Portable pause
Ethical AI Leadership Decision Toolkit
These field notes do not recite the Toolkit. They sit beside it. When a system has already produced finished language, you need a pause that still has a human subject. That pause is this.
Four pillars
01
Human moral agency
The person remains the one who can be asked why. Systems execute; leaders answer.
02
Psychological safety
Status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness, and fairness are the first things a new system spends.
03
Fairness beyond data
Opportunity, voice, and social signaling matter as much as the confusion matrix.
04
Trust as capital
Trust is deposited, withdrawn, and called. Treat it like a balance sheet, not a vibe.
Five non-negotiable questions
Ask them before the dashboard gets to sound like a colleague. Ask them in the room, out loud, with a name attached to the answer.
- 01
Who remains accountable when the system acts?
- 02
Whose status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness, or fairness is being spent?
- 03
What would we owe a person this system affects that we would never owe a model?
- 04
How will we know if trust is being withdrawn — this week, not next quarter?
- 05
What human overhead are we not counting, and who is paying it?
Field sheets
One-page PDFs you can take into a meeting. One address opens all six. It joins the same list as the notes.
01 · Boardroom pause
Five non-negotiable questions
Ask them out loud, with a name on the answer, before a system starts to sound like a colleague.
Before a pilot, a vendor demo, or a go-live.
The rest of this is in the complete file02 · Pre-deployment
Agentic AI Risk Radar
Nine checks on autonomy, psychological safety, and operational ethics before an agent is allowed to act.
Before you give an agent spend, mail, or hiring reach.
The rest of this is in the complete file03 · Beyond the spreadsheet
Bias and fairness audit
Source, signal, and outcome. Catch social signaling and opportunity hoarding, not only dirty data.
Before launch, then at 30 and 90 days.
The rest of this is in the complete file04 · Triage
Trust Withdrawal Matrix
Plot attachment against status threat. The cell tells you whether to monitor, reassure, calibrate, or pause.
When trust is already moving and you need a next step this week.
The rest of this is in the complete file05 · Monthly pulse
Human–AI health check
Four scores on dependency, agency, reality testing, and emotional distance. Under 12, retrain on autonomy.
Once a month with the team that lives beside the agent.
The rest of this is in the complete file06 · People map
Stakeholder impact map
Anxiety versus reliance. Threatened, ambivalent, distant, or attached — each cell has a different ritual.
When you are naming who will pay the human overhead.
The rest of this is in the complete file
When a one-pager is not enough
Ethical AI Leadership Decision Toolkit
The field sheets are the sample. The complete Toolkit is the operating notes you take into the room.
$47 · PDF
Get the complete file · $47Carry it weekly
The notes, twice a month. This is separate from the field sheets.