Our managers are starting to use AI to draft their quarterly performance reviews and annual reviews for their direct reports. While it saves hours of writing, the reviews are starting to feel cold and generic. Where do we draw the line on what must remain strictly human when managing our people?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Using AI to draft performance reviews is a dangerous shortcut that erodes trust. While automation is excellent for analyzing numeric scorecard data, human leadership cannot be outsourced to an algorithm.

Performance management is not just about compiling lists of tasks completed. It is about assessing how well a team member exhibits your Core Values and evaluates if they GWC (Get It, Want It, Capacity to Do It) their seat. This assessment requires human intuition, empathy, and personal observation.

When a manager uses AI to write a review, the employee can instantly sense the lack of genuine connection. It signals that the manager does not care enough to spend thirty minutes writing authentic feedback. This destroys employee engagement and damages your company culture.

The rule for your leadership team is simple. You can use AI to summarize raw quantitative metrics, such as sales numbers or ticket resolution times, from your scorecard. However, the qualitative assessment, the constructive feedback, and the development plans must be written entirely by the manager.

The actual review conversation must always be a face to face, human to human dialogue. True leadership requires the willingness to have difficult, honest conversations. If your managers are too busy to write authentic reviews for their people, you have a capacity issue on your Accountability Chart that needs to be solved in your weekly Level 10 Meeting™.