Leadership Summit 2026: Inspiring Grit and Growth Amid Unprecedented Change
July 23, 2026
AI Summary
5 min readAngela Duckworth, the psychologist who popularized the concept of grit, walked into an experiment expecting the worst. She and her graduate student Benjamin Lira asked young adults to rewrite a terrible cover letter. Some did it on their own, some used AI to do it for them, and a control group did nothing. The conventional worry—that using AI as a crutch would make people lazier and less skilled—seemed obvious. But the results surprised her: the group that used AI not only produced better cover letters in the moment, but also scored higher on a test of their own writing skill a day and a week later. They had improved more than the people who practiced on their own.
Why grit matters more, not less, with AI
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:10) **Introduction and Framing** - Host Audie Ignatius introduces the topic: AI's impact on learning and grit, and guest Angela Duckworth.
- 2 (02:12) **The Grit Scale: Perseverance and Passion** - Duckworth explains the two components of grit using items from her validated questionnaire.
- 3 (04:37) **The Goal Hierarchy: Stubborn at the Top, Agile at the Bottom** - Duckworth diagrams how gritty people organize their goals to stay on a learning curve.
- 4 (05:25) **The Learning Curve and the AI Question** - Duckworth connects grit to the 10,000-hour rule and the core tension AI creates for skill development.
- 5 (06:31) **Gen Z's AI Usage and Ambivalence** - Duckworth presents survey data showing widespread AI adoption among young workers, paired with deep concern.
- 6 (08:21) **The Hope: An Experiment on AI as a Coach** - Duckworth describes a surprising experiment where using AI to rewrite a cover letter actually improved long-term writing skill.
- 7 (11:19) **Why It Works: Effort vs. Learning Environment** - Duckworth explains the two competing forces at play when using AI.
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Guests on this episode
Show Notes
Most leaders are asking the same question about AI: Will it make their teams more productive—or slowly erode the very skills they're trying to build? In this special episode, as part of the recent HBR Leadership Summit 2026, University of Pennsylvania's Angela Duckworth says her long-standing research on grit—and the fact the most successful people aren't simply persistent, they stay committed to long-term goals while adapting their tactics as the world changes—is more relevant than ever in the age of generative AI. Rather than replacing human capability, she explains, AI can become a powerful coach that accelerates learning, if people treat it as something to learn from, not simply something that does the work for them. Duckworth’s new book is Situated: Find the People and Places That Bring Out Your Best.
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