AI Executive Assessment Analysis: Can It Match Human Insight?

This blog post explores whether AI can produce accurate, client-ready aggregate analysis of executive assessment data. After comparing AI-generated output to a consultant-led analysis across nine real reports, the findings reveal that while AI appears credible on the surface, it lacks the nuanced judgment needed for high-stakes leadership insights. The post underscores that human expertise remains essential when interpreting complex executive data.

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Trust, But Verify: A Principle for Leading People – and Managing AI

Why This Principle Still Matters

“Trust, but verify” may sound like Cold War advice, but it’s one of the most practical leadership tools we still have – especially in a world where we’re leading both people and machines.

It boils down to three simple but powerful practices:

  • Trust: Extend confidence so others (or AI systems) can move fast and take ownership.
  • Verify: Check in, follow up, and validate so you’re not flying blind.
  • Balance: Avoid the extremes – too much trust gets you burned, too much checking slows everything down.

Trust Builds Teams, but Accountability Sustains Them

In leadership, trust is the fuel for performance. Teams that feel trusted are more likely to speak up, act boldly, and deliver. But even strong performers benefit from structure and visibility.

If someone says they’ve got it handled, trust them – but also ask how it’s going. A short check-in or shared progress note keeps the momentum real. It’s not micromanaging; it’s reinforcing a culture of ownership with clarity.

AI Is Fast – But Not Always Right

The same logic applies to generative AI.

These tools can generate content, organize thinking, and move work forward faster than ever. But they don’t have judgment. They don’t know when something feels off, sounds wrong, or lacks integrity.

So yes, trust them for speed – but verify everything critical. Check facts. Skim outputs. Adjust tone. Make sure the AI isn’t overpromising or underdelivering on your behalf.

Practical Tips for Managing AI Reliably

If you’re using AI in your work, especially in ways that affect decisions or deliverables, here are a few ways to apply the “trust, but verify” mindset:

  1. Cross-check when it matters. Running the same prompt through multiple AIs can reduce hallucinations and expose gaps. Just use this technique sparingly – it comes with real economic and environmental costs.
  2. Know your tools. Understand the model you’re working with – its training range, sophistication, and limitations. You should know your AI like you know your team: strengths, blind spots, and when not to rely on it.
  3. Spot-check important work. Always do your own quick review before using AI output on anything high-stakes. For instance, when I used AI to recommend a product based on its terms of service, a manual review showed that I couldn’t actually use it the way the AI claimed I could.

The point isn’t to distrust the tool – it’s to use it responsibly.

Trust but Verify Leadership: Finding the Space Between Confidence and Oversight

The real discipline is in the balance. “Trust, but verify” means not defaulting to doubt or control – but also not checking out. It’s a posture of engagement. A way of staying close to what matters, without getting in the way.

That mindset keeps teams aligned and leaders informed – and helps us use AI with the confidence of a partner, not a blindfold.

Executive Assessment Best Practice: Improving Feedback Interviews

We’ve conducted over 4,000 reference interviews as part of high-touch, in-depth executive assessments. Along the way, we’ve learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t work.  The quality of the interviews and the robustness of the interview notes will make or break the executive sponsor debrief, the assessment report, and the debrief with the assessed executive.

Interviewing effectively is both an art and a science.  It takes lots and lots of practice to learn how to do it well.  While “carrying the bags” of an experienced consultant is still a great way to apprentice, there are tips and traps that can be described and learned.

In this blog post, we’ll look at the tips and traps for conducting reference interviews.

  • Create an interview template.  It sounds simple but building and using an interview template makes a world of difference.  I’ve worked with colleagues who have a relational approach and just wing it.  This results in interview notes that lack the rigor that comes from a structured approach.  It also makes it hard to look for trends across the reference group.  Put key information like the person’s name, date, and role relationship at the top so you can categorize your notes.  List your questions and then place placeholder bullets for the notes you will take.
  • Tailor your approach for the role relationship.  To get the most out of each interview, it is important to ask questions specific to the role of the person with whom you are speaking. Asking direct reports about how effectively their manager works with peers makes little sense.  Instead have questions in your interview guide tailored for supervisors, peers, and direct reports.  Some questions, like those about communicating or behavior under stress and pressure, can be asked of everyone.
  • Learn how to interview and take notes at the same time.  One of the most important skills to master is the ability to conduct the interview while capturing the information.  While it is easy to conduct an interview or take notes, doing them both at the same time takes practice and there is a learning curve.  When training junior consultants to conduct reference calls, we would start them off just listening and taking notes while a senior consultant led the interview.  Once they took great notes, then we let them conduct the interview while the senior consultant took the notes.  Only after they were able to master interviewing and note taking did we set them loose to conduct solo interviews.
  • Focus on the highest priority questions.  Good interviewing is a game of time management.  You have to make choices about what to focus on.  When training junior consultants, we emphasize the importance of the strengths and development drill down.  The best interviews leave the interviewee tapped out of strengths and development areas.  It may feel uncomfortable for the interviewer to keep asking “what else?” and holding the silence while the person thinks, but that is how you elicit the most important information.  When writing assessment reports, debriefing executive sponsors, and providing feedback to executives, the strengths and development areas is most crucial.
  • Ask for clarification.  One of the most important questions an interviewer can ask is “what did you mean by that”.  It can be hard for experienced consultants to be vulnerable during an interview and suggest that they missed something or did not understand what the person meant.  The key is to push past that discomfort and focus on your mission, which is to interview skillfully to ascertain the information needed to provide high quality feedback.
  • Ask for examples.  One of the hardest things an assessor must do is to determine the credibility of each referee and the veracity of each salient point.  Asking the interviewee for an example of the strength or development area is useful to better understand the point and to elicit behavioral evidence supporting the point.
  • Practice active listening.  One of the most useful tricks to effective interviewing is to summarize and reflect back to the person what you heard.  This paraphrasing helps you catch up on your notetaking, slows down the interview, and makes the other person feel heard.
  • Ask questions about leadership competencies.  In most interviews, strengths and development areas will only take you so far.  Once the person is tapped out, it is important to ask follow-up questions about competency areas.  We recommend asking about communication skills, leadership style, team effectiveness, navigating change, and how the person does under stress and pressure.
  • Adapt as you go.  It is important to adapt your approach based on what you learn in the interview.  If they interviewee spent a lot of time talking about communicating skills weaknesses, don’t ask an open-ended question about communication skills.  Instead, you could ask about listening skills if that was not previously mentioned.  In order to adapt as you go, you need the next-level mastery about each of the leadership competency areas you plan to explore.
  • Type your notes.  If you know how to type, it is always best to type your notes.  Some consultants worry that the other person can hear the clickety clackety sound of fast typing, but I can say from decades of experience that nobody cares.  If you are on a video, the other person knows they are being interviewed and it is your job to take notes and they do not care if they are looking at the top of your head a lot.
  • Save your work.  This is crucial.  Be very, very careful when saving your notes, moving them around, or deleting anything.  We’ve known of cases were a consultant lost one or more interview notes, creating a major crisis.  You’ve worked hard to build your reference notes.  Don’t put your project at risk by losing your notes!

Developing mastery of executive assessment 360-feedback reference interviews takes practice but building into your approach these skills will ensure that you have high quality reference notes that will enable you to write insightful assessment reports, have defensible positions for supervisor debriefs, and the material needed to really help the assessed individual.