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The Cost of Cheap Insight: A Proposal to Innovate Leadership Through Deep Learning

The Cost of Cheap Insight: A Proposal to Innovate Leadership Through Deep Learning
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Author(s): Jason C. Fitzgerald (Monmouth University, USA)
Copyright: 2026
Pages: 24
Source title: The Impact of Innovation in Leadership
Source Author(s)/Editor(s): Maria Paradiso-Testa (Kean University, USA)
DOI: 10.4018/979-8-3373-2402-9.ch001

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Abstract

Many hope that leaders will be able to bring new insights to advance their organizational goals. Those ‘Aha! Moments' are often illusive, however. Far too often, leaders ground decisions in cheap insight rather than develop and use systems that generate genuine insight. In contrast to cheap insight, genuine insight costs time, money, and resources. Genuine insight is costly insight. In this chapter, I will explore the idea of cheap versus costly insight, identifying three key characteristics of insight that define each: (1) deep understanding of the problem-space, (2) strategic insight generation, and (3) creative insight use. Then, using case examples drawn from both industry and education, I will describe how leaders can enact innovative leadership through deep learning by leaning into the costs of genuine insight. Based on these examples and the literature, I propose that the design-based research model best supports the characteristics of costly insight and has the potential to accelerate the instance of ‘Aha! Moments' that drive meaningful change.

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