Artificial intelligence is reshaping how we work, collaborate, and make decisions. For leaders, this shift isn’t just about mastering new tools — it’s about navigating ethical questions, guiding teams through change, and ensuring that innovation remains anchored in human values.

That conviction shaped the design of AI & Leadership: Tools, Ethics, and the Future of Work, a professional development course I created to prepare leaders for this new reality. The course is being developed for delivery in Canvas, intentionally using its features to model how AI can be integrated into a learning experience that is both interactive and responsible.

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Why Leadership Needs AI Literacy

Executives and managers face growing pressure to use AI for efficiency and strategic advantage. Yet the gap between technological hype and grounded understanding remains wide. A leader who cannot ask the right questions about bias, transparency, or accountability risks undermining trust.

This is why the course begins by mapping the landscape in three dimensions:

• Practical Tools — from generative AI assistants to decision-support systems.
• Ethical Foundations — drawing from responsible AI frameworks and governance standards.
• Futures Thinking — exploring scenarios for how AI may redefine leadership roles over the next decade.

Here, AI literacy becomes leadership literacy. Leaders leave not just knowing how to prompt an AI system, but also how to ask: Is this tool aligned with our values? Whose voices might be excluded if we rely on it? How do we remain accountable?

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Course Structure: Six Modules, One Arc

The design builds these ideas into a six-module structure that moves from fundamentals to practice:

1. Understanding AI — What It Is and Why It Matters
   Clarifies terms, distinguishes myth from reality, and frames why AI literacy is essential for leaders.
2. The Ethics of AI — Choices, Consequences, and Accountability
   Surfaces the ethical tensions of bias, privacy, and environmental cost, underscoring that every leader shares responsibility.
3. AI in Action — Strategic and Responsible Use in Contexts
   Applies AI to leadership challenges like stakeholder communication, decision-making, and workflow design.
4. Redefining Work — Preparing for Human-AI Collaboration
   Explores shifting competencies and inclusive strategies for leading hybrid teams.
5. Lifelong Learning and Digital Agility
   Positions AI literacy as an ongoing leadership competency, tied to resilience and adaptability.
6. Capstone Project
   Participants create a policy, plan, or evaluative framework for responsible AI use in their own context.

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Designing with Intent in Canvas

Because this is more than theory, the course leverages Canvas features with purpose:

• Modules scaffold learning, moving step by step from AI basics to applied strategy.
• Pages provide framing content written for clarity and accessibility.
• Discussions prompt participants to analyze real-world case studies where ethics and strategy intersect.
• Quizzes and knowledge checks ensure retention while surfacing misconceptions that spark group dialogue.
• Assignments guide participants to draft practical policies or action plans that could be applied directly in their organizations.

This intentional use of Canvas isn’t just a technical choice — it demonstrates how digital platforms can support active, reflective, and applied learning when paired with thoughtful instructional design.

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From Tools to Ethics: A Balanced Approach

Too often, AI courses lean heavily toward technical skill-building. This design deliberately keeps ethics at the center. Participants not only practice using AI tools but also evaluate them against principles of fairness, transparency, and inclusivity.

The goal is to prepare leaders not only to use AI but to lead responsibly with AI — balancing efficiency with human judgment, and innovation with accountability.

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Looking Ahead

As AI moves deeper into professional life, the leaders who thrive will be those who combine practical fluency with ethical foresight. Courses like this are not about teaching leaders to code — they are about equipping them to ask better questions, make principled decisions, and guide their teams through technological change with confidence and clarity.

By situating the course in Canvas, the design itself models the kind of digital learning environment we hope leaders will build in their own contexts: accessible, reflective, and aligned with human values.