Key Takeaways
- Effective leadership development balances human interaction and AI. Facilitators should integrate AI without sacrificing reflection, collaboration and meaningful human connection.
- Assess learners’ AI readiness before introducing technology. Understanding participants’ mindsets and experience levels helps facilitators tailor activities to their needs.
- Introduce AI with clear purpose and flexibility. Guided prompting, optional experimentation and peer learning can help participants develop confidence using AI.
Human versus machine is a polarity that’s being discussed in today’s leadership training programs.
Classrooms allow leaders to step away from technology and learn in a low- or even no-tech environment. They use paper and pencils to apply the models they’re learning. Both facilitators and learners are intentional about sharing ideas with each other.
Today, we must do more. We’re evolving the learning environment to savor moments of low-tech reflection while intentionally inviting technology in to maximize the learning and output. How do we do both well?
This tension is not a problem to solve, but a polarity to manage — two interdependent forces that, when overused independently, undermine learning outcomes. Leadership development facilitators must create an environment where both learning modes exist and facilitators move in and out of various modes seamlessly.
How can we create an experience for learners where technology does not add noise, causing them to disconnect from their cohort and the content? We must design experiences that naturally help learners perceive artificial intelligence (AI) as a partner in achieving their goals and not forcing its use. Leadership training facilitators must lead that transition without losing what makes learning human. We must create conditions for insight, connection to their cohort and consistent application.
Audit the Mindset
It’s important to understand where learners are and inspire their next steps. The learner’s mindset toward AI can range from significantly afraid to fully engaged or anywhere in between. Creating a discussion about where learners are on the continuum can help orient them toward personal progress and prompt critical mindset shifts.
Audit the Experience
Facilitators can use four questions to gauge how comfortable their learners are with AI:
- Who here has asked AI a question?
- Who here has invested time and effort in creating a well-constructed, multiple sentence prompt?
- Who here has had a back-and-forth conversation with AI?
- Who here has requested that AI ask you questions to understand your situation better before proceeding with a project?
These questions help the facilitator know where learners are in their AI journey. This helps to create a stretch zone so learners can continue progressing their AI expertise.
Invite the Next Step Forward
Facilitators must be intentional about inviting learners to use technology in an otherwise low-tech class. Use clear instructions and state a clear purpose when asking learners to experiment with technology. Infuse optionality for those who are not ready to experiment as deeply. This environment allows those who are ready to model and teach others in the classroom.
The goal is to help learners use prompting as a form of scaffolding — a thinking partner that accentuates strengths the learners already possess, rather than deferring to AI as an “answer generator.” The facilitator can construct a prompt as a modeling tool, then ask participants to add their own thoughts before submitting the complete prompt. Offer advanced users parameters for creating high-quality prompts, then use that time to explore. For both groups of learners, this approach helps them develop and refine their ideas.
Celebrate Growth
Create a discussion about the learners’ experience with AI and celebrate experiences of growth so they can borrow insights from each other. Reflection and shared sense-making about the applicability of classroom experiences lay the groundwork for translating experimentation into sustained leadership practice. Encourage participants to share their experiences so that facilitation can continue to evolve to meet learner needs and help learners influence their own environments of leading and learning.
Human‑AI-balanced facilitation asks more of us than adding new tools to familiar designs. It invites leadership development facilitators to become stewards of movement — between paper and prompts, reflection and expansion, human connection and technological partnership. When we treat the human-AI tension not as a problem to solve but as a polarity to manage, we create learning environments that preserve what makes learning deeply human while embracing what technology makes possible.
By auditing mindsets, designing purposeful experiences, inviting thoughtful experimentation and celebrating growth, facilitators can help learners build trust with AI as a thinking partner rather than an answer generator. In doing so, we model a way forward for leaders — one that honors presence, deepens insight and equips them to lead with discernment in an increasingly AI‑infused world.
Truist Leadership Institute Disclaimer
This content is provided to you for general information purposes only. This content does not constitute legal, tax, accounting, financial, investment, or mental health advice. You are encouraged to consult with competent legal, tax, accounting, financial investment, or mental health professionals based on your specific circumstances. Unless otherwise specifically stated, any views or opinions expressed herein are solely those of the individual authors listed, and are not the product of, and may differ from the views of, Truist Financial Corporation, its affiliates and/or subsidiaries. We do not make any warranties as to accuracy or completeness of this information, do not endorse any third-party companies, products, or services described here, and take no liability for your use of this information. Opinions and content represent the individual author’s judgment as of the date of this material and are subject to change without notice. We assume no duty to update any information in this material in the event that such information changes.
