Practical AI skills and better leadership judgment
Delegate the work, not your thinking.
I’m Karla Schlaepfer. In the AI Leadership Journey, I’m the 1:1 coach and sparring partner for senior leaders who want AI to earn its place in their workday. We start with a task you do every week and build from there, up to your own AI agent if you’re ready. Using AI with human judgment is the skill the future of work depends on.
A free call to see whether the AI Leadership Journey is right for you, or for the leaders you support.
“Karla Schlaepfer’s coaching was structured, goal-oriented, and deeply human.”
Sound familiar?
The shiny new AI tool has been rolled out. What it’s actually for is still anyone’s guess.
Every week brings a new AI tool and a new headline. Knowing where to start is the hard part.
Other leaders seem to be using it already. You’d like to catch up on your own terms, without pretending to know more than you do.
In many German companies, Copilot or a similar tool is there, and it often sits unused. There’s little time to dig in, and no one has shown people what it can do for their own work.
Most AI training starts with the tool. I start with your actual work: why AI can help with it, and how.
Meanwhile, you’re expected to get your team on board while AI keeps changing. And your team is watching how you use it before they decide what they think of it.
Almost 3 in 10 employed people in Germany who get AI tools from their employer haven’t used them yet.
Bitkom, May 2026: 11 of the 38 percent with accessWhat actually helps is time to figure out AI on your own tasks, with someone who’s been there.
Maintaining the human edge
How do you stay relevant as AI changes work?
Start with the realities people are already dealing with.
Over-reliance on AI
When the answer arrives in seconds, it’s tempting to stop checking it.
Blurred accountability
If AI wrote the first draft, who is accountable for the result? It still has to be a person.
Governance constraints
Data protection rules and the EU AI Act limit what can go into which tool.
Shifting roles
Tasks move between people and AI faster than job descriptions can keep up.
Losing expertise
When people stop questioning the output in front of them, expertise fades without anyone noticing.
My answer: judgment is what keeps you relevant. AI writes the first draft in seconds. Spotting what’s wrong with it, and deciding what you’ll put your name to, is still your job, and your team will copy how you do it. The AI Leadership Journey trains that understanding. The human stays firmly in the loop.
My thinking model: the 4Cs Compass
Working with a coach is a deeply human way to grow. I developed the 4Cs Compass to keep that human side at the center while we learn to co-create with AI. It runs through every session of the AI Leadership Journey.
Where do you stand, and what is AI really for in your work?
Reflect with others and build your team’s trust in its own judgment.
Use AI to support your thinking, and keep asking better questions.
Try it on one real task, test it, and learn from what goes wrong.
Your coach and sparring partner: Karla Schlaepfer
A seasoned leadership coach who builds with AI herself.
Since 2013, I’ve coached more than 300 leaders, including executives at Telekom and Mercedes-Benz. Along the way, I co-founded a VR start-up and co-wrote two business books. As a certified Scrum Master and Product Owner, I also bring agile ways of working, so I know change from the inside.
I follow AI every day, through research and through my own testing and coding. I co-founded the Coaching x AI Initiative at ICF Germany, where coaching meets the AI frontier. Twice a month, my DesignChange newsletter turns all of that into practical reflections you can read in five minutes.
- 2,500+Validated coaching hours
- PCCProfessional Certified Coach, credentialed by the International Coaching Federation (ICF), the gold standard in coaching
- 6AI models I work with, so we pick the one that fits you
“The AI Confidence Coaching convincingly combines clarity, reflection, and practical application.”
“Karla Schlaepfer effectively connects technical topics like AI with leadership issues.”
“Karla showed me how to structure prompts, with my role, the context, and the goal clearly defined. It sounds simple. It changed everything.”
What happens next:
It starts with a free call. Then we see if it’s a fit.
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A free 20-minute call
We talk about your work and decide together whether the Journey makes sense for you. Bring your questions, or the one task that eats up hours of your week.
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The AI Leadership Journey: five one-hour 1:1 sessions
We set the pace together, often over about two months. We look at where you stand today, work with resistance in your team and with your own doubts, pick the right use case, learn how to work productively with AI on it, build your own AI agent where it helps, and practice leading with judgment. My 4Cs Compass guides us through the change in every session.
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You run it, and your team sees how
By the end, you run your AI use case without me. Your team sees how you use it, and that does more to get them using AI than any memo. You also get a printed copy of my AI Skeptics Playbook, and I’m there for short questions between sessions.
We meet online or at my office in Cologne, whichever suits you, in English or German. What we discuss stays between us.
When I say AI Enablement, I mean the people side: using AI well and safely in your own work, including which data can go into which tool, with the EU AI Act in mind.
“Importantly, Karla is clear about what data is safe to share with AI and what isn’t.”
For HR and L&D
Booking this for your leaders?
One leader or several
You can book the Journey for one leader or for several in parallel.
Clear goals, protected trust
At the start, each leader and I agree on goals and on what feedback goes back to the organization. Everything else stays confidential.
Fits your setup
Online, hybrid, at your company or at my office in Cologne, in German or English.
AI literacy where it counts
Leaders set the example for how their teams use AI, so what they learn reaches everyone else too.
HR and L&D teams are welcome to book the call and talk about their leaders.
Questions before you book
Good to know
Is this coaching or sparring?
Both, and you choose the mix. In coaching, you find your own answers. In executive sparring, I’m your sparring partner on equal footing: I bring an outside view and challenge your assumptions about AI.
Do I need technical skills?
No. You need curiosity and one real use case from your work. I explain the tools in plain language, and we start where you are.
Which AI tools do we use?
The ones you have, often Microsoft Copilot or ChatGPT. I work with six different AI models, so we pick what fits your work and your company’s rules.
Can my company pay for it?
Yes. Your company can book the Journey for you, or for several leaders at once. I’m happy to send HR or L&D an offer.
What happens with my data?
What we discuss stays between us, and I handle your personal data according to the GDPR. In the sessions, we only use data you’re allowed to share, and you learn which information can go into which tool.
Bring your questions, and I’ll bring the 20 minutes.
Book your free 20 minutesA free call to see whether the AI Leadership Journey is right for you. No strings attached, and sometimes a short call is all you need to move forward.