Many people are using AI without any real thought. They ask it to write an email or answer a question and largely go with whatever it gives them. From a productivity perspective, it’s great they’re using AI. However, I have two concerns with this:
- You stop processing: You stop learning when you stop thinking. Outsourcing your reflection weakens your judgment over time.
- Unstructured AI is mediocre: Without context, AI becomes a confident-sounding intern. Helpful, but often wrong.
Yes, AI knows measurably more than you at a knowledge level, but it doesn’t have your lived experience, your hard-earned wisdom, or the full history of what got you here. Without that, you’ll get content and ideas that are 50 percent of what’s possible.
Here are some tips to take back control. As the Thought Leader, you lead AI to ideate with you, ask questions, spark your thinking, and be a phenomenal advisor.
- Problem Advisor ∴ If you are thinking through a specific challenge, get AI to ask you a bunch of questions before making any recommendations.
Prompt: “Act as my thought advisor. I have this problem I am thinking through… Ask me at least 5 questions, one question at a time, to help me think through the problem at its root cause. Then we can ideate some solutions together.” - Challenge your biases ∴ We all have biases (including AI), but it’s a great tool for surfacing them. For example, we communicate out of habit without thinking how that might land with others in the team. AI can help you reshape that thinking.
Prompt: “From the perspective of a 24-year-old neurodiverse female employee in our company, how might this leadership message land?” - Analyse this data ∴ Share some data with AI and tell it what you are seeing. Ask it to give you different perspectives on what’s happening and to challenge your assumptions.
Prompt: “Here’s engagement survey data by team. I’m noticing low energy in Team C and think it’s due to workload. Challenge my assumptions, surface hidden patterns, and give three alternative explanations.” - 10 80 10 Content ∴ When crafting content, you’ll get the best result if you do 10 percent of the work upfront. Give context, describe the issue in depth, and outline how you want AI to respond. It will then do 80 percent of the work, and you can polish the final 10 percent into great quality.
Prompt: Your prompt should include: “Context; Issue; Tone; Output Required.”
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Your Role as the Thought Leader
AI can do the heavy lifting. But only if you lead it well. Your role is to bring the direction, define the focus, and set the outcome. Just like you do with your team.
This isn’t a new skill. You already lead people by casting vision, framing the challenge, and letting them own the execution. Leading AI is the same. It is a new kind of strategic teammate. One that moves fast, but lacks context, judgment, and perspective. That is your job.
So, stay in the seat of the Thought Leader.
Lead with clarity.
Then let AI do the work it is best at.
