Stop Using AI to Work Faster. Start Using It to Lead Better: 5 Ways to Use AI In Your Leadership

Zoe Thompson
Jan 8
8 min read

Most leaders are using AI.

Here's how intentional leaders use it differently.

Most leaders I speak to are using AI to work faster.

They're using it to draft emails, summarise documents, create presentations, and analyse data. They're treating it as a productivity tool. A way to get more done in less time.

That's not wrong. It can increase efficiency; there is no arguing that. It is, however, incomplete.

Here's what I'm hearing from my clients, and seeing discussed by leaders online: leaders who use AI purely for speed are making the same mistake they make everywhere else in their leadership. They're reacting. They're optimising for efficiency without stopping to ask whether they're moving in the right direction.

There is speed, yet the speed lacks intention and purpose.

Decision-making becomes faster, yet thinner.

Judgment improves in precision, but loses depth, context, and ethical sensitivity.

You're not leading better. You're just reacting faster.

There's a different way to use AI. A way that doesn't just speed up your work, but deepens your leadership. A way that supports intentional decision-making rather than replacing your judgment.

Intentional leaders aren't using AI to work faster. They're using it to lead better.

This blog will share with you the difference.

image of 2 hands on a black background - 1 human hand and 1 electronic hand - the hands are reaching out to touch each other

The AI Shift: From Productivity Tool to Thinking Partner

Something is changing in how leaders are using AI.

What started as "can AI write this email for me?" is quietly becoming "can AI help me think through this decision?"

Leaders are using AI not only to analyse data or draft documents, but to reflect, test assumptions, and explore meaning in moments of uncertainty. They're using it as a dialogue partner, a thinking partner. Not the thinker or the decision maker.

This resembles more established reflective practices like journaling, mentoring, or coaching. The difference is scale and immediacy. AI offers a responsive, non-judgmental conversational space, available at any moment, without organisational hierarchy or social pressure.

Research shared by BetterUp indicates that a growing number of professionals use generative AI not only for task completion but for reflection, sense-making, and emotional processing. Functions traditionally associated with coaching or mentoring conversations.

What's striking is not whether AI truly "understands" these human concerns, but the effects such dialogue produces. Leaders report greater clarity, reduced cognitive overload, and a renewed capacity for reflection.

Used well, AI can deepen rather than diminish human self-awareness.

However, there is a risk: when AI is treated purely as a tool, leaders risk outsourcing not only tasks, but reflection itself.

That's the line between using AI to work faster and using AI to lead better.

The Risk: Outsourcing Your Judgment to AI

When you use AI purely for speed, you create a dangerous pattern.

You ask AI to give you the answer rather than help you find your answer.
You use it to make decisions faster without checking whether those decisions align with your values.
You optimise for efficiency without stopping to consider direction, purpose, or consequences.

Over time, this erodes your leadership capacity rather than strengthening it.

I've seen this play out. Leaders who use AI to draft every response, make every decision, and create every plan. They're moving fast. However, when I ask them why they made that choice, what values informed that decision, and whether it aligns with where they're trying to go, they hesitate.

They don't know. The AI gave them an answer, and they took it.

That's reactive leadership with a technological layer on top.

You're still reacting. You've just automated the reaction.

Here's what wisdom traditions (both Eastern and Western) have long understood: skill without wisdom is dangerous. Action without reflection on purpose, limits, and consequences creates more problems than it solves.

AI confronts leaders with this ancient challenge in a modern form: how do you preserve depth of judgment when intelligence is no longer exclusively human?

The answer isn't to avoid AI. The answer is to use it intentionally.

The Opportunity: AI as Your Intentional Leadership Partner

Intentional leaders understand this: AI isn't here to make decisions for you. It's here to help you make better decisions.

Not faster. Better.

When you use AI as a thinking partner rather than a task completer, it supports the very things that make you an intentional leader:

It helps you pause. Instead of reacting immediately, you can use AI to explore options, test assumptions, and consider consequences (both intended and unintended) before you act.

It helps you clarify your values. You can use AI to articulate what's most important to you, test decisions against those values, and identify when you're drifting off course.

It helps you see blind spots. AI can challenge your thinking, offer alternative perspectives, and help you recognise patterns or gaps that you might have missed.

It reduces cognitive overload. By handling routine decisions and information processing, AI frees up mental space for the strategic, values-based thinking that only you can do.

AI is not there to replace your judgment. Used effectively, it can support your judgment and decision-making, with clarity, reflection, and deeper thinking.

That's the shift from working faster to leading better.

How to Use AI Intentionally in Leadership: Practical Applications

Let me show you what this looks like in practice using the frameworks I teach.

1. Using AI with my 4P Reset

The 4P Reset (Pause, Prioritise, Proceed with Purpose) is my framework for moving from reactive to intentional leadership.

Here's how AI supports this:

When you're about to make a rushed decision, pause and ask AI: "I'm thinking about [decision]. What questions should I be asking myself before I proceed?"

AI won't tell you what to decide. However, it will help you slow down and consider factors you might have missed in reactive mode.

Then prioritise: "Based on these factors, what would be most important to consider if my top three values are [your values]?"

Finally, proceed with purpose: "Given what we've discussed, what would an intentional response look like versus a reactive one?"

You're not asking AI to decide for you. You're using it to support your own intentional decision-making process.

2. Using AI with the Aligned Choices Triangle

The Aligned Choices Triangle helps you check whether decisions align with your three core values.

Here's how AI supports this:

"My three core values are [value 1], [value 2], and [value 3]. I'm considering [decision]. How does this decision align with each of these values? Where might there be tension or misalignment?"

AI can help you articulate how a decision aligns with your values more clearly than you might in your own head. It asks the questions you need to hear.

You can then use that clarity to adjust the decision so it aligns better, or to consciously accept where it doesn't align and understand why you're okay with that.

Again, you're not outsourcing the decision. AI can deepen your reflection on whether this decision is truly intentional.

3. Using AI for Values Clarity

One of the foundations of intentional leadership is knowing your core values. However, many leaders struggle to articulate them clearly.

Here's how AI supports this:

"I'm trying to identify my core leadership values. Can you ask me questions that would help me clarify what matters most to me in how I lead?"

AI can guide you through a reflective process, asking follow-up questions, challenging vague answers, and helping you get specific about what actually drives your decisions.

The values are yours. AI just helps you uncover them more clearly.

4. Using AI with the VUCA Framework to Lead

The VUCA model (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity) helps leaders navigate change intentionally.

Here's how AI supports this:

When you're facing a complex situation, you can use AI to map it:

"I'm dealing with [situation]. Help me understand what aspects of this are volatile (fast-changing), uncertain (unpredictable), complex (multiple factors), or ambiguous (unclear)."

Then: "Given this analysis, what would Vision, Understanding, Clarity, and Agility look like in my response?"

AI helps you structure your thinking so you can respond intentionally rather than react emotionally.

5. Using AI to Prepare Your Leadership Communication

Before you communicate a difficult decision or lead through change, you can use AI to test your approach:

"I'm about to communicate [decision/change] to my team. Based on what I've shared, what questions might they have? What concerns might arise? Where might I need to provide more clarity?" "What communication style and approaches could I consider?"

Or: "Does this communication align with leading from my core values of [values], or does it feel reactive?"

AI won't write the communication for you (or it shouldn't). Give it the instruction to provide bullet points to help you think through how your team might receive it and whether you're leading from your core or from the chaos.

The Boundaries: What AI Can't Replace for Leaders

Here's what's critical to understand: AI can support your judgment, but it cannot replace it.

AI cannot:

Know your values (you have to tell it)
Feel the weight of your responsibility (that's uniquely human)
Understand the full context of your relationships (that requires human connection)
Make the final decision (that's your role and responsibility as a leader)
Hold the ethical orientation that leadership requires (wisdom isn't computational)

Leadership in an age of AI is less about command and more about navigation. It's about holding meaning, direction, and ethical orientation amid accelerating intelligence and constant decision pressure.

Your role as a leader isn't to have all the answers. I have always argued that the best leaders are the ones who are confident enough to say "I don't have all the answers" and to gather the knowledge and experience of their team.

Your role is to ask the right questions, stay grounded in your values, and create clarity for others. To support, gude and lead.

AI can help you do that better. However, it cannot do it for you.

This is what the research calls "relational intelligence." Intelligence is not a possession; it's a relationship. Meaning emerges not from dominance, but from interaction and mutual influence.

You're not competing with AI. You're learning how to lead within a world of hybrid intelligence.

Your Choice: Faster or Better?

AI is here. You're going to use it. The question is how.

Reactive leaders will use AI to work faster.

They'll automate more tasks. They'll make decisions more quickly. They'll outsource their thinking without realising they're doing it.

Their leadership will become more efficient. However, it will also become thinner, less grounded, and more detached from what actually matters.

Intentional leaders will use AI to lead better.

They'll use it as a thinking partner to test assumptions, clarify values, and deepen reflection. They'll make decisions that are not just faster, but more aligned with where they're trying to go.

Their leadership will become clearer, more confident, and more grounded in what matters most.

The technology is the same. The difference is intention.

Will you use AI to speed up reactive leadership? Or will you use it to deepen intentional leadership?

One makes you busier. - The other makes you better.

That's your choice.

How I Use AI in My Business (Living What I Teach)

I want to be transparent about this: I use AI regularly in my business. AI is my thinking partner, the partner that can ask me different questions and help me explore different perspectives. It also helps me to collate my thinking and as someone who is a 'finisher' rather than a 'starter' it helps me start tasks rather than wasting time and procrastinating as I don't know where to begin.

I don't use it to make decisions for me. I use it to help me to think more clearly about the decisions I'm making.

When I'm planning content, I use AI to test whether what I'm creating aligns with my positioning and values. I use it to sense check clarity from the perspective of my clients.

When I'm considering a new direction, I use it to explore implications I might not have considered. I use it as a research tool for best practices already in place.

I still make the decisions. I still do the work. I still lead from my core values.

AI just helps me do it more intentionally.

That's the model I teach my clients. Not "let AI do it for you," but "use AI to help you think it through."

Because what 20 years of leadership taught me is that the quality of your decisions determines the quality of your leadership. And the quality of your decisions comes from the depth of your thinking, not the speed of your output.

AI can support that depth. However, only if you use it intentionally.

Want support using AI to become a more intentional leader?

I help overwhelmed leaders transform from reactive to intentional leadership in 8 weeks, so you finish work on time, take The Big Week Off with zero work and zero guilt, and create success that feels as good as it looks.

You can also explore free resources to get started: