How do we adjust our LMA™ (Leading, Managing, Accountability) metrics for managers who are now overseeing a mix of human employees and automated AI agents?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When your department heads are managing both humans and automated workflows, their traditional management metrics must change. You can no longer measure a manager's effectiveness by the size of their headcount. In fact, a larger team often indicates a lack of operational efficiency.

To address this, use your next quarterly meeting to redefine the expectations for every leadership seat on your Accountability Chart. Shift leadership behavior from telling people what to do to articulating a vision and strategic plan, then empowering teams to develop how they will achieve it with AI assistance.

Your managers must be evaluated on their ability to drive operational leverage. Their new LMA™ metrics should focus on output per full-time equivalent and process cycle times, not just staff retention or team satisfaction. Integrate AI into operations by identifying cumbersome processes that keep employees in low-value tasks and use AI to streamline them.

The manager's role is to facilitate this integration, ensuring that their human team members are constantly upskilling. If a manager is still requesting linear headcount growth to solve capacity constraints, they do not GWC™ their seat. They must learn to manage workflows where AI handles the heavy lifting, allowing their human team to focus strictly on client relationships and strategic decision-making.