The Most Valuable Thing AI Can't Replace

On saving hours every week and staying firmly in charge of your own judgement

Over the course of this past year I completed a triple coaching diploma, qualified as a menopause support coach, built a website, started social media marketing, created an online programme that 140 women from around the world joined, and started building a business entirely from scratch.

A year ago I would not have known where to start with most of that.

One of the biggest changes was how I started using AI. I went from using it occasionally to translate things to understanding how to actually harness it properly, particularly since a major update earlier this year.

It is difficult to quantify exactly how many hours I save each week now, but I would estimate well over ten, and some weeks considerably more.

This week alone AI designed a new LinkedIn banner, created the graphics for a webinar page, helped write a newsletter and helped update sections of a website. A year ago I would have spent days, possibly weeks, going round in circles with design ideas, wrestling with Canva and still not ending up with something I was happy with. The alternative would have been outsourcing it to someone with the expertise, which is absolutely the right option in many cases, but not always one that can be justified financially when building something from scratch.

That is where the real value has been. Not replacing thinking. Not replacing expertise. Removing the hours spent trying to execute tasks that sit outside your strengths.

What it looked like in practice as a leader

I spent nearly twelve years as a school Principal and CEO. If I am honest, a significant portion of that time was spent on things that did not move the needle at all. Policy documents that took hours to write and that nobody read. Presentations that needed to match the school's brand, so I would spend a whole evening getting fonts and colours to behave. Emails. Minutes. Reports. Summaries. The kind of work that kept me away from making a difference in the lives of my colleagues and my students.

A few years ago I ran a whole-school stakeholder consultation on our five-year strategy. Students, staff, parents, separate consultations across the whole year, all of it captured on A1 sheets and Post-it notes from every session. My PA spent hours pulling it together. Then my team and I spent more hours pulling out themes and patterns. None of that was leadership. It was simply organising information before the leadership work could even begin.

I could do the same job now in five minutes.

The administration needed to be done. It just took up a disproportionate amount of my time, and more honestly, it took me away from the leadership I was actually there to give.

The part nobody talks about enough

There has been one unexpected consequence to all of this that deserves just as much attention as the productivity gains.

The more capable AI becomes, the easier it is to start doubting your own judgement. You ask it to improve an email, then a presentation, then a difficult conversation, and before long you find yourself checking its opinion before trusting your own. For leaders, that can be dangerous. Good leadership has always depended on judgement, experience and values. AI can inform those things, but it should never replace them.

I think one of the most important skills we will all need over the next few years is learning how to use AI without giving away our trust in our own judgement. The technology should make us more effective, not less certain of ourselves. I wrote more about what happens when capable leaders stop trusting their own instincts if that feels relevant to where you are right now.

What most leaders are leaving on the table

What I do believe, from everything I have seen and experienced over the past year, is that most leaders are leaving a significant amount of time on the table. Time that could be spent on the work only a leader can do, or on the rest that makes that leadership possible.

This was the conversation at the heart of the free webinar I ran on 1 July 2026 — what AI can actually do for leaders who are spending too much time on work that does not require them. If you missed it and would like to explore this further, you are welcome to get in touch.

Reflection questions

Think about your working week. Not the big strategic moments, the smaller ones.

Where did time go that felt disproportionate to the value of the task?

Which tasks did you do yourself that someone or something else could have handled?

And if you found two, three, five or ten extra hours in a working week, what would you actually do with them?

A note on leading well under pressure

My work has never been about helping leaders do more. It has always been about helping them lead well, with clarity, calm and sustainability. If technology can remove some of the administration that gets in the way of that, then it becomes far more than a time-saving tool.

The question worth asking is not whether AI is useful. It clearly is. The question is whether you are using it in a way that frees up your best thinking, or in a way that slowly erodes your confidence in it.

About the author

Johanna Urquhart is a leadership coach, mentor and the founder of Resta Forte. With 25 years of senior leadership experience, including 12 years as a school Principal, she helps women in professional and senior leadership roles lead with confidence, clarity and sustainability. She is a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute, a Certified Menopause Support Coach and holds qualifications in nutrition, women's health and holistic wellness.

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