By Laura Villacrusis, Partner, Kwela Leadership & Talent Management and speaker at EVOLVE 2025
Have you been using ChatGPT and other AI tools more frequently lately? I know I have. I’ve used it to help plan itineraries for travels to Europe, provide a list of Italian phrases that might be useful, come up with dinner ideas to make at home, look into the root causes of some physical symptoms, and have fun with creating animated images that were trending on social media.
Have I also used it for work? I sure have. I’ve used it to smooth out some communication, even help improve descriptions of our services. I find that it helps with the quality of my writing, especially if I’m stuck or pressed for time. I always make it a point to create my own key messages, design ideas, and guiding principles so I have a good starting point that captures my own thinking. I can use an AI tool to edit it for more cohesion and add in other helpful elements. And then I go back and I make it my own.
Using AI can be really helpful to save time and even spark some creative ideas. It certainly cannot do everything though, especially in my line of work as a leadership development consultant.
I recently facilitated a customized session for a team in a public organization. They are responsible for a specialized function in a community of stakeholders, and the director was seeking some approaches to help the team manage high-pressure situations and develop resilience. Stress levels were high, and they needed some practical tools. They had looked into a few options already—canned and custom—but none met what they were looking for to achieve their desired outcomes.
I met the team leader to learn where they were at, the nuances of their roles, the complexity of their function, some examples of what they have tried, and what they were hoping the team would walk away with if they did a session centered around managing stress and developing resilience. I learned a lot from that meeting and also got an intuitive and informed sense of what might be helpful. We explored some ideas—some were well-received, others were “meh, not sure that would work”—and landed at a few elements that we could put together, using some content from two of Kwela’s standard workshops, Beyond Stress and Leading Self with Emotional Intelligence, plus a couple of creative ideas.
They approved the agenda I developed and I facilitated the session several weeks later. It was very well-received and the feedback was positive (“Excellent session! Laura connected deeply with me.”). The director also sent me a message two weeks later saying, “several of my team members came to me afterwards to thank me for arranging it and saying how great they found it. It kind of ended up being half teambuilding and half stress handling—I don’t know if you planned it to do that…”, plus other comments specific to their experience individually and collectively. I was really happy with how it went. In the end, what mattered was a combination of the custom design and in-the-moment facilitation of what was emerging in the room that day.
Could AI have had the same result, even with the quality of the design? Well, I just tested it. I provided a very detailed prompt, and it came up with a suggested agenda. It was good and had elements that were part of what I covered. And it had some suggestions that I could have incorporated, like the idea of doing a Personal Energy Audit (what drains us and what restores us). Great idea! What was missing, though, were the elements that were most helpful to the team—the space for dialogue, the exercise of reflecting on their personal journey and values that drive their work, and how stress can be elevated when these values are not alive in their experiences. And it certainly was missing some facilitation techniques that helped me manage the process in the moment. Those tools I learned from over 25 years of doing this work!
So yes, ChatGPT could have helped add some elements, but the human element of what we do cannot be replaced. Although we did have some fun with ChatGPT in our opening activity: Remember that trend of converting an image into an action figure? I shared mine with the group as part of our activity, so thanks ChatGPT, it was a lively way to get us going!
As helpful as AI can be, it can’t replace the human insight, intuition, and connection that drive real progress.
Behind every smart solution is someone who takes the time to ask the right questions, think strategically, and consider the human side of every challenge.
Join Laura Villacrusis on December 17 for her interactive EVOLVE 2025 workshop, Smart Solutions: Strategic Thinking for Complex Challenges. Laura will explore how quick fixes can sometimes create bigger problems—and how strategic, people-centered thinking can lead to better decisions and lasting results.
If you’ve been wondering how to bring more purpose and clarity to the way you tackle complex issues, this session is for you.
Laura believes that when leaders grow, organizations don’t just improve—they evolve.
With more than 25 years of experience, she has helped individuals, teams, and workplaces unlock performance through purpose-driven leadership and culture-building strategies.
Source: ChatGPT Did Not Write This Blog – On Human-Centered Leadership Development – Kwela Leadership and Talent Management
