Your Team Doesn't Need AI. They Need to Lead First.
by Feras Asakrieh
Jul 18, 2026
| Career ยท Leadership | ||||||
| By Feras Asakrieh ยท 4 min read ยท Issue #32 | ||||||
| It was almost 9pm. | ||||||
| I had already turned off half the lights in my house, getting ready for bed. | ||||||
| My phone buzzed. | ||||||
| A text from one of my directors. "I need help managing someone on my team." | ||||||
| The Easy Answer | ||||||
| I could have opened ChatGPT right there in bed. | ||||||
| I could have typed out the situation and sent her back a clean, polished plan in under a minute. | ||||||
| Document everything. Build the paper trail. Here is exactly how to escalate this to HR. | ||||||
| It would have been fast. It would have been accurate. It would have protected both of us. | ||||||
| I did not send that. | ||||||
| The Call I Made Instead | ||||||
| I called her. | ||||||
| First question. "Did anything change in her life? She was performing well 18 months ago." | ||||||
| A second of silence. | ||||||
| Second question. "When was the last time you actually sat down and had a real talk with her about the lack of care you're seeing?" | ||||||
| Longer silence this time. | ||||||
| The Pause That Said Everything | ||||||
| She had a folder full of dates and missed deadlines. | ||||||
| She did not have an answer to either question. | ||||||
| She had been managing the performance. She had not been managing the person. | ||||||
| We talked for almost thirty minutes. Not about HR steps. About what might have actually changed for someone who used to be one of her best. | ||||||
| What AI Will Never Give You | ||||||
| AI can give you the move that protects you. | ||||||
| It cannot give you the move that helps your people. | ||||||
| The questions that actually changed that call were never going to come from a prompt. | ||||||
| That is also why I still let typos slip into my emails sometimes. Not because I cannot catch them. Because I want my team to know it is actually me writing, not a polished version of me. | ||||||
| The judgment you built over years of hard conversations is becoming the rarest thing in your career. Not your speed. Not your output. Your judgment. | ||||||
| So here is my question for you this week. | ||||||
| Where in your job are you reaching for the polished answer instead of the human one? | ||||||
| Reply and tell me. I read every response. | ||||||
| See you next Saturday. Feras |
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