How to free up time as a leader – with the help of AI

Something happens the fourth time this week you’re stuck with a presentation you don’t quite have time to finish. Or after a long meeting, when you’re trying to capture decisions, emotions, and next steps — all while your inbox keeps filling up. Do what I do and ask yourself: How can AI help me with this? Every single time. But it’s not just about becoming more efficient. It’s also about becoming a better leader — gaining back time for what really matters.

How you can use AI in your everyday leadership

Here are concrete examples from other leaders I’ve worked with:

1. Before management team meetings Upload last week’s minutes, your own notes (even a photo of handwritten ones), and a couple of reports. AI summarizes, structures, and gives you a ready-made draft for an agenda presentation. It even suggests which points should be prioritized — based on the previous meeting.
   

2. During recruitment and HR matters Ask AI to help you create a competency-based interview guide tailored to the role’s objectives. Or let it support you in drafting a complex email where you want to give feedback clearly but with empathy.
   

3. For weekly planning Feed AI with what’s on your plate: meetings, deadlines, postponed tasks. AI helps you sort it out: What requires reflection? What can be delegated? What can AI actually do for you right away?
   

4. When stuck in strategy work Try the CRIT framework: Context, Role, Interview, Task. Give AI the role of external advisor, explain the current situation, let it ask questions, and then frame the task. You’ll get back a fresh perspective, a new idea, or a different way of structuring your message.
   

5. To better understand and support your team AI can analyze employee survey responses, identify patterns, and suggest next steps. Or it can help you understand how different people are motivated so you can adapt your leadership — not just react to behaviors.

It’s not about technology — it’s about ways of working.

You don’t need to be technical. You need to be curious. Often, it’s enough to start with the question:

How can AI help me with this?

The answer could be:

• Helping you formulate.

• Helping you prioritize.

• Helping you think.

And when you make that a habit, something happens. You gain back both time and energy.

It’s not just about doing more. It’s about doing the right things — with the help of AI.

Being a leader today requires speed, presence, analysis, intuition, and continuous learning. AI isn’t the solution to everything. But it can be a support that helps you make better decisions, communicate more clearly, save brainpower, and have the energy for what truly matters.

And maybe even more importantly: it gives you more space for the human side.