Helping leaders motivate their people to a higher level of performance through strong human relations, team building and golajieving. This is the seven minute Leadership podcast with your host Paul Fellowledo.
Hello everyone, and welcome to this seven minute leadership podcast. It's episode six forty seven. Automation is everywhere. Scheduling tools, AI note takers, chatbots, performance dashboards, smart workflows, automated onboarding, automated feedback, automated follow up emails. The tools are getting faster, cleaner, more efficient. Here is the real question. Are your people feeling faster and cleaner too, or are they feeling replaced.
Because automation can increase output, it can also quietly decrease connection and when connection drops, culture starts to crack. I'm not anti automation. In fact, if you listen to this podcast, you know I talk about AI systems and digital leverage. Often leaders who ignore technology fall behind. That is reality. But leaders who hide behind technology lose something far more valuable. They lose humanity. There's a big difference between streamlining work
and stripping the human out of the work. Automation should remove friction, not remove faces. Let me give you an example. You install an automated scheduling system. It eliminates back and forth emails, It fills shifts, it sends reminders. It looks efficient. But now no one talks about scheduling anymore. No one checks in, No one asks how someone is doing. No one notices the burnout creeping in. Because the system handled
the logistics, the process improved, the pulse disappeared. That is alienation. Automation without alienation means this systems handle transactions. Leaders handle relationships. You cannot outsource empathy. You cannot automate presence. You cannot delegate accountability to a dashboard. And here's where leaders get it wrong. They measure productivity gains and assume morale followed. They see cost savings and assume loyalty increased. They see
fewer errors and assume engagement improved. Data tells you what happened. It does not tell you how people felt about it. And if you lead long enough you know this, people will tolerate inefficiency longer. Then they will tolerate in difference. So how do we automate eight without alienating? First, narrate the why. When you introduce automation, do not say we are implementing this new system. Say we are implementing this because I want your time spent on higher value work.
I want you less buried in admin. I want you thinking, solving and building. Tie the tool to a human outcome. Second, keep the touch points. If your onboarding is automated, schedule a real conversation anyway. If performance reports are auto generated, sit down and discuss them face to face. If a chat bot answers basic HR questions, still walk the floor and ask how are you doing? Technology should reduce noise, not reduce presence. Third, watch for silent drift. Automation can
make leaders lazy. It becomes easy to say the system will catch that, the system will flag it, the system will notify me. Leadership cannot run on notifications. Red key moments still require a human decision. They require judgment, context, and ownership. A dashboard can flash red, it cannot carry the weight of the decision. And here is something else. Automation shifts power. The person who understands the system often gains influence. The person who does not may feel left behind.
That creates microcultures insiders and outsiders. If you roll out new tech, you better roll out training with it, and not once repeatedly because nothing alienates a team faster than feeling stupid and run of a machine. So let's talk about tone. If every message from leadership becomes automated, your culture will start to sound robotic. Birthdays, anniversaries, recognition, warnings, reminders, all automated. Your team will feel like they work for a system, not a leader. There is a place for
automation in recognition. There is not a place for automation in appreciation. Those are different things. Appreciation requires attention. So here's a gut check. If your entire tech stack shut down tomorrow, would your team still feel connected to you. If the answer is no, you are over automated. If your culture depends on software to function, you have built a digital company, not a leadership culture. Now let me
flip this. When automation actually increases humanity. It gives people time, It reduces repetitive strain, it removes pointless steps, It frees mental bandwidth. But only if leaders intentionally reinvest that free time into relationships. Do not automate and then fill the gap with more work. Automate and reinvest The gain more coaching, more clarity, more visibility, more time listening. That is how
you prevent alienation. There's also a trust element here. Some employees hear automation in think layoffs, they hear efficiency in think replacement. You have to address that directly, say it clearly. This tool is here to help you perform at a higher level. It is not here to eliminate you. And then prove it because if automation becomes a stepping stone to cutting peapeople without honesty, trust evaporates, and once trust is gone, no system will rebuild it. Leadership is still
about people, even in a digital world. You can use AI to draft, you still need judgment to decide. You can use analytics to predict. You still need courage to act. You can use automation to scale, You still need character to lead. And remember this technology amplifies culture. If you already have strong relationships, automation makes you faster. If you
already have weak relationships, automation makes you distant. So before you implement the next tool, ask yourself one question, is this going to make us more human or less connected? And if you cannot answer that clearly, slow down seven minutes a day. That is all I ever ask. Spend seven minutes checking in with someone without a device between you seven minutes explaining a change, seven minutes listening to frustration, seven minutes reinforcing that behind every system is a person
that matters. Automation is not the enemy. Indifference is use the tools, leverage the systems, improve the workflow. Then double down on humanity because at the end of the day, nobody stays loyal to software. They stay loyal to leaders who see them. And if you want more free leadership resources, head over to Paul Fallablido dot com click on free Stuff. I have over twenty five free leadership documents you can
use starting today. This has been the seven Minute Leadership Podcast and I thank you for listening.
For more Paul fell of Alito Podcasts, visit paulfellowalito dot com