I know I’m not alone in seeing that one of the greatest risks of AI isn’t that it will give us bad answers… it’s that it will give us very convincing ones.
Discerning what to use and believe from our favorite AI agents creates an entirely different leadership problem. Especially among younger professionals who simply don’t have as much lived experienced yet to draw on.
Most experienced leaders have spent years learning how to make decisions amid uncertainty. How? The old-fashioned way…
- You gather the information.
- You consult the experts.
- You consider the consequences.
- You check-in with your gut.
- And eventually, you make the call.
Now we have another extraordinarily powerful voice at the table. These AI-powered systems can synthesize information, challenge assumptions, model scenarios and surface possibilities we may never have considered.
I use these tools myself, have a lot of fun with them, and see tremendous potential in them. But there is one capability I don’t want any leader to outsource: discernment.
Advice from a machine isn’t wisdom.
Let’s make this personal: about your next career move.
Imagine you’re considering leaving an executive role. You decide to plug all your considerations into your favorite AI agent, including:
- Your compensation.
- Your experience.
- Your goals.
- The new opportunity.
- Your current company’s trajectory.
- Your financial situation.
- Perhaps even your personality assessment.
It produces a thoughtful analysis and concludes that you should take the job. What happens next?
Do you take it?
I hope not.
I hope you listen.
Then I hope you get quiet with yourself. Remember what I pointed out a couple weeks ago: humans have interiority, embodiment, and the capacity to make meaning.
I’ve worked with numerous leaders whose career decisions looked obvious from the outside… whether it’s a promotion that seems like the logical next step, or the prestigious organization that others would agree is the best next place to move, or a decision to stay that aligns with others’ expectations. And yet, when we slow down the conversation to listen inward with sharper discernment, a deeper knowing emerges that points somewhere else.
More often than not, the body knows before the analysis points us in a direction. What exactly is revealed when we turn our attention inward and ask a question? We may notice:
- A tightening.
- An unexpected sense of relief.
- A quickening of energy when discussing one possibility and depletion when discussing another.
I don’t view these signals as irrational distractions from good decision-making. I view them as critical data points that are irreducibly human.
Most of us have been trained to privilege the mind. Western business culture especially tends to reward what we can quantify and explain.
I understand why. I earned my MBA from Kellogg. I’ve coached hundreds of leaders with advanced business and financial degrees. I value analysis too.
I’ve also spent the past 20+ years studying and applying practices informed by neuroscience, somatic coaching, meditation and wisdom traditions from Asia to the Andes.
These explorations have taught me something equally important: Human intelligence is larger than cognition alone.
- Your mind contains information. So does your body.
- Your relationships contain information.
- Your lived experience contains information.
- Your values contain information.
- Your intuition contains information.
Discernment is our ability to bring those sources of information together and assess what is most valuable and relevant to the question at hand. Then take ownership of it, what, and how we use the suggested information. AI can advise you. But it cannot be you.
This becomes particularly important with career decisions.
Your preferred AI agent may tell you which role maximizes your projected earnings. But, while it can compare two career trajectories, it cannot tell you whether you want to miss dinner with your children four nights a week. And while it can identify what successful executives commonly do, it cannot feel what happens inside you when you imagine living out each of those career trajectories. It also cannot determine what success means to you.
That’s where I want to raise another yellow caution flag and ask leaders to stay vigilant: Use the information provided by an AI agent as a powerful input.
Just do not quietly promote it from advisor to authority.
A suggested practice for cultivating discernment:
The next time you’re making a meaningful decision, try asking three different questions:
- What does the data tell me? Look at the evidence. Use the technology. Ask the AI agent to challenge your assumptions.
- What do the people I trust see? Human beings can recognize patterns in us that we sometimes can’t see ourselves.
- What do I learn when I get quiet?
Here’s how to actually do the “get quiet” thing:
- Step away from the screen. All the screens.
- Walk.
- Breathe.
- Pray or meditate.
- Notice your body
- Give yourself enough space for your own wisdom to enter the conversation.
So where does discernment fit into all this? The goal isn’t to reject technology. It’s to remain the author of your decisions while using every resource available to you.
In a world overflowing with intelligence, wisdom is the scarcer, irreducibly human resource.
I believe leaders who cultivate discernment will have an extraordinary advantage.
- They’ll know how to use AI agents without surrendering their agency.
- They’ll know the difference between a compelling recommendation and the right decision.
- Most importantly, they’ll remember that a flourishing career isn’t something an algorithm can define for them.
Next week, I’ll close this month’s series with perhaps the biggest question of all:
If machines continue becoming more capable, what makes us irreplaceable?
For now, I’d love for you to consider this:Where in your life or career are you looking outside yourself for an answer you may already know inside?