Holding the Pen, Not Handing It Over
In the whirlwind of AI enthusiasm, a quiet risk emerges—not one of malfunction or misinformation, but of something far subtler: the erosion of original thought.
We are being offered tools that promise efficiency, speed, and even creativity. And they deliver. AI can summarise, polish, generate, ideate, and structure. But in doing so, it tempts us with a shortcut not just through our to-do list, but through our thinking. If we aren’t careful, the very process of developing and refining our own perspective can begin to feel optional.
And that’s a loss we can’t afford.
The Integrity of Thinking for Yourself
Original thought isn’t about being contrary for its own sake. It’s about holding space for the full weight of your experience, your judgment, your context, and your insight to shape your decisions. In leadership, in creativity, in strategy, and in service—it’s what distinguishes the considered from the convenient.
AI is trained on the data of what has been—which is valuable. But we often need to lead from a place of what has not yet been defined. That leap—the one from insight to innovation—is still thoroughly human.
When we let a tool take over the process of thinking for us, we outsource not just content but clarity. The act of forming an opinion, weighing a trade-off, articulating a value—these are not administrative chores to be automated. They are core leadership muscles. And just like physical strength, they atrophy when not used.
Using AI Without Losing Ourselves
The value of AI is real. But it’s a collaborator, not a captain.
Use it to:
Clarify your own thoughts through dialogue (a second brain, not a replacement brain).
Speed up the execution of decided directions, not to decide direction for you.
Explore alternatives when you’re stuck—but return to your own judgment to choose what fits best.
Amplify your voice, not mimic someone else’s.
The distinction lies in the sequence: think first, then consult the tool. Not the other way around.
Tools Don’t Make Vision—People Do
What makes your vision yours is not how perfectly it is worded, or how fast you got it into a deck. It’s how well it reflects your intent, your priorities, and the decisions you’ve wrestled with along the way.
In my mentoring work, I often meet brilliant leaders who are overwhelmed not because they don’t have answers, but because they haven’t had space to think before the tools and metrics take over. Their clarity doesn’t come from outsourcing the work—it comes from reclaiming the authority of their own process.
Pause Before Prompting
Here’s a practice I recommend: before reaching for an AI tool, take ten minutes to write or sketch your own thoughts. Not perfect ones—raw ones. Unfiltered. This is not about polishing, it’s about preserving the shape of your own mind. Then—and only then—bring in the tool to help refine, challenge, or expand what you’ve already built.
The point is not to resist AI. It’s to stay in relationship with your own intelligence while using it.
A Final Note on Judgement
AI can’t yet feel the gut-level dissonance when something isn’t quite right. It can’t sense when a word is technically correct but culturally off. It can’t weigh the subtext of a team dynamic, or understand the ripple effect of a tone choice in a stakeholder update. Judgment—deep, informed, and relational—can’t be templated.
And that’s a good thing.
It means that your thinking still matters. It means you still have work only you can do.
Let’s use our tools, not become them.