Lately I keep hearing the same three words everywhere I turn. A friend stuck on how to word a hard text – just ask AI. My family going back and forth at dinner – just ask AI. A question at work we could probably reason out on our own – just ask AI.
I reach for these tools too, so this isn’t me knocking them. But the more I hear it, the more I wonder what happens to the part of us that used to sit with a hard question and think it all the way through – especially in leadership, where the thinking is half the job.
And ultimately, here’s the stance I keep landing on:
The most important leadership question of the next few years won’t be “What can AI do for me?” It will be “What should I keep doing myself?”
AI is changing the pace of leadership. It can help us write faster, decide faster, analyze faster, and produce more than we ever have. But faster isn’t the same as wiser. More isn’t the same as meaningful. And optimized isn’t the same as human.
That gap – between what we can automate and what we should protect – is what July is about.
Join our 5-Day HUMAN Leadership Audit
Five days of clarity on what to protect, practice, and rethink as a leader in the AI age.
The Questions AI Brings Up
The first time an AI tool drafted something as good as I could have, in a fraction of the time, my reaction wasn’t relief. It was a small, uncomfortable question – do my skills still matter?
I don’t think I’m alone in that. Every person I talk to, leader or not, has some version of an internal monologue running underneath all the excitement:
If a tool can do in seconds what took me years to get good at, where do I fit now?
Am I actually leading my team through this change, or just rolling out tools and hoping?
What am I getting worse at because something else now does it for me?
Which parts of my job are still mine?
What happens to us if we automate the wrong things?
If any of that sounds familiar, this is exactly the challenge for you.
Introducing the 5-Day HUMAN Leadership Audit
This 5-day HUMAN Leadership Audit is an invitation to pause inside the acceleration.
Not to reject AI or suggest that leaders are doing anything wrong, but to ask better questions: What should remain human? What should not be optimized? Where do people need meaning? Which skills do we need to keep practicing? And what are our non-negotiables in a world that keeps asking us to do more?
Each day takes one letter of the word HUMAN and explores one of those questions:
H – Hold the Human Line: What should stay human, even when AI can help?
U – Unoptimize What Matters: Where is slowness or friction actually part of the value?
M – Make Meaning Before Making More: How do people reconnect with purpose when the work changes?
A – Audit Atrophy: Which leadership muscles need deliberate practice now that AI makes them easy to skip?
N – Name the Non-Negotiables: What will you protect, practice, and refuse to outsource?
By the end of the five days, you’ll have a much clearer sense of:
What you might not want to automate, and why
Where speed is the point, and where it isn’t
How to help your team find meaning when their work changes
Which human leadership skills you want to keep strong
The personal leadership code you’ll lead by as AI tools keep evolving
We’ll kick off this audit on Monday, July 6th. Be sure you’re subscribed so it lands in your inbox.
What Comes After the Challenge
After the challenge wraps, we’ll keep exploring AI through a personality lens – looking at how personality influences the way different people experience, use, question, and adapt to AI.
How to Join This Challenge
If you’re a paying subscriber, you’re already in – the challenge will land in your inbox automatically starting Monday, July 6th.
Free subscribers will get access to Days 1 and 2, plus previews of the rest. To unlock the full challenge and the personality exploration that follows, you’ll need to upgrade.
Still a free subscriber? Claim your welcome discount to save 30% on an annual subscription.
Upgrading will give you access to this Human Leadership series plus our complete leadership development library, which covers topics like:
Adjusting to management as a new leader
Mastering 1:1 meetings
Leading multigenerational teams
Leading well as an Introvert
The top 5 leadership challenges each personality type faces
Leading through uncertain times
Managing stress at work
Leading remote (or hybrid) teams
Managing up to your boss
We Start on Monday
By the end of this series, you probably won’t have AI completely figured out. But my hope is that you’ll walk away with a clearer sense of where you want to stay present, grounded, and uniquely human in your leadership, no matter how the technology evolves.
So wherever you are with AI right now, whether you’re using it every day or barely touching it, I’d love for you to join me.
If AI is already part of almost everything you do, this challenge isn’t about asking you to stop. I think it will actually help you use these tools with more intention and clarity.
And if you’re skeptical about AI, I hope you’ll come along anyway. This technology isn’t going anywhere, and now is an important time to ask ourselves not just what AI can do, but what kind of leaders we want to become in a digital age.