#406 Leadership and AI - an interview with Dr. Shanda Gore / by Niels Brabandt

Leadership and AI - an interview with Dr. Shanda Gora / by Niels Brabandt

How should leaders handle AI? Which challenges arise? How do I find the right approach?

Dr. Shanda Gore is an international expert on the matter. She offered her expertise and experience in this interview with Niels Brabandt.

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More on this topic in this week's podcast: Apple Podcasts / Spotify

For the podcast transcript, read below.

Is excellent leadership important to you?

Let's have a chat: NB@NB-Networks.com

Contact: Niels Brabandt on LinkedIn

Website: www.NB-Networks.biz

Niels Brabandt is an expert in sustainable leadership with more than 20 years of experience in practice and science.

Niels Brabandt: Professional Training, Speaking, Coaching, Consulting, Mentoring, Project & Interim Management. Event host, MC, moderator.

Podcast Transcript

Niels Brabandt

When we talk about leadership, often people think, well, AI is a hot topic at the moment. However, I am a bit scared, bit afraid, not too knowledgeable. What should I actually do with it? And we have one of the world's leading experts here with us today. Hello and welcome, doctor Sheanda Gore. Hello. Thank you very much for taking the time.

We're getting straight into the topic. First, I have one question. I I I saw your CV, and you have you you have a tremendously great track record in university and science and real world practice. What was your motivation to go out there into this challenging field of consultancy, training, speaking, where people say, oh, I don't know. Oh, I'm so scared. What was your core motivation not to stay in the cozy environment and say, I do the scientific bit and you do whatever you want with it?

Dr. Shanda Gore

You know, there's one thing about reaching, making sure you're making an impact. And I really my values is I want I really wanna make the biggest impact I can. And I could choose to stay within one institution, or I can work with a number of them across The United States and now over the world. And so I chose instead of being president of a university, I chose to be president of this consulting firm, which has much broader reach.

Niels Brabandt

Brilliant. And you wrote the book, the pin leader path. Identify, engage, and develop effective human and AI leadership for your organizational culture, March 2025. So it's really up to date. But many people now say, look. We have this AI, and we don't really know what's happening there. We saw all the cases where things went wrong.

For example, where a certain very well known logistics company had a recruiting AI that turned out to actually be against women and minorities. Or we had a certain software company which had a chatbot which suddenly turned out to be racist, and they say, I'm not gonna sign this off. I don't want that. My company is out there impressed, and I on c level am personally accountable for what's happening here. So I don't know what's going on there.

So where should I go? What's your advice for these people?

Dr. Shanda Gore

So that's one thing about AI. AI is only as good as what's being put in the back and the algorithm can pull from it. And I'm very cautious with, clients to talk to them about if you're going to use AI, if you're bringing them on as a team member or part of your team, you need to understand that it's, it's going to have biases built into it for months, for many months. If I asked AI about myself, depending on, you know, what platform I'm using, it would call me a man. It would just say, well, he's accomplished in, in this area. And I'm talking about seven to eight months. We're finally the algorithm caught on that.

I see myself as a woman and, and called me a she, but it took a while. And I said, well, I can either rely on the algorithm to go figure this out in AI, or I can teach it and train it. So then I started putting them part that AI part component, part of my team and started educated about myself, my, my firm and the projects that I work on so that it, when it pulled from information, it would pull correctly and would be able to give me better information back. And that's why I actually suggest to any of the companies we work with is don't be afraid of it. Don't run from it, but engage it so that you can start to shape the algorithm. Because if not, the algorithm will be shaped without you.

Niels Brabandt

Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, now people say, well, we have the data, and, of course, we could train AI with the data. However, some people are aware, and that includes anyone from being a team member up to c level. Some people know, well, we have the data, but let's give you a very simple example. When we just put our recruiting data into the AI, some executives, not enough, but many of them are now aware.

We know that we had unconscious bias going on. We know that in the past, probably, our recruiting wasn't too great. We probably didn't treat anyone equally, and we don't wanna make it worse by training the algorithm on it because then it gets worse from there. So how can I prevent that I say, I want to give AI data, but I don't know if my data is actually any good?

Dr. Shanda Gore

Well, you're good. You're you're the expert. Excuse me. You're the expert in your field. So if you are, you have a firm and I don't know what service area it is, but you, you need to treat it as you know, what the, the you're the expert. So if you treat the AI component and you feed it with information that's coming from you, it, that will help, especially if somebody's searching, do I wanna work for this firm or this organization? You wanna make sure they've got the best information about your organization.

So, I mean, there's only one way to do that. There really isn't another way around this, because again, if you allow the algorithm to go figure it out, as you probably know, and those listeners may or may not know, but AI hallucinates. Mhmm. That's what they call it hallucination. I call it sometimes an oh, it sounds like a lie, but it's Yeah.

Let me just tell

Niels Brabandt

you the right word. Yeah.

Dr. Shanda Gore

They don't wanna put the human aspect on it, but it's Yeah. It's it makes things up. It makes things up. So when you're dealing with AI, think of it like a a new source. It's you're going to need to do some checks and balances because if you're going out and using it to try to determine who you're gonna work with and you wanna find information, you wanna use multiple sources to make sure that that information is correct. That's the one thing. We cannot forget about the human aspect of any organizational culture.

AI does not replace that. It does not replace that. So for those that are saying, well, I'm just gonna turn it loose. And, it's gonna write my emails. And then another part of the organization writes emails back. Well, well, the problem is, is that you are still responsible for the content of that email that goes to that person. So AI has a tendency.

I don't know if you notice this, but sometimes I'll put exclamation marks in sentences and to put things in caps and that's an emotional response. That's how humans interpret that. And so it's really important when you're building organizational culture to know that AI has it does have a mind of its own and may put it in there. And that may not be the tone you wanna set. So you're still responsible legally even, for whatever AI is writing on your behalf with your name on it. So you have to be mindful of that. And it also isn't recognizing your your particular organization.

You wanna control whatever that, you know, whatever that story is about your organization.

Niels Brabandt

Absolutely. When we now talk about training the AI properly, for example, with the methods you just mentioned, some people are sitting there and say, well, I when when I'm training the AI on what I do, I fear that sooner or later, let's say I'm an executive assistant, and I tell AI how to do this and how to do that and how to write my emails and what more. Even if my name is on there and I'm responsible and accountable for what what what's going out there. Some people just fear, isn't this when it's proceeding? And let's let's see. When chat g p t is the first tool that people recognized as AI, although AI was around there for way longer time, many people started to recognize it with chat g p t. And then they said very quickly, it went from text only to pictures.

Very quickly, it went from pictures with another tool to photo realistic pictures to video what we now see into deep fake. So isn't the tendency that when I'm training the AI that sooner or later, my job is going to be taken away by it?

Dr. Shanda Gore

I think there are a number of rules that, and, and again, let's not kid ourselves that actually humans may be doing right now that they will not need to be doing in the future. The question is what role is that? When I say that feed into AI, I'm saying for it to learn about your company, your organization. And I, but I, what I am not saying and what you will not hear me say is that, as an organization that I go to AI and I say, Hey, AI, go ahead, whatever platform, check GPT or whatever, write my strategic plan for me, which you would hire a firm or you would hire, or maybe someone on your staff would help with you with writing a strategic plan. AI is not gonna be able to write a strategic plan for your particular company and do it well and to do it in a forecasting way. It's not, it's pulling from an algorithm in the past to figure out who you are, even if you're feeding it about where you are right now, because this now we're getting into this time situation. It's only got what the present is.

It does not have enough of the nuances, especially the organizational culture to help you go to the next step. You know, where you want to be. You can even tell AI you'd like, you'd like to be XYZ three years.

What do you need to do? AI can only predict based on past on history. So I would caution anyway, just like you had a new team member come on board. You wouldn't tell a new team member, go write my strategic plan. Yeah. No. And AI is not set up that way.

It's going to give you some frameworks that it pulls from the internet and the different, but it's not going to be, that's why customizable. That's why vision boards are still very important. This is why it's, it's important to understand your team and then the power of the expertise you bring on the human element to your team. So AI is not your team. It's not a sole team, nor should you rely on it to be the answer for all of it. So it's going to have some replacement was I have some friends who are changing in like graphic design. They're worried about graphic design.

I get it. I hear you.

But I also think as a graphic designer, you can leverage this to be even more efficient in what you're doing is you either one, you stay in that field or you transition into something the next level up.

Niels Brabandt

Absolutely. And when you now talk about, okay, some people either need to level up, change their jobs, they will have a certain impact. But one very important things you mentioned is the hallucination of AI. Some people say, okay. I like to use AI, and now someone tells me sometimes it hallucinates, so I need to recheck anyway. So then I can do it manually because I don't know if the answer is right. So how is the most efficient way that I can figure out if an AI is hallucinating or not?

Because many people simply want to put something in there and say, this is the result. I just take it. What is your advice on people saying it's not too efficient to ask an AI and then double check because then I can do it manually anyway.

Dr. Shanda Gore

So I'm gonna pull back from my past on my on my bachelor's degree. And this is when I was doing journalism and media. And I the the rule of thumb back then was three sources, at least three sources. I think at this point, if you are utilizing AI, you need to find other sources beyond AI to validate what you just found, whatever that answer is that a research that it did, I would highly recommend. And this is again, back to the human element, humans are not going to be fully replaced because there's always going to be this checks and balances. Just think of individuals who totally rely on social media for their information. They don't check newspapers.

They're not checking television or other or podcast resources. They're just using social media. You already know you're at, you're going to have a problem because social media already has either a slant or bias or something, whatever that is. And you gravitate toward those that reaffirm what you already know. And so, and that's powerful, but you have to be self aware if you are not self aware, that's part of being what those intelligences. You're not going to be able to do that. And so I stress to any individual who's getting ready, our organization to use AI know that you're going, it's going to have biases.

It's going to hallucinate and that you're going to have to check before you say, this is what's real. This is the truth. You're gonna need to do your own checks and balances with that. And I'd say at least three sources before you, if you're gonna make a determination and always keep the human element in it, do not just rely totally on AI.

Niels Brabandt

There you are. Keep the human element in it.

Brilliant advice here. So to wrap this up, when now someone's listening to this podcast and say, hey.

I'm really big fan of AI. I want to go forward. However, I work let's give you an example. In corporate America, corporate Britain, corporate x y z, and they say, well, our executives always say, we look into it, but we're very risk averse. And then the usual phrase come up, we are conservative industry. We have other priorities at the moment. And things just don't move forward.

When someone's listening right now and say, I want to get this started. However, when people ask me where to start, I don't even know where to start. Do we start in marketing, recruiting, graphic design, outside communication, inside email newsletter, Internet communication? What is your advice on people who now listen and say, I want to make my leaders move forward on this, but I don't know how.

Dr. Shanda Gore

So I'm gonna give you some examples of what I know is working well with some of the and I'm thinking small and large. Okay? In asking your teams to start to get acclimated with a platform, an AI platform, and start to work with it so they can at least start to feel it out. So if they're using chat GPT and that's their comfort zone, or if they're losing using Alexa, or if they're using some of these other ones that are out there that are wherever you are having your team members just go out and say, that's something simple and have it rewrite one of your emails just to see what it does. And right now I know if you load some of the newer software, you know, the up the upgrades and updates, it will AI companion. This comes along with it. I don't know if you're experiencing that or not.

That that wasn't there a year, year and a half ago. So allowing AI companion to just rewrite something and see how it goes is, is one way of tip is at least tipping you, putting your toes in the water and seeing how, what you think of it. You may not agree with it. It may not work, but I think that starting that, excuse me, starting that and doing that is really critically important to the process because if you're not familiar and you're kind of, you know, risk aversive, that's all right. That makes a lot of sense. And you're protecting what I would not say is to throw yourself totally in and make sure that all that you're doing is in some kind of AI form in, in totally rely on it. But I think that getting your teams, at least starting to talk about it, if you're having, a weekly meeting with them asking them, you know, so did anybody use AI?

How did you use it to get them acclimated with using it? But if you've got anybody who's totally afraid of it, don't try to force them into it without them seeing you use it first because that will drive that person, possibly a great person, a great employee, out of your organization because you've scared them.

Niels Brabandt

Absolutely. I think these are the perfect final words. When now people say, hey. I think I'd like to know more about this, and I'd like to get in touch with you. How can people actually find you, communicate with you, get in touch with you if they like to?

Dr. Shanda Gore

You know, LinkedIn is one of my the biggest business sources. So you can find me at Shanda Gore on LinkedIn. You can find me at www.shandagore.com, and you can find the book, the pin leader path, which is where I talk about that human and AI leadership. And even in that book, you'll find that AI is just a portion of it. I profile what it looks like, what leadership would look like if AI was a leader, but it really talks about those elements at the baseline foundation. We need to focus on our organizational cultures. We need to identify effective leaders and how, why are they effective and, and really focus on that piece.

So you can find more information about the book and leader path, which was number one, Amazon, by the way, and HR and personal

Niels Brabandt

brand. Congratulations.

Dr. Shanda Gore

Yes. We were very

Niels Brabandt

excited about

Dr. Shanda Gore

that. Thank you. Thank you. And I you know, just reach out. We'd love to hear from you and and, of course, the pin leader podcast.

Niels Brabandt

Perfect. These are the final words, the perfect final words for this podcast. The Pin Leader Path, Identify, Engage, and Develop Effective Human and AI Leadership for Your Organizational Culture. It's now out, so it's a new book. It's also it's tremendously successful. So at the end of this podcast, there's only one thing left for me to say. Doctor Shehanda Gore, thank you very much for your

Dr. Shanda Gore

time. Thank you, Nils. Appreciate it.