Elevate with Grace
Elevate with Grace: Cultivating Success in the New World of Work
Elevate with Grace is back in 2025 after a 3 year break with our career and personal development podcast incorporating a mix of inspirational storytelling, expert insights, and actionable advice. It’s designed for ambitious women looking for ideas to help them thrive at work and life.
The Elevate with Grace podcast blends elements of:
1. Career Growth & Mentorship: Navigating the evolving workplace.
2. Mindset & Smart Risk-Taking: Cultivating confidence, resilience and decision making.
3. Future-Led Learning: Building adaptive skills for long-term success.
4. Leading in the New World of Work: Engaging and supporting others.
Elevate with Grace
The Leaders AI Can't Replace
Season 3, Episode 4
The True Value of Human Skills in Leadership
In an era quickly changing & obsessing over AI tools and automation, this episode emphasizes that our most valuable career asset continues to be fundamentally human. Claire and Miranda remind us of the human advantage: the leadership skills that no algorithm can replace. From emotional intelligence and empathy to clarity and courage, this conversation is a call to elevate our HI (human intelligence) alongside our AI.
Through stories, frameworks, and practical insights, they explore what it takes to lead smarter, not harder and why future-ready leadership is less about mastering tech and more about mastering yourself and your people.
Whether you’re a leader navigating AI disruption, or someone aspiring to build stronger, more resilient teams, this episode will help you double down on what makes us human.
Key Takeaways
- AI is a tool, not the answer. Leaders must balance speed and efficiency with discernment, clarity, and emotional intelligence.
- Soft skills aren’t soft they are hard and essential. Empathy, feedback, and human judgment are the real competitive edge.
- Clarity is kindness. Clear communication, even when hard truths are involved, builds trust and long-term resilience.
- Empowered teams outperform managed teams. Concepts like “teamship” and walking beside (not above) your people create ownership and better results.
- Slow down to speed up. Great leadership often means pausing, reflecting, and interrogating assumptions before acting.
Key Quotes
- “It always tickles me when we call these humanistic leadership capabilities ‘soft skills.’ If we’re doing them well, they’re anything but soft they’re deliberate, and they’re hard.” Claire
- “Empathy + emotional intelligence + authentic leadership = stronger, more resilient teams.” Miranda
- “Clarity is kindness. Even when people don’t want to hear the message, honest communication builds trust.” Claire
- “Our role as leaders hasn’t changed: it’s always been to create the conditions for others to excel.” Miranda
Episode Run-Down
- Opening reflections on AI vs HI (human intelligence)
- Why humanistic leadership matters more than ever
- Lessons from Deloitte & Gallup 2025 reports
- Empathy, clarity, and emotional regulation under pressure
- Gen Z’s challenge to traditional management & “conscious un-bossing”
- Real-world leadership lessons from crisis situations
- The “teamship” model and how to empower teams effectively
- How AI should free up time for more human leadership
Action Challenge
Pick one human leadership skill each week and put it into practice
References & Resources
- Deloitte Human Capital Trends Report 2025
- Gallup State of the Workplace Report 2025
- Essential by Chrissy Smith & Kelly Monaghan
- Forbes 2024 article on Conscious Un-bossing & Gen Z leadership trends
- Winging It by Emma Isaacs
- Teamship model by Keith Ferrazzi
- How to Decide by Annie Duke
- Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
Tune in now to discover why the future of leadership is still deeply human.
Music created by Claire's daughter Hannah