Leadership, AI, and the Expanding Shoreline of Ignorance
“As the island of knowledge grows, so does the shoreline of ignorance” - John Archibald Wheeler
AI should make leaders feel both excited and uncomfortable. Excited, because capability is accelerating at extraordinary speed. Uncomfortable, because every gain in knowledge reveals how much we still do not understand. Yet there is a risk: leaders reaching for the problems of yesterday with the tools of tomorrow.
The seduction of the solution
AI can sometimes look like a solution frantically searching for a problem: a new model, a new release, a new promise. Meanwhile, many organisations are still wrestling with timeless, stubborn, human challenges: -
alignment
clarity
trust
decision rights
capability
culture
No algorithm holistically solves those. If anything, the technology amplifies them.
We have been here before
the printing press
commercial radio
the internet
the smartphone
social media
Each innovation arrived wrapped in utopian optimism and existential dread. Each triggered predictions of transformation, replacement and upheaval. Older generations saw threat, whilst younger generations saw opportunity.
In the end, each became embedded not through technical adoption and disruption alone, but through human adaptation. So the question I keep returning to is: will AI be different?
What leaders are actually for
In periods of rapid technological change, leadership becomes less about answers and more about sensemaking: -
providing wayfinding
reducing confusion
helping people build a coherent picture of what might be possible tomorrow — today
However, alignment is rarer than leaders think. A magazine once asked executives from 600 companies to estimate how many employees could name their organisation’s top three priorities: -
Leaders guessed 64% of employees knew
Less than 2% of employees actually could
If we struggle to align on today, why do we assume we are ready to align on artificial intelligence and tomorrow?
The map problem
Leaders assume others see what they see. They don’t. Organisations are full of people making good decisions according to different maps.
Now add in AI: -
more tools
more information
more autonomy
and often less explainability.
Unless leaders close the map gap, complexity multiplies. Which leads to the uncomfortable question: If people hold fundamentally different views of what matters most, whose priorities are actually driving decisions — and how would anyone know?
Human scale problems, human scale solutions
Most organisational problems are either one-to-one or one-to-many: -
understanding
interaction
empowerment
facilitation
AI can support, but leadership must still lead. So instead of hunting for a round hole for a square peg, start with the human setting: -
where is friction?
where is time lost?
what judgment is difficult?
what knowledge is trapped?
Then ask how AI might could help.
The opportunity in front of us
Perhaps the most powerful use of AI for leaders is not automation. It is collaboration: -
enhancing foresight
testing scenarios
exploring consequences
challenging assumptions
Not replacing judgment — strengthening it.
The map is not the territory
We face not only a map problem, but a deeper truth: the map is not the territory.
Models, dashboards and descriptions are representations of reality — not reality itself. So leaders must provide direction by creating: -
clearer priorities
shared language
visible measures
better questions
investment in literacy
ethical guardrails
permission to experiment
Do that, and the technology will finally have somewhere useful to land.
The island of knowledge is growing.
So is the shoreline of ignorance.
Leadership lives on that shoreline.
