Helping leaders motivate their people to a higher level of performance through strong human relations, team building, and golajieving. This is the seven Minute Leadership Podcast with your host Paul Fellavaledo.
Hello everyone, and welcome to the Seven Minute Leadership Podcast. It's episode five seventy six. It's a new year, clean slate, leadership reset, and today we're talking about something that a lot of leaders are either overusing, under using, or completely misunderstanding. AI. This episode is not about tools. It's not about prompts, it's not about chasing the newest shiny thing. This is about filters. Because great leaders don't make decisions faster, they
make them cleaner and right now. AI can either help you clean up your thinking or amplify your worst habits. AI does not make decisions better leaders do. AI only reflects the quality of the question, the clarity of the standards, in the discipline of the person using it. If you don't have filters, AI becomes noise. If you do, it becomes leverage. So let me ground this in something familiar in aviation. We don't stare at every gauge equally. We
use filters. What matters right now, what matters later, what's a warning versus what's background data? The cockpit gives you information, not judgment. AI is the same way. So today I want to give you a few practical AI filters you can use as a leader starting this week to make better decisions without drowning in data or outsourcing your thinking. The first filter the relevant filter. Every time AI gives you an answer, ask this, does this apply to my reality?
AI loves general advice. It pulls from averages, trends in broad scenarios. Leadership doesn't happen in averages. It happens in your building, with your people under your constraints. If an answer sounds polished but ignores your culture, your budget, your risk tolerance, or your operational reality, it's irrelevant. Relevant beats impressive every time. The second filter the accountability filter, Ask this, who owns the outcome? If this goes wrong? AI never
owns outcomes you do. If you start letting AI recommendations feel authoritative instead of advisory, you're drifting into passive leadership. Good leaders use AI like a whiteboard, not a boss. Run every suggestion through this lens. Am I comfortable standing in front of my team and saying this was my call? If the answer is no, stop right there. The third filter, the simplicity filter. AI can overcomplicate things fast. It loves layers, frameworks in multi step plans that look great on paper
and fall apart on Monday morning. Leadership clarity wins by subtraction. Ask does this simplify the decision or bury it? If it adds friction, confusion, or unnecessary steps, it's not helping you lead. Strip it down, make it executable. The fourth filter, the human impact filter. AI does not feel consequences people do. Before acting on any AI assisted decision, ask how does this land with the humans involved? Morale, trust, credibility, and
timing still matter. A technically correct decision delivered at the wrong moment can still fail. Leadership is not a math problem. It's a people problem with numbers attached. The fifth filter what I call the red key filter, and this is critical. Ask yourself, is this a routine decision or a high consequence one? Routine decisions can be AI assisted heavily. Scheduling ideas, draft, language, scenario brainstorming, no problem, red key moments, hiring, firing, discipline,
crisis response, public statements. Those stay in human hands. AI can support your thinking but never replace your judgment. If the stakes are high, your presence must be higher. Now let me say this clearly. Using AI does not make you weak blindly following it does. Strong leaders don't fear tools, they control them. AI should slow you down where you tend to rush, and speed you up where you tend to stall. That's the balance. Here's a simple leadership reset
exercise you can do this week. Take one decision you've been avoiding. Run it through AI, but don't ask what should I do? Ask instead? What am I not seeing? What risks am I underestimating? What assumptions am I making? Then apply your filters relevance, accountability, simplicity, human impact. You'll notice something interesting. The decision usually becomes clearer, not louder. AI didn't side for you, It helped you think better.
That's the goal. As leaders are job in twenty twenty five is not to compete with AI, it's to stay human while using it wisely, clear thinking, clean decisions. Ownership stays with us. That's leadership. So as you step into this new year, don't chase faster decisions, chase better ones. Use AI as a filter, not a crutch. Keep your standards high, your judgment, sharp in your leadership personal That's how you reset without losing who you are. And for more go to Paulflavalito dot com. I have a ton
of free documents that you can download today. This has been the seven minute Leadership podcast and I thank you for listening.
For more Paul Fallavalito podcasts, visit Paul fellowlito dot com