In the early ’90s, I was a young consultant working out of the headquarters of Roland Berger—at the time Europe’s largest consulting company—in Munich. The firm introduced a knowledge-sharing platform filled with thousands of pages of intellectual capital: case studies, frameworks, and insights from past projects.
I thought it was unprofessional.
Clunky. Hard to navigate. Missing basic technology that already existed.
To me, it looked like a half-baked system.
Only later did I realize what I was missing.
The platform wasn’t designed to be efficient.
It was designed to be social.
To really understand what was in those documents, you had to talk to someone. You had to ask questions, hear stories, and gain context from the people who had done the work.
That process didn’t just build knowledge—it built connection, trust, and leadership capacity.
That experience shaped how I see the world—and it’s especially relevant now, as AI rapidly transforms how we work.
AI is extraordinary at processing, summarizing, and replicating information.
But it doesn’t create meaning. It doesn’t earn trust. It doesn’t bring people along.
And it certainly doesn’t lead.
Leadership only exists if others choose to follow you.
And since AI can only follow—reorganizing what’s already been thought, decided, or created. It can never truly lead.
Like a good employee, AI will make you more efficient.
Just don’t expect it to offer brilliant insight—or anything resembling leadership.
So no, I’m not worried about AI replacing leaders.
But I am concerned we’ll forget what leadership actually requires.
#Leadership #AI #EmotionalIntelligence #Strategy #FutureOfWork #ExecutiveCoaching
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