Chat GPT as A.I. Leadership Coach? Yes and No.
AI as a Learning Coach?
I’ve spent a number of years in the learning and development profession. One of the holy grails for learning designers has been to make it as easy as possible to access the proper learning at the right time and in a way that is personalized. When generative AI platforms hit the scene, my eyes and ears perked up because it appeared that it was rapidly becoming possible to have personal learning coaches always available to us.
A Learning Experiment
Our firm, Thrive at Work, has been in the leadership development and learning game for some time. We do coaching, facilitation, and program design, so I wanted to find out how A.I. could help with these areas in the present. I thought it would be interesting to ask ChatGPT to be my leadership coach and then discover where it was helpful, and where it wasn’t. See the video below for a quick run-through. I don’t consider myself an expert in generative A.I., large language models, etc. (I’m actually using A.I. to help me learn more), but the results were exciting, nonetheless.
Watch Below:
My Thoughts
How it can support coaching
ChatGPT can definitely support a coaching and leadership development process by helping any leader, anywhere, and in any size organization. How?
It can respond to questions and some basic context posed by the learner. Try a prompt like:
“You are my leadership coach. I was recently promoted to a management role overseeing a team of software engineers. I was previously a peer of my employees, and I was promoted partially because of my expertise. I am finding that my team defers to my ideas. I'd like them to come up with their own ideas, challenge mine, and take the initiative to experiment and try things on their own. Can you help?”
It helps you discover options, lists, ideas, and best practices that you may or may not know you even need. For me, this was like getting a summary of what I might get from spending hours on youtube, reading book summaries, or even books (which would take me even longer).
It allowed me to dig deeper into specific areas where I needed more information. It provided more content, but also resources when I asked for them (books, courses, videos, etc)
Finally, I asked it for a 2 week plan and it created a generic way of breaking down a learning and application process. Very helpful.
How it can’t support coaching
The good news for leadership coaches and leadership development professionals (like Thrive at Work) is it can’t replicate the experience and value of a human coach at this stage. ChatGPT will clearly explain its limitations as a coach if you ask it (which I did in the video). It certainly is self-aware and overlapped with many of my thoughts. So here’s what it said when I asked, “What are the limitations of you being a leadership coach?” The areas it described were:
Lack of Emotional Intelligence
No Personalized Context
Inability to Observe Non-Verbal Cues
Limited Real-Time Interaction
No Practical Experience
Lack of Flexibility
Ethical Concerns
Dependency on Input
Much of coaching and leadership development centers around the psychology of the individuals involved (the coachee, the people the coachee is interacting with, the coach). To make the most significant impact through coaching, there must be consideration and synthesis of the unique situations, personalities, strengths, passions, experiences, etc. A human coach can’t be automated at this stage.
My Conclusion
Yes, a human coach can’t be automated at this stage. That said, from a learning perspective, ChatGPT can open doors for many leaders and learners who may not have access to coaching, who may not know what they need to know, or who may need help with a question in real-time. The ability to create awareness, focus, ideas, and plans can help someone get started on a productive learning path for growth.
AI is going to transform the way learning happens in organizations. It’s an exciting time for learning professionals because they might be able to finally realize a world where learning can be easily embedded into work, translating into growth and performance improvement at scale. Now it’s time, to go ask ChatGPT to give me a performance plan to level up my pickleball game.
How can we work together?
If you’re looking for help designing, planning, or facilitating your retreat or offsite, or want to discuss these ideas in more detail, send us an email or book a time to chat further. We’d love to help!
