3 Ways AI Can Help With Leader Communication—And What It Can't Do

As a communication consultant and coach, many of my clients are asking me about using AI in their communication. My perspective is that AI can be a communication tool but cannot replace your authenticity as a leader. Great leaders are authentic and empathetic. And they have consistent behaviors and habits that support these qualities.

AI cannot help you develop these leadership traits, but you can use AI as a tool to refine your great leadership. Here is how.

1. Showing Up Authentically At Meetings

Showing up as an authentic leader is really about having a set of consistent behaviors that people can count on. Communicating authentically is also about consistent behaviors. If you are a fast-paced and decision-driven person, this will show up in your communication. The same holds true if you are methodical and thoughtful. The best leaders grow their range of communication styles to meet the needs of the audience.

So although AI can help you craft communication and generate ideas, it cannot help you be authentic. It is up to you to develop the habits and behaviors that allow you to show up as yourself consistently. When you are preparing for a meeting with co-workers, AI can help you with what to say, but not how to say it.

I recently helped a client navigate a tricky situation with his boss at work. My client had to work on how he showed up to the meeting; he needed to put aside his assumptions and frustrations, and he needed to work on his tone of voice and his energy while navigating the conversation. In other words, he needed to change his behavior from impatient to patient. AI gave him words to use, such as asking, "Can you tell me more about this situation?" instead of exploding, but he still had to do the work to calm down, get control of his feelings and become curious.

And over time, he will need to be consistent with these habits to become an authentic leader.

2. Showing Up Authentically Onstage

I am currently helping a leader with a presentation for an annual sales meeting. He has decided to tell a story about when he was starting out in his career in sales. AI has helped him craft the story after he fed it facts, but he still has to adjust it to fit his style. And he has to deliver it—and how he delivers it will make all the difference to the audience.

The best leaders grow their range of communication styles to meet the needs of the audience. This particular leader is quiet and thoughtful. For this speech, he will have to increase his energy and show more excitement. That will take practice—recording, watching himself and even a bit of "acting."

AI may be able to write up a story from his ideas, but he still needs to tap into his power and passion to connect with the audience. The audience needs to see and feel his passion not only in his sales story, but in the whole speech. He will nail this if he owns it, practices it and lives into it.

3. Empathic Leadership

The most powerful form of empathy comes through engaging people and genuinely wanting to understand their point of view

Believe it or not, AI can help you with empathy strategies and tools, but you have to show up and demonstrate empathy in the moment. I recently worked with a client who was aggressive and results-driven. He'd been given feedback that he needed to slow down, listen and be more collaborative. We used AI to create scenarios and generate empathetic responses that he could use. For example, if the product the team was working on was late, he typically did whatever it took to fix it, running roughshod over people's feelings in the process. When fed this scenario, AI suggested that a more empathetic approach would be to show up with curiosity and ask others what they think. He then had to do it. He had to counter his need for control, breathe and ask the question.

In a different setting like manufacturing, empathetic leadership will look different—perhaps regularly asking for input on processes. But for most leaders, it comes down to genuinely exploring why someone sees a situation differently than you do and digging deep to understand the reasoning behind their perspective. And try open-ended questions; you can hear the difference between "What caused the delay?" versus saying "Help me understand what happened with the timeline."

When you take the time to really understand someone's thinking—especially in a fact-driven culture like manufacturing—you show a form of empathy that's both authentic and practical. AI can help you find empathetic words, questions and approaches, but you need to implement them. You need to live them. You need to navigate each conversation. You need to practice active listening. You need to follow through. AI cannot help you with this.

Final Thoughts

We need authentic and empathetic leaders. Dr. Vivek Murthy, the former surgeon general, has called out loneliness as an American epidemic for years. After spending years hearing stories from thousands of Americans, delving into scientific data and convening researchers, Dr. Murthy has found something deep and widespread ailing Americans: the erosion of our sense of community.

At work, we know that better relationships pave the way for more productive conversations—when we show up with authenticity and empathy, we can know each other, connect on a deeper level and have more grace.

So I encourage you to use AI as a communication tool to help you generate words, questions and strategies to help you be more authentic and empathetic. But more importantly, I encourage you to practice the behaviors that make these leadership qualities part of your ethos.

Be well.