haven't read everything back there, most of those I have. I've got more out in front of me, you can't see, but I love books.

Jonathan Mast: 37:47

But now when I buy the book, I also go tell me and, by the way, chachi PT knows a bit about me through custom instructions. Tell me what I should do. What are instructions? Tell me what I should. What are the key takeaways from this book for me? And now, what I've found by that is I'm able to actually implement things quickly and, in some cases, go to specific areas in a book that are going to impact me, my team, my family, immediately, as opposed to oh. I've got a list here 12 books I have yet to read. You know, I just got my newest one right here. I'm not no promo, but this one literally got two days ago. I haven't read it yet, but I already went to AI and I know what the book is about and I found out some of the key takeaways for me so that I can implement some things immediately. Because of that, and again, that's just something I could have never done before.

Dr. William Attaway: 38:43

I love that. You know, one of the things that I've been using lately is trying to get AI to help me generate good questions. I believe questions, the right questions, are how you get the right answers. Yeah, one of my favorite books on this topic is by John Maxwell. Good Leaders Ask Great Questions.

Jonathan Mast: 39:05

Great author.

Dr. William Attaway: 39:07

And as I read that book and I've read it a couple of times it really stressed to me the importance of developing this tool as a leader, asking great questions of your team, of your clients. This is something, as leaders, that we can actively work on, and AI is a tool that I'm leveraging these days to help me craft better questions that I use with clients, that I use with team members. Hey, I'm thinking about this thing. I'd like to get this information. What are some ways that I can ask this thing? I'd like to get this information, what are some ways that I can ask this and give me 15 examples, and I'll get 15 examples Now, 12 of them. I wouldn't use Three of them. I'm like, huh, I could take a piece of that, a piece of this, and I'm going to adjust that just a little bit, and all of a sudden, I have a question that might've taken me an hour or two, that instead took me a matter of minutes.

Jonathan Mast: 40:00

Yeah, and as leaders, we're more than anybody else probably, in that situation where we don't have enough time, and that time sometimes means we're taking away from the reason we're at work our family, our friends, our hobbies. The lifestyle that we want ends up suffering because we end up spending more time in work. What about if we can embrace AI to use it just even to save ourselves an hour a day, and maybe we could try to promise, as an overachieving leader, that maybe we only want to use 30 minutes to do more work? But I just imagine if you could free up some time every day or over the course of a week. Imagine what five hours a week could mean. Could mean a Saturday you didn't actually have to pull the laptop out, or you know something else that could happen with you that would allow you then to spend time with the reason you're working your family, your friends, your hobbies. You know I'm a huge nut for motorcycles. I've only rode my motorcycle probably six times this entire summer, not because I don't want to, but because I'm distracted with too many other things. That's all on me. By the way, I could write an extra half hour a week. If I just maybe an extra hour a week. Maybe I could even do it twice a week if I just would learn to do a couple things better.

Jonathan Mast: 41:24

I think, as we wrap up, william, I'd love to give everybody a couple of practical examples of things they could do. You mentioned brainstorming, and I think that's, as a leader, I think it's by far and away one of the most impactful ways we can use AI. In fact, I just recently set up a board of advisors. It's made up of historical and even a couple of fictional personas to advise me on things. So, for example, I have Steve Jobs on my board. Now it's not Steve Jobs, but AI knows a lot about Steve Jobs, and so when I add him to my advisory board, he can or a version of him or a avatar can give me counsel, as Steve Jobs might. I also had a little fun, and I happen to love the movie Iron man, so I added Tony Stark from Iron man, a fictional character which AI also knows a lot about, and I added a total of eight people. I won't go through the whole list, but one of the great things I've always loved brainstorming and you just mentioned that is that ability to pull and get somebody else's perspective, hypothetically, maybe. I want to talk and find out. You know, what would Rockefeller have done? It's not guaranteed you're going to get the exact answer, but AI knows Rockefeller and knows the things that he's done. Maybe Andrew Carnegie and what is the things has Andrew Carnegie done? You could actually now literally go and say I'd like you to act as though you're using Andrew Carnegie's history and his tone and his style and his knowledge and based on that, how do you think he would answer? So there are things like that that we could do. I'd love to give people just a couple more.

Jonathan Mast: 43:09

I know one of mine that I use all the time is writing emails. As a leader, there's emails it's one of the main ways I communicate and there's emails that often I didn't take the time that I should have to go through and so they got sent off. I will say half-assed, not as good as they should have. But now I can literally go to AI and I can say here's my audience, here's what I'm trying to do. Maybe it's a memo to my team or to a vendor or whatever.

Jonathan Mast: 43:34

Here's what I want to accomplish, and AI can get me 95% of the way there in about 12 seconds and then all I have to do is edit stuff so that previous 30 minutes of back and forth and getting distracted and people coming in my office and messages popping up and turned into a oh crap. I meant to send that this morning at eight and it's noon already and I haven't even done it yet. Now lets me, at eight o'clock, literally pull that up, spend maybe three minutes on it and send it out and probably be better written than what I would have done a year ago. That's one of my other favorites. Do you have anything you can recommend to leaders? We talked brainstorming, maybe email, anything else that you can think of that you'd recommend as a easy, low hanging fruit way for them to try AI?

Dr. William Attaway: 44:18

I'm going to tag in on the wordsmithing. I believe that is something I will, and I know this from my own experience. I will spend hours doing that, Trying to craft a sentence, craft a paragraph, craft something exactly like I want it, make sure it's got the right tone all the pieces. I will spend hours trying to do that with one piece of content. Okay, Is that the best use of my time? And this is a question I've had on a sticky note on my left monitor for years.

Jonathan Mast: 44:49

Is this the?

Dr. William Attaway: 44:50

absolute best use of my time. Right now, what AI helps me to do is to shorten that. I'm still going to spend time wordsmithing it, because that's who I am. I believe words have power. I believe that when we spend time crafting the right words, it helps us to communicate the right way, but I can shorten that time period. I can shorten that commitment without sacrificing the end result. This is one of the things I use AI for sacrificing the end result.

Jonathan Mast: 45:18

This is one of the things I use AI for. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. 110%. Great, great idea. I love that. Well before we're done, I want to go ahead and I want to remind everybody that, william, you were super generous and agreed to give out to anybody that watched this particular episode. I believe it was the first chapter of your upcoming book. Can you tell us a little bit about that? I'm putting a link down below. I know it's a long link, everybody, but if you go ahead and if you want, you can put that into your browser. By the way, here's a tip for you Do a screen capture right now on your computer and then upload that to ChatGPT and say give me the website address that Jonathan put on this slide and it'll do that for you. You don't have to remember that, but if you go here and register, not only will you get a copy of the replay we'll send that out to everybody but you'll also get William tell them about your new book and what you're giving them as a result of that.

Dr. William Attaway: 46:09

Absolutely, jonathan. So I have a new book coming out in January. It's called the Catalytic Mindset. You get to choose, and this comes from my work as an executive coach, coaching leaders now for almost 30 years, helping them to develop a healthy mindset through which they lead not only their teams and their clients, but also themselves, and so we'll make that first chapter available to you. You can have that. Start reading that today.

Jonathan Mast: 46:35

Oh, that's amazing. Thanks for being willing to do that. I so appreciate that today. Oh, that's amazing. Thanks for being willing to do that. I so appreciate that. And again, if nothing else, you guys can get the replay. You want to watch some of this. I'll give you another great tip.

Jonathan Mast: 46:48

By the way, this is going to be live on YouTube on William's channel, on my channel. You guys want to figure out, man, what actionable takeaway should I, as a leader, get out of that? Go over to YouTube. When this is done, it'll be there in literally a couple minutes. And if you click in the description here's a great hack for you guys You're going to see a button that says show transcript. You can literally copy and paste the entire transcript of what we've talked about today into ChatGPT, into Claude, into Gemini, into Perplexity, whatever you want, and you can begin to have a conversation with that, to ask questions about what we've talked about here today and then to expand on that. So if you want to make sure you get those links you don't miss any of that Just go ahead.

Jonathan Mast: 47:28

You can register here. You'll get those freebies as well, and we promise we're not going to spam you. We may let you know about the next event we do together. But we're not going to spam you, but we'd love to have you do that, william, if people are interested in getting in touch with you. Obviously we've got links that we can send out, but what's the best way for people to connect with you? If what you're saying resonates with them and they go. You know, I need a little bit more direction here.

Dr. William Attaway: 47:53

You can always go to my website, catalyticleadershipnet that's the name of the company that I founded and my last book that was published a few years ago as well Catalytic Leadership and the podcast that I host so you can go to those places to find more information about me and what I do, and connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm very active over there. Would love to start a conversation to see how we can help you.

Jonathan Mast: 48:16

Awesome. I appreciate that. If you want to reach out to me, it's super simple. You can do so just at jonathanmasscom slash link tree. So super easy. It's got all the resources there you'll ever need.

Jonathan Mast: 48:28

Guys, we want to, and ladies too. I don't mean to be sexist. We want to thank everybody for joining us here today. We appreciate that. And one of the things I know that I'd like and William, I bet you would probably appreciate too if you liked a joint conversation here about AI and leadership and you found this helpful if you would just let us know whether you're watching live or in the replay in the comments.

Jonathan Mast: 48:49

Let us know if you'd like to see more of this type of content or things related to this. I know I'm willing to do it. I know William's willing to do it, but we need to know what's going to add value to you guys. So if you could let us know in the comments where that intersection occurs AI and leadership things you'd like to know we would really be grateful and we'll do our best to make sure we provide some value there as well. So, with that, make it a great day everybody. William, thank you for your time today. I know getting this scheduled was difficult, probably more due to my schedule than yours, but so grateful for you taking the time. I know you're speaking all over. You're at all kinds of events as well. Nothing like meeting in Cancun in the middle of July, which we did, which.

Jonathan Mast: 49:27

I'm still trying to figure out why July was when we were both in Cancun as opposed to February, but it was amazing and I'm thrilled that we had the opportunity to meet and just want to thank you again for your time today.

Dr. William Attaway: 49:42

Well, jonathan, thank you. I've so enjoyed this conversation, as well as the ones we've had previously, and I look forward to seeing how we can add value to the people who are watching and listening to this.

Jonathan Mast: 49:49

Awesome. Make it a great day everybody. Bye-bye.

Dr. William Attaway: 49:52

Thanks for joining me for this episode today. As we wrap up, I'd love for you to do two things. First, subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode, and if you find value here, I'd love it if you would rate it and review it. That really does make a difference in helping other people to discover this podcast. Second, if you don't have a copy of my newest book, catalytic Leadership, I'd love to put a copy in your hands. If you go to catalyticleadershipbookcom, you can get a copy for free. Just pay the shipping so I can get it to you and we'll get one right out.

Dr. William Attaway: 50:29

My goal is to put this into the hands of as many leaders as possible. This book captures principles that I've learned in 20 plus years of coaching leaders in the entrepreneurial space, in business, government, nonprofits, education and the local church. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn to keep up with what I'm currently learning and thinking about. And if you're ready to take a next step with a coach to help you intentionally grow and thrive as a leader, I'd be honored to help you. Just go to catalyticleadershipnet to book a call with me. Stay tuned for our next episode next week. Until then, as always, leaders choose to be catalytic.

Intro/Outro: 51:12

Thanks for listening to Catalytic Leadership with Dr William Attaway. Be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss the next episode. Want more? Go to catalyticleadershipnet.