More Human: How the Power of AI Can Transform the Way You Lead
by Rasmus Hougaard and Jacqueline Carter

“More human means leveraging AI to unlock the best of our humanity and, simultaneously, to help us overcome some of our limitations. This is the art of the toggle, where we skillfully navigate getting the best of both human capabilities and AI. In this way, we can develop ourselves as better human leaders and thereby create better and more-human workplaces.”

The authors quote Tim Cook, CEO of Apple: “I’m not worried about artificial intelligence giving computers the ability to think like humans. I’m more concerned about people thinking like computers, without values or compassion, without concern for consequence.”

“Although AI can simulate the decision-making process—and do so very convincingly—it can’t replicate human decision-making that’s driven by experience, connection, and reflection. This means AI is limited in terms of dealing with uncertain or imperfect information… It [also] lacks the ability to contemplate the moral implications of its actions or to base choices on anything other than predefined parameters.”

“From a cognitive science perspective, most models of the mind describe, in different words, three key qualities: perception, discernment, and response… In the context of cultivating good leadership, we call these three qualities awareness, wisdom, and compassion.”

“AWARENESS is a uniquely human quality… It enables us to see things in perspective and provides context.”

“While AI can process vast amounts of data and expand our awareness of possible solutions, it lacks the context to determine relevance and helpfulness.This is where human ability comes into play, enabling us to tune in to ourselves and the bigger picture, including cultural and social dimensions that AI overlooks. AI can analyze millions of data points in seconds, but only humans can make sense of the outcomes and determine whether the results serve the purpose at hand.”

“WISDOM is the quality with which humans apply their insight, experience, critical thinking, and social and emotional intelligence to ask good questions.”

“Wisdom goes beyond data and facts; it encompasses considerations of ethical issues, long-term implications, and team dynamics. Today’s and tomorrow’s most successful leaders will apply this understanding to AI outputs to ensure that decisions are not just smart but also wise and that they’re aligned with their organization’s goals and values. AI-augmented leaders need to consider how to bring more wisdom to their leadership through the following practices: asking good questions, questioning the answers, thinking slowly, ensuring AI doesn’t create your reality, and mentoring the next generation.”

“The fact is that wisdom comes from experience. As much as we can share insights and perspectives with other people, much of our ability for wise discernment comes from the assimilation of reflections on various life events over time. But as AI continues to simplify or replace human leadership activities and tasks, there is a risk that the underlying experience that facilitates wisdom will be lost.”

“And in our AI-enabled world, in addition to asking yourself critical reflective questions, you can ask these of your AI tools. You can challenge it by asking, How did you come up with that result? Why should I believe that what you are suggesting is correct? What questions should I ask to improve my critical thinking?”

“COMPASSION is the unique human capacity to want to be of benefit to others, which involves leading with heart.”

“From a neurological perspective, empathy originates from the emotional centers of our brain, whereas compassion is an intention and is activated in the executive functioning areas. Both are essential for good leadership… Empathy allows us to understand others, to see and feel what they see and feel. Compassion drives us to take appropriate action—or intentionally choose not to act—for the greater good… It’s a key quality that helps leaders create a culture of high performance and high care.”

“PROMPT ENGINEERING is the art of crafting queries that effectively communicate with AI systems to elicit valuable insights or actions. Smart prompting is an essential skill for a wise leader. The following are some key considerations for creating good prompts.” In a nutshell, be clear; provide context; be objective; include any social, emotional, or ethical, concerns; ask open-ended questions; and be iterative.

CREATIVITY. “One of the foundations of creativity is being curious and asking questions like What if? Why not? and What else? … With AI, we can ask more questions, get more answers, and bring more fun into the creative process. Many of us can probably relate to painful past experiences of staring at a whiteboard, trying to come up with new, divergent or original ideas. Well, AI can be of help in those situations. Used properly, it can be a generator of initial ideas, which can help inspire creative thinking. AI can also answer questions and punch holes in an argument or a thesis. Fundamentally, it’s more fun and cognitively easier to ask questions than it is to come up with answers. AI can transform brainstorming sessions into ‘question-storming sessions’ which can be inherently more enjoyable and engaging and can ultimately produce a greater number of creative outputs.”

“One leader we met with talked about how he likes to engage AI in creative activities by asking questions like, ‘Provide ten innovative solutions to this problem.’ If he doesn’t like the answers, he will ask it to be more creative and provide ten new solutions. He also likes to find new ways to approach a problem by asking, ‘Provide ten terrible solutions to solving this problem and the creative insight that comes from each.’ Although some of the solutions are truly terrible, he finds that this process of exploration and discovery consistently produces ideas that he otherwise would never have considered.”

“TRUST is the currency of high-performing teams… Paul J. Zak—professor of economics, psychology, and management at Claremont Graduate University and founding director of the Center for Neuroeconomic Studies—has spent ten years studying the role of trust in organizational performance. He has found that compared with people at low-trust companies, people employed in high-trust companies report 74% less stress, 106% more energy at work, 50% higher productivity, 76% more engagement, 60% more job satisfaction, 70% more alignment with their company’s purpose, 29% more satisfaction with their lives, 40% less burnout, and 13% fewer sick days.”

“Trust in leadership is already at an all-time low. But increasingly, employees are most distrustful that leaders will use AI to replace them… For this reason, an AI-augmented leader has to work to cultivate trust.”

There are a couple of sections of the book that gave me pause.

“AI-BASED SENTIMENT ANALYSIS TOOLS can work on emails, texts, and other digital team interactions to reveal real-time insights about employees—information that leaders would otherwise be unable to see. This information can include employee concerns or areas of discontent, stress levels, other well-being issues, and much more. Leaders can use these insights to address underlying issues, navigate change, and manage communications to proactively address any such matters. AI’s ability to translate the unspoken into actionable findings enables leaders to proactively respond to employee concerns with precision and care. For example, results of data analysis might lead to the introduction of regular mental health days or the implementation of workshops focused on courageous conversations.”

My first thought is that surveilling employee communications might not be the best way to cultivate trust.

REDUCING BIAS. “In addition, you must ask what has been done to reduce biases and how the data you’re using might perpetuate historical bias… Wise leaders look for ways to include synthetic data—data that is fabricated to align with their company’s values and objectives—in AI systems to overcome possible biases.”  

Fabricated data? Hmm.

The authors point out several pitfalls of overreliance on AI.

ISOLATION AND ENGAGEMENT. “With the increase of digital forms of communicating and collaborating, many people are able to work from anywhere with teams of people from around the globe. And yet, levels of engagement and commitment have dropped significantly. According to Gallup, the proportion of highly engaged US employees decreased from 46% in 2020 to 30% in 2024… The majority of leaders we work with struggle to find ways to enhance community and connection in a world where many people don’t want to come into the office.”

“In the workplace, where we learn and grow through human interactions, overreliance on AI limits our potential.”

AI CAN LIMIT OUR CHOICES. “Take Netflix or Spotify as examples. Recommendations on these services are based on algorithms. But you’re not getting a neutral selection of recommended music or movies—rather, you’re getting a selection based on what the algorithm thinks you should enjoy. Much of the time, this selectivity is helpful and makes us value our technology because it seems to know what we like or want. But in fact, it’s limiting our exposure to different ideas and perspectives—and this can limit our perception of what’s true. This selectivity may be okay with movies on Netflix, but… the more we rely on AI to make our choices or control our selections—without using our own judgment and critical thinking—the more our reality will be shaped by algorithms, neural networks, and language -processing models. From a leadership perspective, this means we need to use our wisdom to question our own echo chambers and challenge ourselves to consider other points of view.”

AI AD ABSURDUM. “Now there are AI tools designed to improve our communication and collaboration, but we need to be careful with how we use them. For example, we’re already seeing a rapid rise in people sending AI chatbots to a meeting so they can do something else. Sure, they get the summary. But where’s the human connection? Or consider the fact that many people are getting AI to read and respond to their emails. If I’m using an AI program to read and respond to my emails—and so is everyone else—who is really communicating? And just think about the amount of processing power we’re using for our systems to have wonderful, artificially generated conversations with each other. Again, no judgment. But it seems a quite wasteful use of energy.”

I agree. It would be like AI grading AI-generated homework. Or AI screening AI-generated resumés. It offers the potential to be so efficiently mindless.

Hougaard, Rasmus and Jacqueline Carter with Marissa Afton and Rob Stembridge. More Human: How the Power of AI Can Transform the Way You Lead. Harvard Business Review Press, 2025. Buy from Amazon.com

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. I received a review copy of this book.

ALSO BY RASMUS HOUGAARD AND JACQUELINE CARTER:

RELATED READING:

JUST FOR FUN:

  • Prompt-Brush 1.0: The First Non-AI Generative Art Model by Pablo Delcan (2025)

“Maybe the ‘jobs are bundles of tasks’ model in labor economics is incomplete… If you define jobs in terms of tasks maybe you’re actually defining away the most nuanced and hardest-to-automate aspects of jobs, which are at the boundaries between tasks.” — quoting “Your AI Radiologist Will Not Be With You Soon”, New York Times, 14 May 2025.

“I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes.”

Discover more from The Key Point

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Unknown's avatar

Published by andreweverett360