Time to read: 9 minutes
In this newsletter, you will find these topics:
- Three Mistakes I Keep Catching Myself Making
- Visibility is Not Arrogance
- One Last Thing: AI For The Real World, Monday 15 June
Hi {{first_name | default: 'there'}},
I am a coach who teaches leaders how to work with AI. I use it every day. I also use it badly, often enough that I have stopped pretending otherwise.
Three Mistakes I Keep Catching Myself Making
I wrote about this on LinkedIn last week, and the messages I got back made me want to spend a whole newsletter on it.
Here are the three mistakes I kept on making. Not the beginner ones.
MISTAKE ONE. ASKING IT TO DO THE THINKING I SHOULD DO MYSELF.
Last month I had a keynote on AI and leadership. While preparing, I opened my Claude Code chat window of this project and typed "give me a strong opening hook" It gave me three. They were fine.
They were also nothing like the story from a coaching session the day before, the one that had been sitting in my head all evening. I used one of the AI hooks anyway. The talk went well. The opening I should have used is still in my notebook.
I realized, this is the most expensive mistake because it does not look like a mistake. The output looks fine. The session is fast. But it's not me.
The fix that works for me: save that first thought. Yes, ask for ideas from the AI, but don't lose the original spark.
MISTAKE TWO. TRUSTING A GOOD-LOOKING ANSWER TOO FAST.
A few months ago I cited "a Harvard Business Review study" in a workshop. AI had given it to me with a confident year and a confident percentage. After the workshop I went to find the source so I could share it with the participants. The study did not exist. The closest thing was an HBR article from a different year that said something related but not the same. I sent a corrected note to two people who had asked. I have not used the line since.
AI is fluent. Fluency is not accuracy. I learned this the way most people learn it, which is by quoting something with confidence and watching a smarter person across the table go very quiet. The most dangerous outputs are the ones that sound exactly like something you would say, because that is when you stop reading carefully.
What changed for me: I now ask the AI to double-check if anything has been invented or hallucinated and mark every claim it is unsure about with a confidence score. Not a perfect fix, but enough friction to make me re-read. For agents I built it in the skill or in the master prompt. No more believing blank.
MISTAKE THREE. LETTING IT HOMOGENIZE MY VOICE.
I notice this most in writing. AI is trained on the average of what is on the internet. If I let it lead, my drafts come out competent, smooth, and indistinguishable from any other coach writing about AI and leadership. Last month I caught myself almost writing "in today's fast-paced world" in a newsletter. About AI. About being honest. The irony was thick.
I read back a LinkedIn post from earlier this year and saw I had written "lean into the discomfort." I do not say lean into. Nobody who knows me does. AI had handed it to me in an edit, I had let it through, and now there it sits on my profile. I cannot remember what the post was about anymore. I can tell you exactly which phrase ruined it for me.
The fix that works for me is to put the work in upfront. I have trained my AI tools on my actual voice. The phrases I use. The phrases I refuse. The opinions I hold. Then I steer the tone each time I write, depending on what I am writing and how I feel that day. With that groundwork in place, AI does not flatten my voice. It writes inside it.
After all that, let me be clear. AI is not the problem. The way I use it is. AI belongs around the work, not in the middle of it. Where AI does not belong: in the middle of the judgment call.
Whether to take a client. How to handle a partner who is undermining a candidate. What to say to my team when I have made a mistake. Those moments need me, fully present, with another human.
This is exactly where the AI Leadership Coaching at The Change Republic. It is a leadership challenge, not a technology one. Not which tool to buy, but whether the leadership team can think together, decide together, and lead others through change while AI moves faster than most organisations can absorb.
And if you want a quick read on where your own leadership team is? I built a five-minute self-assessment. Ten statements. Results in your inbox.
I want to take the AI Leadership free assessment
Visibility is not arrogance
Staying with what needs to be human, let me tell you another story.
I was taught in 1990s Hungary that good work speaks for itself. It does not.
This week I ran a 90-minute masterclass on AI-powered personal branding for at the Swiss energy company, Alpiq. Over 300 registered. Colleagues dialing in from Switzerland, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Italy and beyond.
The whole session circled one idea.
For most of the senior people I meet, the gap between them and the next promotion is not about skill. The work is solid. The hours are in. What is missing is that the people deciding on the next role do not have a clear enough picture of them. You cannot be promoted, sponsored or recommended by someone who does not see you. Visibility is not arrogance. It is a career skill.
The encouraging part: it does not need to become a second job. AI can carry a lot of the load. The thinking, though, stays with you.
Antje Kanngiesser, CEO of Alpiq, took the time to comment on the LinkedIn recap afterwards. Her words: "So true, from own experience I would add the best visibility comes with exposure."
It's powerful, when the person at the top of the organisation says that in public.
If you would like to bring the AI-powered personal branding masterclass to your teams, let's talk. Drop me a message at hello @ thechangerepublic dot com.
One last thing: AI For The Real World - 15 June lunchtime
On Monday 15 June at lunchtime 12:00 CET, I am running a short free webinar with Anna Stando in her series AI for the Real World. The topic: AI for your meetings. Before. During. After.
Hands-on. Specific. 45 minutes. The kind of session where you walk away knowing one thing you can use the next morning.
I want to register for the free webinar
Did you miss our last newsletters?
Inboxes can get a little crazy, right? Just in case you missed them, here are the links to our previous newsletters:
- Newsletter #34: AI can prep your case, but it can’t earn your promotion. Learn the human work behind Big 4 partner tracks: sponsors, timing, and presence → LINK HERE
- Newsletter #33: I’m sharing how AI is testing the identity we borrowed from our roles, why your badge was never truly yours, and one prompt that helps you see what remains when the title is stripped away. → LINK HERE
- Newsletter #32: I’m sharing what leaders really fear about AI, why many feel powerless in shaping it, and how one simple prompt can sharpen your judgment and self-awareness. → LINK HERE
Thanks for reading. If something in this one landed, hit reply and tell me. I read every response, and these are the conversations I find most worth having.
Until next time,
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