We have fundamentally misunderstood the bottleneck of innovation.

In the rush to deploy generative AI, optimize workflows, and digitally transform our enterprises, the prevailing narrative suggests that success hinges on having the breakthrough idea or the most advanced algorithm. But spending 25 years in the engineering trenches teaches you one painful lesson: the best technology rarely wins on its own merit. The true challenge of moving from idea to a scalable product is rarely technical—it is deeply organizational.

In the March–April 2026 issue of Harvard Business Review, Linda Hill, Emily Tedards, and Jason Wild perfectly articulate this phenomenon in their cover story, « Why Great Innovations Fail to Scale. » Their diagnosis of the friction that kills promising products resonates strongly when looking at the modern enterprise through the lens of strategic leadership and the sociology of organizations.

Here is why innovation stalls, and the specific leadership trait required to unblock it.

The organizational Tower of Babel

Organizations are not monolithic entities; they are complex ecosystems of competing power dynamics and incentives. When a new initiative—like integrating an enterprise-wide AI solution—is launched, it immediately runs into a linguistic and cultural barrier.

As Hill and her co-authors explain, the teams involved in scaling an innovation are motivated by contradictory goals:

• Product Teams: Incentivized by experimentation, agility, and speed. They want to break things and iterate.
• Compliance & Legal: Prioritize adherence to regulatory frameworks and risk mitigation. They are designed to prevent things from breaking.
• IT & Operations: Speak the language of reliability, stability, and digital sovereignty. They resist the messy integration of untested prototypes.
• Senior Executives: Demand a compelling business case, clear ROI, and strategic alignment before committing resources.

When you add cross-firm partnerships to the mix—such as a nimble AI startup trying to integrate with a mature, heavily regulated legacy company—these internal friction points are amplified exponentially.

The solution: The « Bridging » Leader

The answer to this systemic friction is not tighter project management frameworks or more software tools. It requires a specific, highly refined type of strategic leadership that the HBR authors call « Bridging. »

Bridgers do not just manage timelines; they manage the spaces between the silos. They utilize a high degree of emotional and contextual intelligence to translate the value of an innovation across different departmental dialects.

A skilled bridger understands how to frame the product team’s need for rapid experimentation in a way that satisfies the compliance officer’s need for safety. They align expectations, demystify the technology for the executive board, and construct a shared vision that respects the fundamental goals of every stakeholder.

Why bridging is the ultimate skill for the AI era

When advising organizations on how to practically apply AI to their business models, the technical integration is often the easiest part. The real hurdle is human.

Artificial intelligence is phenomenal at optimizing processes, writing code, and analyzing market trends. But in the age of AI, the most critical work remains uniquely human: fostering mutual respect and psychological safety.

Innovation requires vulnerability. It requires IT to trust that the new generative AI tool won’t compromise data security, and it requires executives to trust that the experimental phase will eventually yield a return. As the HBR piece acutely notes, « People don’t take risks with those they don’t trust. »

Bridgers are the architects of that trust. They do the invisible, essential work of humanizing the innovation process. Without them, even the most brilliant technological breakthroughs will remain nothing more than successful pilot programs, destined to gather dust in the boardroom.