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Last week’s issue: Position Yourself for Your Next Role
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Welcome back.
This week, we're going somewhere that makes some leaders uncomfortable: artificial intelligence. Not because it's complex. Because most leaders have avoided it, delegated it, or dismissed it — and that gap is now costing them.
AI is not a tool for your tech team. It's a thinking partner, a leverage multiplier, and for the leaders who embrace it early, a genuine competitive advantage. The good news? You don't need to understand the technology. You need to understand how to use it.
What you'll learn today
Why leaders must own their relationship with AI — and how to communicate it to their teams.
The three-pillar framework for using AI effectively as a leader.
Simple, high-impact Claude use cases you can try this week.
The mindset shift that separates leaders who benefit from AI from those who fall behind.
Premium: scripts, prompts, and a weekly AI habit system for leaders.
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01 Core Idea: The AI Leadership Gap
There's a pattern emerging across organisations right now. The leaders who are pulling ahead aren't necessarily the most technically gifted. They're the ones who've stopped waiting for someone to explain AI to them, and started using it.
The AI Leadership Gap isn't a technology problem. It's a behaviour problem. Most leaders understand AI is important. Very few have built a daily practice around it. And fewer still are actively communicating their approach to their teams in a way that creates clarity and confidence.
Your team is watching how you engage with AI. If you're dismissive, they'll disengage. If you're overwhelmed, they'll feel uncertain. If you're intentional and curious, they'll follow your lead.
The Principle
"The leader's job isn't to know everything about AI. It's to model the right relationship with it."
Leaders don't need to understand how large language models work. They need to understand how to work with them. That shift — from passive observer to active user — is what this issue is about.
02 The Framework: Three Pillars of AI Leadership
Using AI well as a leader isn't about prompts and features. It's about three disciplines that compound over time.
▲ Communicate clearly
Your team needs to know where AI fits in your organisation, what it's for, what it isn't for, and what good looks like. Without this, you get a patchwork of individual experiments and no collective benefit. Leadership communication about AI creates permission and direction simultaneously.
■ Use it yourself, consistently
You cannot lead something you don't practise. Build a daily or weekly habit of using AI for real work, not demos, not experiments, but actual leadership tasks. Thinking through a difficult decision. Drafting a hard message. Reviewing a strategy document. When you use it consistently, you develop genuine instinct, and your credibility with your team increases.
● Build the right norms
Left to its own devices, AI adoption inside teams becomes chaotic, some people overuse it, some avoid it entirely, and no one is sure what to share or not share. Leaders who establish clear norms early, around quality, confidentiality, and when to use AI vs. when human judgement is essential, protect both productivity and trust.
"A prepared leader doesn't wait for AI to become normal. They make it normal."
Simple claude.ai Use Cases to Start This Week
Claude is Anthropic's AI, and it's one of the best tools available for leadership work specifically. Here are three use cases that require no technical setup and deliver immediate value:
Use case 01
Think through a difficult decision
Before your next big call, open Claude and describe the decision you're facing, the options, the constraints, what you already know, and what you're unsure about. Ask it to steelman each option or surface what you might be missing. You're not outsourcing the decision. You're stress-testing your thinking before the room fills up.
Try this prompt
"I'm deciding between [option A] and [option B]. Here's the context: [brief summary]. What are the strongest arguments for each, and what am I likely not considering?"
Use case 02
Draft a message you've been avoiding
Every leader has a message sitting in their drafts, feedback that needs to land well, a difficult update to a stakeholder, a tough conversation starter. Claude is exceptionally good at helping you find the right tone and structure. Give it the context, tell it what outcome you want, and iterate on the draft together.
Try this prompt
"I need to deliver feedback to [person/team] about [issue]. I want to be direct but constructive. The outcome I'm aiming for is [X]. Help me draft this."
Use case 03
Prepare for a high-stakes meeting
Share your agenda, context, and what's at stake. Ask Claude to anticipate the toughest questions or objections you're likely to face, and help you prepare concise, credible responses. Leaders who walk in prepared don't just perform better — they project confidence that shapes the room.
Try this prompt
"I have a meeting with [audience] about [topic]. My goal is [X]. What are the five most likely pushbacks or hard questions, and what's a strong response to each?"
Framework summary
Communicate your AI stance clearly, your team needs direction, not ambiguity.
Use Claude yourself, for real work, at least once a week.
Set norms around quality, confidentiality, and when human judgement takes precedence.
Start with decisions, messages, and meeting prep — the three highest-leverage leadership use cases.
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03 What to do this week
Start Your AI Leadership Habit
Pick one of the three Claude use cases above and use it this week for something real, not a test, an actual piece of work. Then notice what happens to your thinking. Most leaders report that the value isn't the output, it's the clarity that comes from articulating their challenge precisely enough to work through it with AI.
After you've used it once, consider: how would you describe this to your team? What would you want them to know about how you're approaching AI? Even a brief, honest message from you — "Here's how I'm thinking about this, and here's what I'd encourage you to try" — is worth more than any company-wide AI policy.
The uncomfortable truth: Leaders who don't develop their own relationship with AI will increasingly rely on the judgment of those who have. That's not leadership, it's delegation by default. The bar for AI literacy at the leadership level is rising quickly. The time to build your practice is now, not when it becomes urgent.
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