Managers are career accelerators in the age of AI
There’s a lot of conversation right now about what managers will be able to hand over to AI. But then we came across an interesting study which made us think about a slightly different question: as AI takes on more tasks and reshapes more roles, what can managers do more of?
The research suggests that the answer may be some of the most human parts of leadership: noticing who has potential and for what, understanding people’s aspirations, helping direct reports explore opportunities and matching them with work where they can thrive. In other words - managers become career accelerators.
Is career development really that big a deal?
In ‘Making the Invisible Hand Visible’, University of Chicago economist Virginia Minni analysed 11 years of employee data covering more than 200,000 white-collar employees and 30,000 managers across 100 countries. She wanted to understand how good managers influence the careers and performance of the people working for them.
The long term career results she discovered were this: Good managers were particularly skilled at helping people move into roles that better matched their abilities. Employees who gained a high-performing manager became more likely to make lateral career moves, including significant shifts into different kinds of work. The impact was still visible seven years later. Employees with a great manager who developed their careers were making 40 per cent more lateral moves and earning salaries that were 13 per cent higher. Their performance improved too, and the benefits continued even after the manager had moved on.
So, what were these managers doing differently?
They spent 19 per cent more time in one-to-one conversations with their direct reports.
They were particularly strong in strategy and talent management.
The people working for them were more likely to explore internal opportunities and short-term projects.
Good managers helped employees make better use of their skills, which then improved both performance and longer-term career progression.
Good leadership is increasingly about career matchmaking
AI is changing how work is organised. Some tasks are disappearing, others will become more important and entirely new roles will emerge. Many people will need to move across functions, apply their skills in unfamiliar settings or build careers through a series of lateral experiments rather than a predictable climb upwards. It’s managers then who:
Make decisions about who works on what
Develop a direct report’s skills for new opportunities
Recommend who might flourish in a different role
AI will assist in this career matchmaking by analysing skills, identifying patterns and looking for matches. Systems can make a recommendation but a manager can bring that opportunity to life.
And this brings us to the gendered overlay in the discussion about managers and career matchmaking. Some people’s potential is immediately visible because it fits familiar ideas about talent, ambition or leadership. Other people need someone to look more closely, ask better questions and give them a chance to demonstrate what they can do in a different context.
EVEN Careers is exploring the AI impact on women in the workplace through Women, Work & AI, a national research initiative into how AI is reshaping women's careers, leadership and wellbeing.