Give AI the Busywork and Get Back to Leading
By now, we’ve all heard about AI. Some of us use it daily, while others are still on the fence. Maybe you’ve played around with ChatGPT or seen AI-generated meeting notes pop up in your inbox. But if you’re not using AI to make your job easier as a manager, you’re missing out.
AI isn’t just for tech gurus or executives—it’s a powerful ally for anyone juggling people, tasks, and priorities. With the right tools, you can streamline emails, run more efficient meetings, speed up hiring and onboarding, and stay on top of your ever-growing to-do list. And the best part? You can use free tools and you don’t need to be a tech expert to make it work for you.
This post breaks down five practical ways AI can handle the busywork so you can focus on leading. Let’s go!
1. Save Time on Emails
This one is significant if you deal with email every day. Whether it’s making sure a request is clear, responding graciously to a customer issue, or keeping messages professional yet approachable, AI makes email communication faster and more effective. No more struggling for the right words!
Use ChatGPT (free) – Copy and paste an email (removing any personal details) and ask ChatGPT to refine it. Example prompts:
- “Here’s an email I drafted for my team about a deadline. Can you make it clearer and more professional?”
- “Can you make this response to a frustrated customer sound more empathetic?”
- Or even ask it to write an email from scratch based on a quick prompt like: “Write a professional but friendly follow-up about project deadlines.” Or, write a response to this customer complaint.” Provide a few details and you’ll have an email in seconds that you can tweak or request further suggestions. There’s a guide below to help you get the most out of ChatGPT.
Grammarly (free plan) – Checks tone, clarity, and typos, helping you avoid miscommunication.
Gmail’s Writing Tools– An AI-powered writing feature in Gmail that proofreads, rewrites or even drafts new emails (integrated with Chat GPT). Just start an email and click the writing tools button for assistance.
With these tools, no more overthinking emails—your communication will be clearer, faster, and more polished.
2. Make Meetings More Efficient
Meetings should be productive, but too often they feel like a time sink. Between setting an agenda, capturing key points, and tracking action items, it’s easy to lose focus. AI can help you organize, summarize, and streamline meetings so they’re actually useful.
AI transcription & summaries – Free tools like Otter.ai (basic plan) or tl;dv can record virtual meetings, transcribe conversations, and highlight key takeaways. No more frantic note-taking!
Generate action items – AI-powered summaries can pull out tasks and next steps. Just copy your notes and ask ChatGPT: “Summarize these meeting notes and highlight the action items.”
AI-generated agendas – Save time by asking ChatGPT: “Create an agenda for a 30-minute team check-in on customer experience improvement.” Provide key points, and AI will structure them for you.
With AI, your meetings will be more focused, follow-ups will be clearer, and you’ll save a ton of time.
3. Speed Up Hiring and Onboarding
Workplace turnover is high, which means managers need to fill roles fast and onboard new hires smoothly—without spending hours buried in admin work. AI can help streamline these processes.
Draft better job descriptions – Ask ChatGPT: “Write a job posting for a customer service manager emphasizing teamwork and leadership.” AI ensures clear, engaging descriptions in seconds.
Create interview questions – Hiring the right person starts with asking the right questions. AI can generate structured interview questions tailored to the role:
- “Create a list of behavioral interview questions for a [Job Title] that assess problem-solving, teamwork, and leadership skills.”
- Screen resumes faster – I haven’t personally tried this, but a highly recommended tool is Teal (free plan), which helps analyze resumes by scanning for relevant keywords and qualifications, making it easier to identify top candidates.
With AI handling the heavy lifting, you’ll spend less time on admin work and more time actually leading your team.
4. Use AI to Support Employee Conversations
Regular one-on-one meetings with employees are essential for feedback, coaching, and addressing concerns. While AI isn’t a substitute for a good coach or mentor, it can help you structure these conversations, ensure important points aren’t missed, and even track follow-ups.
Example: Addressing chronic lateness Let’s say an employee is frequently late. You want to address the issue without being overly harsh or unclear.
- Before the meeting: Ask ChatGPT, “How can I have a productive 1:1 conversation with an employee who is consistently late?” It might suggest a script like:
- “I’ve noticed you’ve been arriving late frequently. I wanted to check in and see if there’s anything preventing you from getting here on time. Let’s talk about how we can address this together.”
- Generating talking points – AI can suggest key discussion points, like emphasizing expectations, understanding potential challenges, and collaborating on solutions.
- After the meeting – ChatGPT can help draft a follow-up email summarizing the discussion and next steps: “Hi [Employee], thanks for our conversation today about punctuality. As we discussed, being on time is important for team workflow. Let’s check in again next week to see how things are going.”
- Ongoing support: AI tools like Reclaim AI can suggest optimal times for follow-up meetings and reminders.
Using AI in this way ensures one-on-one meetings are constructive, professional, and action-oriented.
5. Prioritize and Schedule Smarter
With constant meetings, emails, and unexpected issues, it’s easy to feel like you’re always playing catch-up. AI can help prioritize tasks, automate scheduling, and suggest the best ways to use your time.
How AI can assist:
- AI-powered task managers: Apps like Reclaim AI analyze your workload and automatically schedule deep work time and priority tasks.
- ChatGPT for prioritization: Paste your to-do list into ChatGPT and ask:
- “Which of these tasks should I prioritize based on urgency and impact?”
- “Help me organize these tasks into urgent vs. important.”
- AI-powered calendar tools: Tools like Clockwise (free) optimize meeting schedules to reduce calendar overload and protect focus time.
Instead of constantly deciding what to tackle next, AI can help organize your workload so you stay focused on what truly matters.
Get the Best Response from ChatGPT: Ask the Right Questions
To make the most of AI tools like ChatGPT, how you phrase your questions matters. The more specific and clear your prompt, the better response you’ll get. Here’s how:
Be Clear and Direct – Instead of: “Help me with a report,” try: “Summarize this sales report in three bullet points and make it easy to understand for executives.”
Set the Tone – If you want a friendly email, say: “Rewrite this email in a warm and professional tone.” If you want something concise, ask: “Make this email more direct and to the point.”
Provide Context – Instead of: “Give me leadership advice,” try: “What are three leadership tips for a new manager struggling with delegation?”
Ask for Alternatives – If the first response isn’t quite right, ask: “Can you rephrase this in a more engaging way?” or “Give me three variations of this response.”
A note of caution about Privacy: As a best practice, remove personal information when copying into an AI program as you do not know how the date will be used or saved.
The Bottom Line
AI is no longer just a futuristic concept—it’s a practical tool that can save time, boost efficiency, and help you become a more effective manager. From streamlining emails and meetings to automating hiring, onboarding, and task prioritization, AI tools can handle many of the time-consuming parts of your job.
But this is just the beginning. How else can AI help with your role? If you find yourself spending too much time on a repetitive task, or have a big project or presentation to tackle, try asking ChatGPT: “How can AI help me with this?” You might be surprised at the solutions available! Whether it’s organizing reports, generating presentations, summarizing documents, or even brainstorming ideas, AI can assist in ways you haven’t even considered yet.
Start small, experiment with a few tools, and see what works best for you. Before you know it, you’ll wonder how you ever managed without it.
