#30: Will ChatGPT be your next career coach? - Darja Gutnick
Can you become a better leader in 2 min a day? Darja Gutnick, Co-Founder & CEO of Bunch, an AI leadership coach, states that yes. Darja also shares her own story of how losing key people on her team and going through a split-up with her co-founder made her a better leader.
How technology and AI tools can and cannot support our growth and career development
Darja dives into the impact of technology on personal development and its potential benefits and limitations. She explains how ChatGPT can be a useful tool in certain tasks, such as drafting a cover letter or a LinkedIn update, but cautions against over-reliance on technology. Instead, she advocates for using technology to gain personalised insights based on an individual's historical data. Darja highlights how the ability to feed data about oneself into ChatGPT for analysis could be a game-changer and help individuals understand their career progression better.
Leadership that goes beyond managerial tasks
Darja shares her definition of leadership, which goes beyond traditional managerial responsibilities and emphasises the ability to positively impact oneself and others. Darja points out the importance of leadership skills such as influencing people without authority, emotional intelligence, and the ability to manage complexity. She stresses that emotional intelligence plays a significant role not only in professional life but also in personal relationships.
Going through leadership challenges
Darja shares the challenges she faced in her founder journey. Along the way, she had to work hard to improve her ability to listen and make space for ambiguity in conversations. She realised the importance of offering team members an opportunity to express their assumptions, hunches, and feelings instead of demanding that they have all the answers. Darja reflects on a tough moment in her career when she went through a separation from their co-founder, Charles, who was instrumental in building Bunch. When the decision was made for Charles to step down as co-founder, it left Darya feeling uncertain about her product manager role.
“I’m a problem solver, so I jump on problems. And that’s not necessarily the best thing to do in remote teams.”
About Darja Gutnick:
Darja Gutnick is Co-Founder & CEO at Bunch. She is a serial entrepreneur and maker, pushing the boundaries of her field with an ambitious vision to bring the power of a coach to every professional in the world. Darja is a passionate product builder, organisational psychologist, leadership coach, and 2x founder. She has helped over 100k professionals to upskill their leadership & career skills. She is specifically passionate about recommendation engines and AI powered approaches, and has led the important product and go-to-market iterations that have defined Bunch’s journey and success so far.