Leading and Practising GenAI Care-fully

Abstract

This thought piece explores how the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) can guide educators to lead with curiosity, collaboration, and care in the age of generative AI. Here we reframe leadership as relational rather than hierarchical, anchored in inquiry, reflection, and shared learning. The chapter traces a co-designed research project that used metaphors to explore how educators and students conceptualise GenAI’s role in higher education. This creative and critical approach foregrounded the ethical, pedagogical, and emotional dimensions of AI while amplifying diverse voices through collective authorship. Framed by contemporary SoTL research, echoing calls for pedagogically grounded and ethically aware AI practice (Fitzgerald & Curtis, 2025), the piece positions care-based leadership as central to shared understanding in times of technological disruption. Leading and practising GenAI care-fully means moving beyond control and certainty to cultivate inclusive, reflective spaces for inquiry and educational transformation.