Laura K Spencer, Ed.D.

Tag: #empatheticleadership

  • How AI Helps Leaders Uncover Blind Spots and Build a Culture of Thinking

    How AI Helps Leaders Uncover Blind Spots and Build a Culture of Thinking

    I was working with a new leader recently who said, “I know I’m missing something, but I can’t tell what it is.”

    She wasn’t lacking skill.

    She was bumping up against the part of leadership nobody likes to admit.

    Our brain fills in missing pieces without asking permission.

    That’s a blind spot.

    Not the thing you didn’t notice, but the meaning you assigned without realizing it.

    This is exactly where Cultures of Thinking shows up in real leadership work.

    Ron Ritchhart talks about creating a culture where people examine their own thinking, question their interpretations, and stay open to multiple perspectives.

    But leaders rarely do this for themselves.

    They are too busy moving on to the next thing.

    Here’s the good news.

    You don’t need an AI note taker or a perfect transcript to start seeing your blind spots.

    You just need a way to challenge your own first read of a situation.

    Here’s what I showed her.

    After a meeting that felt heavy, instead of replaying every detail, I asked her to write a few sentences about what she thought happened.

    Not the whole moment.

    Just her interpretation.

    Then I had her ask AI:

    “What’s another possible interpretation of this situation?”

    That’s it.

    No magic.

    No pretending AI “knows” the meeting better than she does.

    AI simply widened her lens.

    It offered alternatives she hadn’t considered:

    “Maybe the questions showed engagement, not doubt.”

    “Maybe the tension was about workload, not your leadership.”

    “Maybe the silence meant processing, not disagreement.”

    She looked at the screen and said, “I didn’t even think of that.”

    And that moment is the core of a Culture of Thinking.

    Not the right answer.

    Not the perfect insight.

    Just the willingness to look at your own thinking and stretch it a little.

    Blind spots aren’t signs of weakness.

    They’re signs that our assumptions are running ahead of us.

    AI helps you pause long enough to ask,

    “What else could be true?”

    If you’ve ever walked away from a meeting feeling uneasy but unsure why, this kind of thinking might give you the clarity you didn’t realize you were missing.

  • When the Waiting Room Becomes an Echo Chamber

    When the Waiting Room Becomes an Echo Chamber

    This morning I find myself in a packed dealership service waiting room because apparently every single one of us had the same “brilliant” idea: get the car checked before Thanksgiving travel.

    I’m sitting in a living, breathing echo chamber.

    We all had the same plan, same timing, same logic.

    No one questioned the obvious. We all just… showed up. Ugh.

    And as I sit here watching the room fill beyond capacity, it has me thinking about work, and the fact that this happens in leadership far more often than we admit.

    We fall in love with alignment. We assume shared thinking means we’re on the right track. But when everyone is thinking the same way, no one is actually thinking. Consensus feels safe, familiar, efficient even. But more often than not, it’s a sign we’ve stopped asking the harder questions. It’s actually exhausting to sit in meetings with everyone just saying “yes” to whatever idea gets put out there.

    True leaders who move things forward aren’t the ones who blindly follow the pattern everyone else defaults to. They’re the ones who pause long enough to ask:

    “Is this actually the best move, or just the expected one?”

    Strategic divergence is underrated. It’s not rebellion for the sake of rebellion; it’s curiosity with a spine. It’s the awareness that if you only ever make the same choices as everyone else, you shouldn’t be surprised when you end up in the same waiting room at the same time, frustrated for the same reasons.

    A little intentional questioning goes a long way, in both car maintenance and in leadership.

    P.S. Safe travels to everyone hitting the road this week. And may your service appointment move faster than mine. 🤪