Leadership has become an important topic in our times when digital transformation is impacting traditional role models and socio-cultural structures. It takes new dimensions in the frame of the smart city's governance.
In the framework of a smart city, city governance is meant to be automated while widely shared, involving the established social structures but also directly engaging the citizen. With the introduction of the concept of digital citizenship and identity, many socio-political questions have been put in revision. Is it possible to have an AI (Artificial Intelligence) Agent for a Mayor? Where is the boundary between city operational management and socio-political leadership at the ground? Is personal freedom expanded or limited in the design of a digital city governance system?
These questions have been starting to find some possible answers in fast adopting societies such as the European countries, USA, China and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
In the last decade, many city governance platforms have been adopted at city, regional and national levels. Today, three important adoptive models have been established on the road of normalization. These models are a clear evolution of the traditional socio-political structure and principles which have been digitized.
All the models have paved the way for the AI technologies to overtake human socio-political functions such as the position of a Mayor. While there are still many discussions on the topic of personal freedom, a main trend towards limiting this freedom has been demonstrated in all cases.
Then, the role of a leader has been forced to be redefined in a digital world where human interactions are getting limited.
Human Leadership vs AI
Human qualities need to be redefined, reinforced and visualized when the limits of authentic and fake are blurring.
What are the pure human qualities which machines will never be able to recreate?
There has been a widespread debate on this question where two main sides were formed. For one group there are no skills which may not be able to be digitalized with the advance of technology. For the other group, there are many pure qualities such as a spiritual internal value system, human feelings and intentions, and intuition which cannot be replicated by a machine.
Then, with the advancement of the integration of AI into society, the need for truthful human leaders is increasing. The young generations are calling for human role models. They search for authenticity grounded in dignity, in moral values, in strong convictions and beliefs. Although they have their first meeting with a Leader through the digital world, they demand evidence which is only human and which is unique to the Leader. They crave to meet in person with the Leader as for them this is the final proof of being a human, not AI.
But then again, the Leader needs to perfectly dominate the technology. Through this dominance, he/she can highlight his/her pure human qualities while competing with the AI.
The Leader of tomorrow is expected to dominate the technology for all management and operational needs that may arised. It is expected from him/her to advocate and empower in his/her followers the pride of being a human grounded in the uniqueness of oneself.
Education for Tomorrow
Digital transformation has reshaped and redefined all spheres of today's daily life, while regulation and education fell to keep the pace.
"How to raise my kids so they can be successful tomorrow?"- is a question that many parents worry about. Although, many believe digital skills are crucial for the Future of Work. We, at ADVANCED KNOWLEDGE, advocate for teaching the kids more leadership and soft skills on par with technology. We are convinced not every kid will be a software developer and a data scientist. However, every kid needs to know to formulate their own opinion, build critical thinking skills and craft itself in the art of human relationships (specifically intercultural relationships).
In our opinion, kids should acquire a wide understanding about technology and its application cases while deepening their knowledge about the impact and risks of technology and how to enforce or mitigate certain outcomes.
We propose the following conceptual structure for the education in technology from kindergarten to university with a focus on building personal dominion on technology.
- Kindergarten: education is focused on building personal discipline and resistance towards electronic addiction. At this stage, the aim is for the kid to acquire a habit of smooth exchange between online and offline activities while understanding that the virtual world is always accessible and available as the physical world. Another importance at this stage is to build in the kid an opinion that social interactions offline are as easy as they are in the online world.
- Primary school: in parallel with the introduction of technical skills, we suggest introducing the idea of impact and risk of technology. At this stage the focus is on building awareness about personal identity, sovereignty and putting and defending personal limits. Also, here, it is the right time for acquiring awareness about effort and the real dimension of putting effort in something. The aim is to build habits of patience and appreciation towards personal effort.
- Secondary school: while mastering technology fundamental knowledge and practical skills, we suggest introducing a curriculum on management, strategic and planning skills. At this stage the focus is on building a deep understanding about the value of the technology and how it is created. At this stage, students acquire critical thinking and evaluation skills which are meant to give them dominion over the technology (in particular the AI). We suggest the educational curriculum to have a specific focus on truthfulness: How do you define truth? How do you validate the truth? How do you select the source of evidence? How do you measure the quality of evidence? What is the impact of the case when it is true or false? How does this relate to me or my community?
In secondary school, we suggest a strong focus on leadership skills tickling the development of personal moral compass, view of the world and oneself. At this age, the aim is for the students to become proud to be humans and define for themselves their relationship with technology. The aim is to build an opinion that "The technology is in my service." not "I'm a consumer and product of technology."
We are convinced that this positioning of oneself towards technology defines the personal relationship with the technology for the entire life of a person. It makes acquiring technical skills and applying technology for a purpose easy or difficult, protecting from or exposing the person towards personal disappointment.
- University: at this stage students deepen their knowledge in specific professional areas. We suggest practical training in leadership and soft skills with specific focus on leading digital communities. This training may have an universal design making it independent of the specific professional area. We suggest a specific focus on the digital community to build the needed skills of enhancement and differentiation of the pure human qualities in the students. It is expected that at the graduation, the student has acquired a basic dominion over the technology in his/her field which he/she will grow in the following years.
Leaders in a Smart City
Smart City has become the norm of urban development. City governance still needs its leaders.
While technology adoption is advancing and cities and societies are getting digitalized, there is a rising demand for new types of leaders. Although city governance is going to be automated, it still needs human leadership. The digitalization has put in value the pure human and everlasting qualities and intentions. The Smart Cities are demanding leaders which will lead them towards legacy. Cities need citizens and citizens need dreams for a better meaningful future.
The leaders in a Smart City have distinctive qualities about transparency, building personal feeling of security in every follower, inspiring their followers to build a personal legacy. Their communication with their community is based on co-creation and not authority. They do not manage and control. They enable, motivate, inspire and open new spaces for personal development and life experience.
The Smart Cities Leaders respond positively to the following questions:
- Am I working to leave a long-lasting positive legacy behind me?
- Am I helping people to live their best version of themselves, their best dreams?
- Am I inspiring people to do good, to beauty?
- Am I helping people to dominate technology not to be dominated by it?