AI Is Thinking for Us. Now What?

When AI takes over some cognitive tasks, leadership requires us to think differently. Not long ago, AI was something we considered “on the horizon.” Now, it’s in our browsers, our inboxes, and our meetings, helping us generate ideas, summarize reports, and draft strategies.

AI isn’t just automating tasks anymore. It’s performing cognitive work. It’s thinking. When thinking becomes a shared function between humans and machines, leadership becomes less about producing output and more about expanding awareness. It becomes less about control, and more about cognitive evolution.

This is Synergistic Leadership.

AI Isn’t Coming for Your Job. It’s Coming for Your Thinking.

Here’s what AI can already do, right now:

• Write the first draft of your presentation

• Suggest strategic options based on limited data

• Summarize a 30-page PDF in seconds

• Propose ideas, generate names, structure outlines

• Even brainstorm with you

That used to be your edge as a leader: strategic thinking, insight generation, high-level synthesis. Now AI is doing it in milliseconds.

But that doesn’t mean you’re obsolete. It means you have more cognitive capacity to think differently. More expansively. But only if you know how.

AI is Thinking. You Need to Think About How YOU are Thinking.

This is where metacognition becomes non-negotiable. Metacognition is your ability to:

• Step back and observe your own thinking

• Catch unconscious biases and mental shortcuts

• Choose how to reframe, rather than react

• Pause and ask: “How am I seeing this?”

This isn’t optional in an AI-driven world. If you’re not thinking about your thinking, you’re probably being led by someone, or something that is doing the thinking. 

Coming out of the hieratical and relational ages, our brains are not wired for this pace of change, this kind of thinking. But the good news is that our brains can be rewired.

Neuroplasticity is Your Upgrade Path

Your brain is not fixed. It’s not static. And it’s not done growing. Thanks to neuroplasticity, you can literally repattern how you lead by rewiring your brain:

• You can learn to slow perception so you don’t default to old behaviors.

• You can train your brain to hold complexity instead of collapsing under it.

• You can rewire the neural pathways that trigger overwhelm, indecision, and narrow thinking.

Leadership in the AI era isn’t about new tools. It’s about a new neural architecture. This is what I call an “Upgrading.” And it’s at the heart of both my new book, Upgrade: Five Leadership Accelerators for AI-Powered Success and the leadership coaching I offer.

Let AI do what it does best: speed, structure, synthesis. And you rewire your brain to do what only you can do: Step back. Reflect. Reframe. Lead from a different level of awareness.

Upgrade is coming  in June.

Join the waitlist  -  Link: https://bit.ly/42CGU8D