What Remains Ours to Think? Reclaiming Critical Thinking in AI‐Augmented Student Leadership Education

ABSTRACT

The arrival of generative artificial intelligence in learning environments has created an urgent question for leadership educators: what remains distinctly ours to think in the act of learning to lead? This article proposes a third orientation beyond the familiar poles of embrace and resistance, centering the reciprocal holding environment as the condition under which genuine formation can occur. Drawing on developmental theory, transformative learning, and epistemic justice frameworks, it examines what is lost cognitively, neurologically, and ethically when AI thinks first, and offers a conceptual framework, pedagogical pathways, and strategies for reclaiming critical thinking and human authorship in the AI‐augmented classroom.