What Leaders Should Never Automate
Too many times I've been in rooms with leaders who proudly say, "We're automating everything." They beam as they list out every task they plan to hand over to AI: emails, reports, customer service, and even decision-making. That's when I lean in and say, "Careful. Automating everything is the fastest way to break the human core of your business."
Seriously, not everything should be automated. As someone who has worked in the field with end users from day 1 on AI adoption, thinking everything should be automated is a flawed approach.
Let's be clear. Automation is powerful. Using AI tools saves time, improves consistency, and handles repetitive tasks with ease. But there are areas where handing over control is a mistake. These are the places where human judgment, empathy, creativity, and nuance can't be replicated, no matter how good the tool is.
Automating these parts of your leadership will cost you trust, team cohesion, and ultimately, results.
Here's What You Should Keep Human
1. Relationship Building
No AI can replace the nuance of real human connection. This includes regularly checking in with your team. Reading body language in tough conversations. Building rapport with partners or customers.
This is human territory. Automating it makes you feel distant, cold, and replaceable.
Think about it. Your team knows when they're getting a template response. They can feel when you're not really there. One CEO I know discovered his team had started guessing which emails came from him versus his AI assistant. That's not leadership.
2. Ethical Decision Making
AI can recommend paths, but it can't weigh values or long-term impacts. When you're making decisions that shape people's lives, reputations, or futures, you need human judgment.
Every ethical decision carries weight beyond metrics. Should you lay off a team to hit targets? How do you handle a product defect affecting vulnerable customers? These situations demand more than data analysis. They require understanding context, weighing values, and accepting responsibility.
Automating these calls invites blind spots and damage.
3. Vision and Strategy
AI can analyze trends, but only you can set the vision. Only you can define what matters, where you want to lead, and why. The spark of innovation comes from human minds imagining new futures, not algorithms remixing old data.
Strategy isn't just identifying opportunities. It's choosing which ones align with your values. It's seeing connections that don't exist in any dataset yet. It's believing in possibilities that data says are unlikely.
Why Leaders Fall Into the Trap
Leaders often think, "If I automate more, I'll free myself up." But many overcorrect. They start automating the very work that gives their role meaning. The leadership parts.
The result? They become operators of systems, not shapers of direction. They disconnect from their teams. They lose sight of the big picture.
The trap deepens because the initial results appear promising. Response times improve. Costs go down. But team morale slips gradually. Innovation slows. Customer relationships become transactional. By the time problems surface, the damage runs deep.
A Real Example From the Field
I worked with an executive who was drowning in meetings. They decided to let AI handle follow-ups, draft team updates, and even communicate key decisions. At first, things seemed faster.
However, their team soon felt ignored. Morale dipped. People stopped coming forward with ideas or feedback. During a product crisis, the team received only AI-generated responses that missed crucial nuance. Trust eroded fast.
We rolled things back. The executive kept the AI-generated drafts but added a personal layer to important messages. They made time for live conversations when stakes were high. Trust rebounded, but it took months.
Finding Your Balance
The key isn't avoiding automation. It's being intentional about what you automate.
Fully Automate: Repetitive tasks with clear rules. Scheduling, data entry, standard reports.
Augment with AI: Complex tasks where AI enhances your capabilities. Let AI draft, you personalize. Let it analyze, you interpret.
Keep Fully Human: High-stakes interactions, creative visioning, ethical decisions, relationship building. No shortcuts.
The Takeaway
Automate for efficiency but lead for connection. Your job isn't to become a robot operator. It's to stay human in the places that matter most.
Look at your workflow. List what you're automating or planning to automate.
Ask:
Where does human touch still matter?
What signals or relationships am I at risk of weakening?
How can I stay involved where it counts?
This week, identify one area where you've automated too much. Reclaim it. Show up personally. Have the conversation. Write the message yourself.
Notice what changes. The future belongs to leaders who use AI wisely, not blindly.
Stay human where it counts,
Yen Anderson