Thomas Anglero warns leaders that their best employees are quietly using AI to outperform peers, creating a retention crisis. When a few people secretly adopt AI tools, they become indispensable and leave when they realize their value. Leaders need a strategic AI plan now or risk losing top talent.
Chapters
As a leader, you probably have 2 or 3 people in your team who are quiet, quietly accomplishing twice as much as everyone else, and they're not working harder. The danger that you're in is that it's not really their productivity, is that they're building a gap and how your organization, how your organization works and how it thinks it works. And when they leave, and they will leave, the gap widens. What do you do as a leader? What do you do? You wanted AI in your team. You wanted AI. You want everybody to use AI, but only a few people are using it. And they're standing out. They're able to produce more, do more, and no one else is. How do you get them on board? Or let's flip it around. Let's say you are a leader and the leadership team that you belong in and you are using AI and you're standing out and you're doing more, but no one else in the leadership team is. Do you tell them? Do you keep it a secret? But you're starting to build a reputation of the person who could do anything. The person who's up all night long accomplishing the impossible. You're able to— moments notice, the client says, oh my God, the client in France now wants the entire document in French or in German or Swiss German, which is not just German, or they want it in, I don't know, Spanish. You never spoke in Spanish, but you're able to do it with AI. You're this all-can-do person. Is this right for you? Are you happy? I think in the moment you're happy, aren't you? You're proud. Everybody recognizes you. You're getting praise. But do you tell them your secret? How long do you let it go? Or are you planning your exit? So back to your colleagues, your group people. You have 2 or 3 people, elite stars, superstars. Does everybody know what they're doing? If they don't, do you share that secret with the rest of your group and then make them feel bad? How come you're not using AI? Or does everyone know and you're starting to wonder, why don't they use AI? As a leader, you're in a difficult situation. In many ways you can look at it as a win. You're accomplishing a lot on your own. Your team's accomplishing a lot with AI, but they could do more. What do you do? The answer almost to both is really you need to make a decision about you as a leader on the top who's using AI. Where do you see yourself going? And why do you see yourself going there? Why do you put yourself in the situation you're in? As a leader who's running a group where only 2, 3 people are using AI and the rest aren't, what kind of culture do you want in your group? What kind of dynamic? Do you really want everybody to use AI? Yes, you do. Do you want productivity to go up? Absolutely. Can you handle this new type of culture, this new type of team? You think you can. Do you? Can you? Do you use AI? How come they're not following your footsteps? How come your management style, your communication style hasn't been working? Why are the other rest of the group not listening to you? Reflect on you. The answer is you. There's something that's not working in this age of AI, because what's going to happen is people are going to leave. Your 3 superstars, they know how valuable they are, and they will leave. You at the leadership group using AI, you're the superstar. You know how valuable, valuable you are. You plan on leaving. Utilize your time to come up with a strategic plan with not just AI, but a plan for you. I work with a limited number of clients exactly on this. What is your plan as a leader in this age of AI? What is my strategic plan for my company? What is my strategic plan for myself? I'm Thomas Anglero. This is the Clarity at the Top podcast. Talk to you next time.
