---
id: "quote-leadership-naive"
type: "quote"
source_timestamps: ["§ Why Organizations Should Redesign Entry-Level Jobs", "¶5"]
tags: ["leadership", "experience"]
related: ["concept-unconscious-competence"]
speaker: "Amy C. Edmondson and Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic"
speakers: ["Amy C. Edmondson", "Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic"]
quote: "Imagine recruiting managers who have never worked at the front lines, never handled customer complaints, never written up notes from consequential meetings, never grappled with the minutiae of operational work. Leadership would become abstract, detached, and dangerously naive."
sources: ["reskilling"]
sourceVaultSlug: "hbr-seg-reskilling"
originDay: 10
articleStem: "hbr-edu-46-perils-replace-entry-level"
sourceUrl: "https://hbr.org/2025/09/the-perils-of-using-ai-to-replace-entry-level-jobs"
sourceTitle: "The Perils of Using AI to Replace Entry-Level Jobs"
---
# The Danger of Abstract Leadership

> "Imagine recruiting managers who have never worked at the front lines, never handled customer complaints, never written up notes from consequential meetings, never grappled with the minutiae of operational work. Leadership would become abstract, detached, and dangerously naive."
> — [[entity-amy-c-edmondson|Amy C. Edmondson]] and [[entity-tomas-chamorro-premuzic|Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic]]

This quote is the vivid expression of the risk described in [[concept-unconscious-competence]]: eliminating entry-level work severs the pipeline that turns operational experience into leadership judgment.