6.07 Critical Thinking in Leadership. How to Think Better with AI

How can you benefit from AI without allowing it to do your critical thinking for you? Critical thinking is an essential strategic leadership skill, helping you question information, understand problems properly and make well considered judgements rather than accepting polished answers at face value. We discuss why this matters even more as AI becomes part of everyday leadership work, particularly when plausible, professional looking outputs can tempt us to move too quickly towards an answer. We look at the importance of framing the problem before trying to solve it, and why you need to understand what you are trying to achieve before you can critically evaluate an AI generated response. And how AI can strengthen rather than replace human thinking by acting as a thinking partner, asking challenging questions and helping you organise your own ideas. And we explore the AI sandwich approach and a couple of insightful concepts - “bot sitting” and “bot shitting” Key points Why critical thinking starts with framing the problem rather than rushing to a solution. How polished and plausible AI outputs can make it harder to recognise weak thinking or irrelevant answers. How to use AI as a thinking partner that challenges and organises your ideas rather than outsourcing your thinking. Why leaders need to verify, understand and confidently stand behind both their own AI assisted work and the work produced by their teams. Key takeaway Use AI to support your critical thinking, not replace it. Whatever the finished output looks like, you should understand it well enough to explain it, question it and confidently stand behind it. Find out more Read Gemma’s article Critical Thinking in Leadership: Don’t Let AI Do Your Thinking The episode also refers to the “AI sandwich” approach shared by Kerry Harrison, and more on the concepts of “bot sitting” and “bot shitting” can be found in the Work AI Institute report here Sign up to Gemma’s monthly newsletter for more Strategic Insights and top tips -------- Related episodes You may also find these previous episodes useful: 6.02 Strategic Clarity 1.02 Crafting a Simple Yet Effective Strategy (audio episode) -------- Thank you for tuning into this episode of The Strategic Leader podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please give us 5 stars! It will help others find the show. Check out our previous episodes and remember to subscribe so you don’t miss our future episodes. If you have any questions or want to discuss anything, we’d love to hear from you: www.gemmabullivant.co.uk (for Gemma) www.wearegoodthinking.co.uk (for Fi)