What Machines and Data Can Not Do in the Practice of Leadership
Written by Sandor Kovacs: CEO and Co-Founder of DorWay™
AI can write you a fantastic plan or set of competitive strategies for your market. It can analyze your tone perfectly. It can track all of your goals, challenge your thinking like never before, and even suggest your next move in life or your leadership.
But here’s a question for you to consider… Can it hold you to your word?
Better yet, will you let it?
Because the future of leadership isn’t about how much data we access. It’s about how much integrity we’re willing to live with, practice, be measured by, and be held accountable to.
Accountability Is a Human Experience
Recently, I asked AI, “Do you have integrity?”
AI responded: “No. I do not experience integrity. Only human beings do. I can recognize patterns of integrity, generate language that sounds like integrity, and even account for actions when I don’t follow through. I can appear as though I have integrity. But I do not possess it.”
And that moment made something unmistakably clear: Integrity is not an algorithm. It’s a lived experience. It’s something only human beings can feel, confront, restore, and recommit to. It is the internal moment where we know we broke our word, where we know we are not being true to ourselves or authentic, and must choose who we will be next.
And that’s the heart of this conversation.
Only human beings can experience integrity.
Let that sink in. Only a person knows what it feels like to break a promise and choose whether or not to clean it up and the chaos that follows. Only a human can look another person in the eye and feel or experience the consequence of showing up or not showing up.
You can turn off your AI coach. There are no real consequences for ghosting an app.
But try turning off your human coach, your mentor, the person you are in relationship with, or report to, that is committed to you winning. Try skipping a conversation where you broke your word and someone is waiting for you to own it. That’s where accountability lives, not in reminders, but in relationship.
Can AI Hold Us Accountable?
Let’s state a few facts, AI is already coaching. It delivers precise, structured responses. It maps out step-by-step processes, frameworks, and how-to’s with impressive speed and accuracy. It can ask sharp and engaging questions. It can challenge your assumptions. It reframes problems and delivers insights faster than most humans ever could.
But here’s what it can’t do:
- It can’t experience your commitment.
- It can’t look disappointed.
- It can’t see the moment you want to run, withhold your greatness from people, watch you manipulate, dominate, become resigned, cynical or attempt to control others, and call you forward anyway.
- It can’t stand for your greatness when you want to play small or experience your worry or concerns.
- It can’t experience integrity or recognize when it’s been broken.
And that distinction matters.
Because coaching and holding someone accountable isn’t just about delivering information. Coaching is a specific conversation, a real-time, high-stakes, human-to-human encounter that confronts who we are being, how we’re listening, and what we’re avoiding. A coach tells you what you don’t want to hear and shows you what you don’t want to see. They’re willing to risk the relationship to forward your growth because in many moments, they are more committed to your success than you are. That’s not just what great coaches do. That’s what great managers do. That’s what it means to champion someone’s leadership. AI can simulate the form of that interaction. But it cannot replicate the felt experience of being seen, stretched, and called forward by another human being to lead.
The Real Value of AI in Coaching
This isn’t about choosing sides. AI is not the enemy of coaching. In many ways, it’s a massive asset to it.
AI has extraordinary value in leadership development:
- It moves faster than human cognition
- It can help surface blind spots
- It can offer new insights instantly
- It can generate solutions most leaders would never consider
- It expands creative possibility, sharpens intellect, and challenges lazy thinking
At DorWay™, we know AI will be a powerful partner to every human coach in the future. It’s already helping us track progress, support leaders between sessions, and make development more scalable.
But AI is not a replacement for the human element. It’s an accelerator, not an anchor.
Real Accountability Is Relational
If leadership is about integrity, then coaching must involve someone to be in integrity with.
- A coach remembers what you said you’d do.
- A coach reflects what’s working and what isn’t.
- A coach will look at you and say, “You said you would. Did you?”
- A coach will ask, “Who are you being right now?” and not let you dodge the answer.
Machines don’t ask you that. People do. And the moment you avoid your word with a real person, you feel it. That feeling, that discomfort, that hesitation, that moment of decision, is where the possibility of transformation lives.
Execution: What to Consider Now
This isn’t just a philosophical debate. It’s a leadership choice.
- If you’re using AI as a coach, ask yourself: Do I feel accountable to it? Or am I just consuming its suggestions? If there’s no consequence for ignoring it, there’s no possible transformation.
- If you’re building AI coaching tools, ask: How do we integrate human consequence, feedback, and reflection into this system? Without integrity, we’re just optimizing output without substance.
- If you’re a coach, ask: How are you distinguishing your value beyond insight? AI can deliver insight. You deliver relationship, responsibility, and holding others accountable that leads to results.
- If you’re leading a team, ask: Where are we outsourcing accountability to systems instead of conversations? Systems can support agreements. They cannot restore them when they break.
- And finally, ask yourself: Who are you in relationship with that holds you to your word not because of data, but because of who you said you would be? That’s your coach. That’s your mirror. That’s your access point to leadership.
Final Thought
AI will change the future of coaching, there’s no question. It is why we jumped on it here at DorWay™ over one and a half years ago. It will make us faster, smarter, more precise, and more creative. But it will never replace the moment you sit across from someone and confront who you’re being.
That moment is not programmable. That moment is human. That’s leadership. And that’s why coaching will always require a person who remembers what you said and is willing to ask you about it.
Because integrity isn’t an algorithm.
It’s a choice. And leadership lives in the experience of keeping our word, especially when we’d rather not.