The pattern in many reorganizations is to create lean governance and leadership structures to reduce friction and optimize workflow. While this may streamline operations, it adds heavier burdens at the leadership level. Suddenly, leaders are responsible for larger teams, multiple workstreams, and greater accountability with fewer supporting structures.
In recent years, I found myself and other colleagues in leadership experiencing this shift as the pressure to deliver results grew, responsibilities expanded, and the safety net for support shrank.
The first time I logged into ChatGPT was a few years ago, when I found myself struggling to find enough time to plan for a meeting because my context switching was too high and I could not concentrate. It has become my assistant ever since. My leadership values are preserved; in fact, it helped me optimize time-hindering activities so that I could dedicate more time to the core of my role as a Consultant and Engineering Leader: cultivating authentic human connections.
Below, I share some reflections and practices on how to stay true to your leadership principles while using AI to optimize your time, sharpen your focus, and work smarter, not harder.
1. An Efficient Decision-Making and Conversations Log
Meetings are still a powerful channel to promote alignment and keep team interactions human. But with the volume of conversations and the speed at which information changes and decisions are made, it becomes hard to keep track of everything and make good use of the information.
Personally, I would often ignore what I learned and scrap my notes because I didn't have enough time or energy to review them or give them proper thought. ChatGPT and Gemini's voice-to-text features come in handy to capture a quick summary of how the conversation went. This frees me from cognitive overload while preserving context.
2. Time and Energy Management
I have a long list of tedious activities on my weekly to-do: things that eat up time and energy but don't add much meaning to my goals and my role.
Time-off management is a great example. When managing a large team, this can easily consume half a day of back-and-forth. It's tedious but a high-stakes task since approvals must consider delivery timelines and team dependencies.
I'm a big fan of time management tools like the Free to Focus Productivity Matrix (Michael Hyatt) and the Eisenhower Matrix. Both give me clarity on which activities I should focus on: the ones I enjoy, the ones aligned with my goals, and the ones that drain me. Once you see that clearly, it becomes easier to decide what to automate, delegate, or drop altogether.
I love automating and organizing data in spreadsheets. A simple data export helps me organize time offs, and then with tools like Claude, I can quickly analyze absence patterns, see overlaps, anticipate delivery impacts, and even generate a pre-drafted message for client approval.
3. Patterns to Pathways
1:1s and communication are a vital part of my role, but the reality is that conversations and attention points can easily get lost.
Performance management and resource management are still areas I'm experimenting with and have much to learn about optimization, but here are a few insights so far:
With consistent note-tracking and individual profiles feeding into AI models, it's possible to spot recurring behavioral and performance patterns. Across a team or domain, this helps surface both positive signals that can be amplified and negative signals that need intervention.
AI can also support the creation of transparent growth pathways. Clearer visibility into career progression reduces ambiguity, increases engagement, and makes engineers feel seen and supported.
On the resource management side, which is crucial for matching individuals with the right opportunities, tools are emerging that analyze a team's skills inventory against job requirements, helping align people with roles where they can thrive.
But the quality of the output depends heavily on the context leaders provide. Accurate descriptions of team dynamics, challenges, autonomy levels, and expectations are what make these tools truly effective.
4. Assertive Communication Without a Script
Leadership requires us to be crisp and sharp in our communication to provide clarity in goal and expectations setting. Ambiguity and unpredictability add complexity to daily interactions, and it's impossible to follow a script.
Throughout my career, books like "Crucial Conversations" and "Crucial Accountability" helped me become better at managing tough conversations and sustaining direct, meaningful dialogue.
More recently, AI has become part of that toolkit. By simulating conversations and role-playing different scenarios, I can anticipate reactions, practice responses, and walk into discussions better prepared. I've found it especially useful to craft prompts that designate a very clear role for the agent (for example: "act as a skeptical executive," or "respond as a client concerned with delivery timelines"). This keeps the guidance relevant and reduces the risk of hallucinations.
It helps strengthen confidence, build trust across different functions and levels of the organization, and save time and energy when context-switching or handling complex situations.
Final Thoughts
When responsibilities grow and the stakes get higher, it's tempting for leaders to sacrifice quality of interaction just to keep up. Work can quickly turn transactional, and that path often leads to burnout.
Artificial Intelligence comes in as an assistant. It helps us work smarter, carrying some of the operational and analytical weight so we can focus on what truly matters: strengthening relationships, amplifying business growth, and delivering impact.