Data is great but it’s not the be all to end all…there’s more to it than that!!

When Your Gut Knows What Your Spreadsheet Doesn’t

There’s this moment that happens when you’re sitting across from someone, maybe over coffee or in one of those conference rooms that feels too sterile for real conversation, and you realize the numbers are telling you one story but everything about the person in front of you is telling you something completely different. That’s when you know you’re about to make a decision that matters.

I was thinking about this the other day when someone brought up Captain Sullenberger and that flight over New York. When both engines failed and every protocol said to turn back to LaGuardia, he looked out at the Hudson River and trusted decades of experience over the flight manual. No computer simulation had modeled that exact scenario. No data analyst had run projections on water landings in January. He just knew what felt right for keeping 155 people alive, and he trusted that feeling completely.

That’s the thing about real leadership that most people miss. We’ve gotten so obsessed with metrics and analytics and quarterly reports that we forget we’re dealing with human beings who have fears and dreams and bad days and moments when they need someone to see them as more than just their productivity numbers.

Southwest Airlines figured this out decades ago when Herb Kelleher was running the show. The guy used to dress up as Elvis for company parties and knew flight attendants by name. Wall Street thought he was crazy. How do you quantify the ROI of showing up in a wig and sequined jumpsuit? But Southwest kept outperforming everyone else because people actually wanted to work there, and when people want to work somewhere, they do better work. It’s not rocket science, but somehow it gets treated like some mysterious formula.

The hospitality world understands this better than anyone. Will Guidara turned Eleven Madison Park into something legendary not because he had better food cost analysis than other restaurants, but because he noticed things. Like when a couple mentioned they were from Switzerland, so he had someone drive to JFK to get Swiss dirt for their dessert that night. No spreadsheet told him to do that. His instinct told him that creating one perfect moment would matter more than optimizing margins by two percent.

Danny Meyer built Union Square Hospitality Group on what he calls enlightened hospitality, which basically means treating every person like they matter beyond the immediate transaction. His teams remember your favorite table, your anniversary, whether you prefer sparkling or still water. Not because some customer relationship management system told them to, but because they genuinely care about making people feel seen and valued.

Here’s what’s interesting though. That hospitality mindset isn’t just for restaurants and hotels. The most effective tech leaders have figured this out too. They remember that their engineer mentioned her kid was struggling in school, or they notice when someone who usually speaks up gets quiet in meetings. They understand that behind every resignation letter is a story about whether someone felt valued.

Chip Conley figured out how to create peak experiences at Joie de Vivre Hotels by understanding what people were really looking for when they traveled. Not just a clean room and good wifi, but moments that made them feel alive and connected. He took that same philosophy to Airbnb and helped them scale human connection across millions of hosts and guests worldwide.

Leaders who create lasting impact treat every interaction like it’s building something that lasts longer than the immediate transaction. They remember what matters to people beyond their job description. They see potential in situations and people that doesn’t show up on any performance dashboard.

There’s this misconception that being compassionate means being soft, or that empathy somehow makes you less decisive. But think about the leaders who’ve actually moved mountains. They combined that human understanding with unwavering conviction about what needed to happen. They just led with their heart first and let their head catch up.

Ian Schrager revolutionized the hotel industry by understanding that people weren’t just buying a place to sleep. They were buying an experience, a feeling, a story they could tell about themselves. He created environments where people felt more interesting, more sophisticated, more alive. That insight didn’t come from market research. It came from watching people and understanding what they really wanted beneath what they said they wanted.

Data tells you what happened. Your gut tells you what’s happening. And what’s happening is always about people figuring out whether they can trust you, whether you see them as whole human beings, whether you’re building something together that’s bigger than just hitting targets.

The most successful teams aren’t the ones with the smartest strategies. They’re the ones where people feel safe being honest about what’s really going on, where failure becomes learning instead of blame, where everyone knows their leader genuinely cares about their success as people, not just as contributors to the bottom line.

That doesn’t mean you ignore the numbers or make decisions based purely on feelings. It means you understand that behind every data point is a human story, and the leaders who remember that story while interpreting the data are the ones who create the kind of culture where breakthrough results become inevitable.

When you lead with compassion, something interesting happens. People stop holding back their best ideas because they’re not afraid of looking stupid. They start taking smart risks because they know you’ll have their back if things don’t work out perfectly. They begin seeing problems as challenges to solve together instead of reasons to protect themselves.

The magic isn’t in choosing between data and intuition. It’s in understanding that your intuition about people is actually the most important data you have. And when you trust that, when you lead from that place of genuine care and human understanding, the spreadsheets start telling much better stories.

Because at the end of the day, we’re all just people trying to do meaningful work with other people we trust and respect. The leaders who remember that simple truth are the ones who build something that lasts.