Research
The AI anxiety gap
Leaders and employees are having two different experiences of AI. That difference matters more than the tools.
“Leaders assume employees are excited about AI. They’re wrong. Executives believe their workforce is informed and enthusiastic, while most employees report confusion, anxiety, and limited involvement in key decisions.”
The Perception Gap
Executives and their staff are living through two different AI stories. That is a Face the Truth question: honest conversation about anxiety and uncertainty does not travel uphill easily, least of all about a technology that feels risky to raise.
The gap exists in healthy organizations with strong leaders. Research on psychological safety shows that people hesitate to voice a concern about technology, because it can sound like admitting incompetence or resisting progress. The question in front of a leader is whether the room makes that conversation safe, and who opens it.
76%
of executives believe employees are enthusiastic about AI
But only 31% of individual contributors report sharing that enthusiasm.
47%
of employees expect AI to transform 30%+ of their work within a year
Only 20% of executives share that expectation.
Leaders report high anxiety too
Research shows leaders are among the most anxious about technological change reshaping their own positions, even while projecting confidence to their teams. When everyone performs a confidence nobody feels, an honest conversation about what is coming becomes nearly impossible.
Why This Matters
When people are anxious about technology and feel they cannot say so, they carry the anxiety alone. Work gets harder, collaboration thins, and unspoken fear eats the adaptability the organization needs most.
The challenge is not mastering every new AI tool. It is seeing the organization clearly: what is happening with the staff, rather than what anyone assumes is happening. The leaders who come through this well are not the ones with the best technology strategy. They are the ones who built a room where an honest conversation can happen.
This is the foundation of The Shift That Sticks: a leader faces the truth about where the organization stands before defining what matters or building the systems that hold it.
One conversation to try this week: Ask someone on the team, “What’s one thing about AI or technology changes that feels unclear or uncertain right now?” Then listen without reassuring. The answer, or the pause before it, says how safe the room is for that subject.
What Imagine That Performance is building
The research points to a clear problem: organizations are adopting AI tools faster than they’re building the conditions for honest conversation about what those tools mean for the people using them.
The answer is not finished. Imagine That Performance is developing a working approach, grounded in the same method, with local government practitioners who face these questions every day. The next step for a leader who wants in is one note on the AI Governance page.
The conversation is for local government leaders willing to share what they need and shape what gets built.
More on AI & Leadership
How leaders meet technological change while protecting what matters.
Primary Sources
McKinsey: Superagency in the Workplace (2025)
Harvard Business Review: Leaders Assume Employees Are Excited About AI (2025)
Rob Duncan, who founded Imagine That Performance, wrote the Local Government Companion Guide to the 2025 World Happiness Report.
Move from uncertainty to a responsible next step
AI pressure can reveal different needs: a team that must see how change is actually landing, governance systems that make adoption responsible, or a leader who needs sustained space to think. Start where the gap is clearest.
When the team needs to face what has changed
See the gap between leadership intentions and impact
Face the Truth Workshop
A three-hour facilitated session where the team practices a shared diagnostic, examines how its intentions are landing, and leaves with a rhythm it can continue using.
When adoption needs structure
Put governance around the tools before risk becomes policy
AI Governance Consulting
A hands-on engagement that assesses current AI use, defines what the organization must protect, and builds practical governance systems leaders can own.
When one leader needs room to think clearly
Lead through the uncertainty before rushing to an answer
Executive Coaching
Focused one-on-one support for a leader working through AI anxiety, competing expectations, and the responsibility to decide well before the path is obvious.
Not sure which starting point fits the organization?