In an age when machines can learn almost anything, the true work of leadership is learning how to cultivate what machines cannot — understanding, trust, and the conditions for human flourishing.
Artificial Intelligence has achieved what Peter Drucker once called the triumph of knowledge. It can summarize, simulate, and predict with astonishing speed — yet it cannot understand. AI holds humanity’s accumulated intelligence but not its lived wisdom.[…]
Leadership as we’ve known it is faltering. The pace of change has outstripped our mental models, and the heroic ideal of the all-knowing leader can no longer bear the weight of complexity.
As artificial intelligence automates knowledge, institutions struggle with legitimacy, and ecosystems demand collective adaptation, the old forms of leadership—hierarchical, centralized, control-oriented—can no longer keep up.[…]
Business management today faces significant challenges, resulting in substantial economic costs. Global employee engagement remains at low levels. A PwC study indicates that customer trust in executives stands at 30%, while executives themselves estimate it at 80%—a notable misalignment. Meanwhile, many public companies deliver 10-year returns that fall short of the average S&P 500. A McKinsey study notes that only 27% of U.S. firms emphasize long-term returns. However, not all is bleak.[…]
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In the early 2000s, Microsoft under Steve Ballmer was a rigid, profit-driven behemoth, locked into a toxic culture of internal rivalries, departmental fiefdoms, and a single-minded fixation on squeezing every cent from Windows and Office. Creativity? Stifled. Expansion? Sluggish. The tech giant fumbled massive chances, standing by as competitors like Apple and Google dominated emerging markets.[…]
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We’ve reached a strange moment in business where intelligence itself is overrated. Everywhere you turn, companies are proclaiming their “AI-first” future, yet few can explain what that actually means in practice. The illusion isn’t in the technology; it’s in the belief that AI, by its mere presence, will fix what’s broken in how we work, lead, and learn.[…]
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In times of deep societal transformation—climate change, technological disruption, geopolitical volatility—companies are increasingly called upon to “take a stand.” Whether on sustainability, AI ethics, or democracy itself, managers are expected to lead with values.[…]
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Leadership is being tested across every sector, but nowhere is the challenge of widening access sharper than in how we prepare the next generation for work. This is not only about young people; it is a live case study of a wider truth: leadership today is about opening opportunity in business, in culture, and across communities.[…]
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Managers can influence employees’ daily motivation for the work by using a number of tools. Below, I list five of them (of course, this is not a comprehensive list). In terms of their effectiveness as management tools for influencing motivation, how would you order them, with 1 being the most effective and 5 being the least effective? […]
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