Your Brain is Lying to You!

The past week, I spoke to a live audience of 100 leaders on this topic….

Most leaders don’t fail because they make bad decisions.

They fail because they make comfortable decisions.

And that’s exactly why confirmation bias is one of the most dangerous traps in leadership.

It’s not about intelligence. It’s not about experience.

It’s about the stories we tell ourselves and the facts we choose to ignore.

Picture this: You’re hiring for a critical leadership role.

You meet a candidate who reminds you of yourself—same career trajectory, same work ethic, even the same way of thinking.

They just feel right.

But here’s the problem:

Feeling “right” isn’t the same as being right.

And if you’re not careful, you’ll unconsciously overlook someone who thinks differently—someone who could bring the fresh perspective your team desperately needs.

This is confirmation bias at work—the tendency to seek out, favor, and remember information that supports what we already believe.

And it doesn’t just influence hiring. It shapes who gets promoted, whose ideas are heard, and which strategies survive.

Left unchecked, it kills innovation and blinds leaders to opportunities hiding in plain sight.

Think about the companies that got disrupted overnight:

🚨 Kodak ignored digital photography.
🚨 Blockbuster laughed off Netflix.
🚨 Nokia dismissed the iPhone.

Why?

Their leaders weren’t stupid. They weren’t inexperienced.

They were just trapped in the comfort of their own certainty.

They believed they already knew the truth—so they stopped questioning it.

There’s a lot of talk about how AI will eliminate bias.

It won’t.

But it can expose it.

When used correctly, AI can:

✅ Analyze hiring decisions without personal bias.
✅ Surface patterns and trends we might ignore.
✅ Offer alternative viewpoints on decisions and strategies.

But here’s the catch: AI reflects the biases in the data it’s trained on.

It doesn’t replace human judgment—it tests it.

The real power lies in using AI to challenge your own thinking, not reinforce it.

If you want to lead at the highest level, you need to develop an internal system that keeps your biases in check.

Here’s how to start:

✔ Get a second opinion—especially from people who disagree with you.
✔ Use AI to poke holes in your reasoning, not to confirm it.
✔ Keep a decision journal—track what you dismiss too quickly.
✔ Build a team that challenges you, not just supports you.

Executives who rise to the top don’t just collect knowledge.

They question it.

And that’s what separates a good leader from a great one.

So the next time you feel certain about something, stop and ask yourself:

👉 Am I right?
👉 Or am I just comfortable?

The difference between those two answers could define your entire career.

Let’s make better decisions together.

📺 Watch the full video here: https://youtu.be/lqDEvqi1-Ug

Stay bold, stay innovative, and as always—keep moving forward.

Best regards,
Roger