Advisor, Not Decider: Where AI Belongs in Your Leadership Calls with Jeff Geier
No More Leadership BS
Advisor, Not Decider: Where AI Belongs in Your Leadership Calls with Jeff Geier
September 16, 2026
An executive coach lost a client because ChatGPT couldn't find enough proof online. That's the true story that opens this episode, and it raises an uncomfortable question for every leader who's ever asked a chatbot "should I hire this person?" The panel breaks down where AI makes you sharper, where it quietly takes the wheel, and why a tool with no gut and no consequences should never be making your calls. Plus one host learns he fronted a 1970s rock band. Allegedly.
ChatGPT Doesn't Have a Desk. You Do.

One of the hosts lost a client this month. Not to a competitor. To a chatbot. After weeks of conversations and a solid proposal, the prospect asked AI to research him and evaluate the deal. AI came back with a shrug and a suggestion: you could probably do this yourself. The prospect walked.

The host isn't bitter about it (mostly). But it kicked off a question the whole panel got fired up about: at what point does "AI helped me decide" quietly become "AI decided for me"?

The Yes-Man in Your Pocket

Ask a chatbot "what do you think of my plan?" and you'll get a glowing review nine times out of ten. It reads your bias in the question and hands it back to you polished. One host has stopped asking AI for answers entirely. She asks it for questions instead. What am I missing? What's the other side? Argue against me. That flips the tool from cheerleader to sparring partner, which is the only version worth paying for.

Knowledge Isn't Wisdom, and Wisdom Isn't Downloadable

AI has read more than any human alive. It has also lived exactly zero days. It can't get a weird feeling in its gut during an interview because it doesn't have a gut. The panel compares it to a professor who's been out of the classroom for 30 years: deep knowledge, no current application. Great for research and building assets. Useless for reading a room.

What It Can't Find, It Assumes Isn't There

Here's the part of the lost-client story that actually stings. AI researched the host's public digital footprint and found decades of CEO experience. What it couldn't find was 30 years of private coaching conversations, because those aren't online. So it treated missing evidence as evidence of missing results. Leaders make the same mistake when they assume the information available is all the information that exists.

Advisors Advise. Owners Own.

Every executive has accountants, attorneys and consultants. Smart leaders challenge them because they know those people have blind spots. Somehow when the advisor is a machine, that skepticism evaporates. The panel's line in the sand: AI can inform the decision, but it can't own it. And "ChatGPT told me it would work" is not a sentence you get to say to your team.

The Bottom Line

Use AI to expand your thinking instead of replacing it. Ask for five options you haven't considered. Ask it to build the strongest case against your plan. Then take whatever it gives you and run it past an actual human. When the decision blows up, there's only one desk it lands on, and it isn't the robot's.

Tune in for:


Ask AI to argue with you. Then argue back. That's the whole trick.

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Have questions,  suggestions or just a great story to tell about some Leadership BS you have experienced? Let us know by emailing us 

Today's Featured Coach - 

  • Jeffrey Geier - Motivational Speaker, Trainer, and Coach - Helping You Win in Work & Life  Owner/Founder of Phoenix Coaching LLC Reach Jeffrey at Jeff@PhoenixCoachingLLC.com or 509-553-9248

The rest of the gang: