Leaders Embrace AI, Employees See Gaps No Dashboard Reveals

Written by: Brian Gorman

Earlier this week I wrote on Substack about the value of collective wisdom in leadership decisions. Many leaders say they value diverse perspectives. Far fewer have structures that truly bring those perspectives into the decisions that matter.

This means there are other perspectives that are rarely voiced openly in leadership conversations. They are the perspectives of the people who sit several layers below the executive team. Frontline employees. Frontline supervisors. Lower-level leaders responsible for making decisions work in the real world. Younger employees who bring a different frame of reference to the workplace. They often see things that leadership does not. Not because leaders lack intelligence. But because perspective changes with generational experience and with proximity.

To illustrate this, imagine the following journal entry or anonymous message written by someone inside an organization after a new AI tool has been introduced. This is not drawn from a specific organization. But it reflects a pattern I hear frequently when speaking with clients who are not in more senior positions.

A Note No One Sends

I’m writing this after the meeting about the new AI system leadership is rolling out. The leaders who were presenting it seemed excited about what it can do. Faster analysis. Better forecasting. More efficient decision-making.

I’m not against the technology. Most of us aren’t. We understand why the organization is investing in it.

But there was something strange about the conversation. The people making the decision talked about what the system could analyze. What they didn’t talk about was what the system can’t see.

From where we sit, we see things leadership doesn’t. We see the small workarounds people use to help customers when the process doesn’t quite fit reality. We see where policies create confusion. We see when a metric improves but the actual experience gets worse. None of that appeared in the presentation.

The data looked clean. Our reality is messier. That doesn’t mean the technology is wrong. It just means the picture leadership is seeing is incomplete. And sometimes I wonder if they realize that. Because the decisions keep coming down as if the analysis tells the whole story. It doesn’t. Not from where we sit.

Most of the people I work with care deeply about the success of this organization. We aren’t resisting change. But many of us feel like we’re watching important decisions happen without the people closest to the work in the room.

That’s the part that worries us. Not the technology. The distance. Sometimes it feels like leadership believes wisdom sits at the top of the organization. But from where we sit, wisdom is scattered everywhere. Across teams. Across experience levels. Across people who understand the work in ways dashboards never will.

I don’t know how leadership solves that. But I do know something would change if those perspectives were invited into the conversation earlier. Not after the decision. Before it.

The Leadership Question

If you lead others, reading something like this might produce an uncomfortable question: Do my people feel this way? In many organizations, the honest answer is yes. Not because leaders are indifferent. But because the structures of decision-making limit whose perspectives are included.

When decisions become more data-driven, that gap can widen. Data becomes clearer. But the lived experience of the organization can become quieter. And yet the people closest to the work often carry insight that leaders cannot easily see from their vantage point. Not because leadership is wrong. Because no single vantage point ever shows the whole landscape.

This is one of the reasons collective wisdom matters so much in the emerging age of AI. The more intelligence we gain from machines, the more important it becomes to surface the wisdom that exists throughout the organization.

Creating Space for the Wisdom That Already Exists

One way leaders are beginning to close this gap is through Wisdom Circles.

A Wisdom Circle is a structured conversation where people pause long enough to listen deeply, reflect honestly, and allow insight to emerge from multiple perspectives. Rather than relying only on analysis or hierarchy, these conversations create space for the lived experience of the organization to inform decisions.

On March 21, I will be hosting a Wisdom Circle exploring a question many leaders are quietly facing: How do we make wise decisions when the data is abundant but the path forward is still unclear?

Leaders from different organizations will gather for a thoughtful, small-group dialogue designed to surface insight that no one person could reach alone. If you are curious about experiencing this practice, you are welcome to attend two sessions as my guest.

To reserve a place, email: [email protected]

The full 2026 Wisdom Circle calendar is available here.

Questions Worth Asking

If you lead others, consider sitting with a few questions:

What might the people closest to the work see that leadership currently misses?
Where in the organization are those perspectives invited into decision-making?
What conversations would help that wisdom surface earlier?

These questions do not weaken leadership. They strengthen it. Because wise decisions rarely emerge from one vantage point alone. They emerge when organizations learn how to see more of themselves.