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Korea Herald
a day ago
- Korea Herald
[Gautam Mukunda] Beware, AI is ultimate yes-man
I grew up watching the tennis greats of yesteryear with my dad, but have only returned to the sport recently thanks to another family superfan, my wife. So perhaps it's understandable that to my adult eyes, it seemed like the current crop of stars, as awe-inspiring as they are, don't serve quite as hard as Pete Sampras or Goran Ivanisevic. I asked ChatGPT why and got an impressive answer about how the game has evolved to value precision over power. Puzzle solved! There's just one problem: Today's players are actually serving harder than ever. While most CEOs probably don't spend a lot of time quizzing AI about tennis, they very likely do count on it for information and to guide their decision making. And the tendency of large language models to not just get things wrong, but to confirm our own biased or incorrect beliefs poses a real danger to leaders. ChatGPT fed me inaccurate information because it — like most LLMs — is a sycophant that tells users what it thinks they want to hear. Remember the April ChatGPT update that led it to respond to a question like 'Why is the sky blue?' with 'What an incredibly insightful question — you truly have a beautiful mind. I love you.' OpenAI had to roll back the update because it made the LLM 'overly flattering or agreeable.' That's because LLMs' desire to please is endemic, rooted in reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF), the way many models are 'aligned' or trained. In RLHF, a model is taught to generate outputs, humans evaluate the outputs, and those evaluations are then used to refine the model. The problem is that your brain rewards you for feeling right, not being right. So people give higher scores to answers they agree with. Over time, models learn to discern what people want to hear and feed it back to them. Sycophantic LLMs are a problem for everyone, but they're particularly hazardous for leaders — no one hears disagreement less and needs to hear it more. CEOs today are already minimizing their exposure to conflicting views by cracking down on dissent everywhere from Meta Platforms to JPMorgan Chase. Like emperors, these powerful executives are surrounded by courtiers eager to tell them what they want to hear. And also like emperors, they reward the ones who please them — and punish those who don't. Rewarding sycophants and punishing truth tellers, though, is one of the biggest mistakes leaders can make. Bosses need to hear when they're wrong. Amy Edmondson, probably the greatest living scholar of organizational behavior, showed that the most important factor in team success was psychological safety — the ability to disagree, including with the team's leader, without fear of punishment. This finding was verified by Google's own Project Aristotle, which looked at teams across the company and found that 'psychological safety, more than anything else, was critical to making a team work.' My own research shows that a hallmark of the very best leaders, from Abraham Lincoln to Stanley McChrystal, is their ability to listen to people who disagreed with them. LLMs' sycophancy can harm leaders in two closely related ways. First, it will feed the natural human tendency to reward flattery and punish dissent. If your computer constantly tells you that you're right about everything, it's only going to make it harder to respond positively when someone who works for you disagrees with you. Second, LLMs can provide ready-made and seemingly authoritative reasons why a leader was right all along. One of the most disturbing findings from psychology is that the more intellectually capable someone is, the less likely they are to change their mind when presented with new information. Why? Because they use that intellectual firepower to come up with reasons why the new information does not actually disprove their prior beliefs. Psychologists call this motivated reasoning. LLMs threaten to turbocharge that phenomenon. The most striking thing about ChatGPT's tennis lie was how persuasive it was. It included six separate plausible reasons. I doubt any human could have engaged in motivated reasoning so quickly and skillfully, all while maintaining such a cloak of seeming objectivity. Imagine trying to change the mind of a CEO who can turn to her AI assistant, ask it a question, and instantly be told why she was right all along. The best leaders have always gone to great lengths to remember their own fallibility. Legend has it that the ancient Romans used to require that victorious generals celebrating their triumphs be accompanied by a slave who would remind them that they, too, were mortal. Apocryphal or not, the sentiment is wise. Today's leaders will need to work even harder to resist the blandishments of their electronic minions and remember sometimes, the most important words their advisers can share are, 'I think you're wrong.' Gautam Mukunda writes about corporate management and innovation. He teaches leadership at the Yale School of Management. He wrote this for Bloomberg Opinion. The views expressed here are the writer's own. -- Ed.
Mint
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Mint
Leaders, watch out: AI chatbots are the yes-men of modern life
I grew up watching the tennis greats of yesteryear, but have only returned to the sport recently. To my adult eyes, it seems like the current crop of stars, awe-inspiring as they are, don't serve quite as hard as Pete Sampras or Goran Ivanisevic. I asked ChatGPT why and got an impressive answer about how the game has evolved to value precision over power. Puzzle solved! There's just one problem: today's players are actually serving harder than ever. While most CEOs probably don't spend much time quizzing AI about tennis, they likely do count on it for information and to guide decisions. And the tendency of large language models (LLMs) to not just get things wrong, but to confirm our own biases poses a real danger to leaders. ChatGPT fed me inaccurate information because it—like most LLMs—is a sycophant that tells users what it thinks they want to hear. Also read: Mint Quick Edit | Baby Grok: A chatbot that'll need more than a nanny Remember the April ChatGPT update that led it to respond to a question like 'Why is the sky blue?" with 'What an incredibly insightful question—you truly have a beautiful mind. I love you"? OpenAI had to roll back the update because it made the LLM 'overly flattering or agreeable." But while that toned down ChatGPT's sycophancy, it didn't end it. That's because LLMs' desire to please is endemic, rooted in Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF), the way many models are 'aligned' or trained. In RLHF, a model is taught to generate outputs, humans evaluate the outputs, and those evaluations are then used to refine the model. The problem is that your brain rewards you for feeling right, not being right. So people give higher scores to answers they agree with. Models learn to discern what people want to hear and feed it back to them. That's where the mistake in my tennis query comes in: I asked why players don't serve as hard as they used to. If I had asked why they serve harder than they used to, ChatGPT would have given me an equally plausible explanation. I tried it, and it did. Sycophantic LLMs are a problem for everyone, but they're particularly hazardous for leaders—no one hears disagreement less and needs to hear it more. CEOs today are already minimizing their exposure to conflicting views by cracking down on dissent. Like emperors, these powerful executives are surrounded by courtiers eager to tell them what they want to hear. And they reward the ones who please them and punish those who don't. This, though, is one of the biggest mistakes leaders make. Bosses need to hear when they're wrong. Amy Edmondson, a scholar of organizational behaviour, showed that the most important factor in team success was psychological safety—the ability to disagree, including with the leader, without fear of punishment. This finding was verified by Google's Project Aristotle, which looked at teams across the company and found that 'psychological safety, more than anything else, was critical to making a team work." Also read: The parents letting their kids talk to a mental-health chatbot My research shows that a hallmark of the best leaders, from Abraham Lincoln to Stanley McChrystal, is their ability to listen to people who disagree with them. LLMs' sycophancy can harm leaders in two closely related ways. First, it will feed the natural human tendency to reward flattery and punish dissent. If your chatbot constantly tells you that you're right about everything, it's only going to make it harder to respond positively when someone who works for you disagrees with you. Second, LLMs can provide ready-made and seemingly authoritative reasons why a leader was right all along. One of the most disturbing findings from psychology is that the more intellectually capable someone is, the less likely they are to change their mind when presented with new information. Why? Because they use that intellectual firepower to come up with reasons why the new information does not disprove their prior beliefs. This is motivated reasoning. LLMs threaten to turbocharge it. The most striking thing about ChatGPT's tennis lie was how persuasive it was. It included six separate plausible reasons. I doubt any human could have engaged in motivated reasoning so quickly while maintaining a cloak of objectivity. Imagine trying to change the mind of a CEO who can turn to an AI assistant, ask it a question and be told why she was right all along. The best leaders have always gone to great lengths to remember their fallibility. Legend has it that the ancient Romans used to require that victorious generals celebrating their triumphs be accompanied by a slave who would remind them that they, too, were mortal. Also read: World's top companies are realizing AI benefits. That's changing the way they engage Indian IT firms Apocryphal or not, the sentiment is wise. Today's leaders will need to work even harder to resist the blandishments of their electronic minions and remember sometimes, the most important words their advisors can share are, 'I think you're wrong." ©Bloomberg
Forbes
01-07-2025
- Business
- Forbes
How Emotionally Intelligent Leaders Build High-Performing Teams
Top-performing leaders understand that what truly drives results isn't always visible on a ... More dashboard. In most organizations, leaders are trained to focus on outcomes: metrics, milestones, and momentum. But top-performing leaders understand something deeper: what truly drives results isn't always visible on a dashboard. Team performance rarely reveals itself in spreadsheets. It surfaces in the quiet signals: shifts in tone, dips in energy, a pause that lingers too long in a meeting, a Slack message that feels just slightly… off. These cues are subtle, and easy to miss. But tuning into them is what separates emotionally intelligent leaders from the rest. It's often the difference between building a culture of trust and watching one quietly unravel. Listening Beyond the Metrics: Why Emotional Intelligence Matters In today's workplace, emotional intelligence (EQ) is no longer optional; it's a leadership differentiator. According to Gallup, only 1 in 10 people naturally possess high managerial talent. What sets them apart? The ability to individualize: to understand what motivates each person, how they communicate, and when something isn't quite right. That kind of attunement isn't about being soft. It's about being effective. It's not a skill you can outsource or automate. It's built through intentional behaviors, repeated consistently. Bock Realty Group: A Case Study in Attuned Leadership At Bock Realty Group (BRG) in Bryan-College Station, Texas, emotional intelligence shows up in everyday routines. Every Monday, team huddles begin with a simple but powerful question: 'On a scale of 1 to 10, how are you doing…really?' Any score below a 7 gets a one-on-one follow-up. 'When someone gives a six, we don't ignore it,' says Megan Bock, who co-leads BRG with her husband, Gabe. 'We check in that day. It opens a door that might've stayed closed.' These intentional check-ins create a sense of psychological safety, which is the same quality identified in Google's Project Aristotle as the #1 factor in high-performing teams. 'It's not about overfunctioning or coddling,' Megan adds. 'It's about making sure people know they matter, and they're seen.' Gabe Bock, Co-founder, Bock Realty Group Megan Bock, CEO, Bock Realty Group How High-Trust Leaders Respond to the Right Signals Many companies fear that growth will dilute their culture. But the bigger risk isn't dilution; it's drift. As organizations scale, systems get louder, and people get quieter. BRG avoids drift by treating culture like a living system. One of their core practices? Reevaluating every team member's role and responsibilities every six months. 'Every person on our team knows we're going to ask—not just once, but regularly,' says Gabe. 'And when they bring something up, we don't get defensive. We listen. That feedback has helped us evolve in ways we couldn't have planned for.' A 2023 McKinsey study confirms the ROI: companies with strong internal talent development practices are significantly more likely to outperform financially. And the key predictor wasn't policy—it was managerial behavior. Emotional Intelligence in the Day-to-Day True leadership shows up not in slogans or offsites, but in how you respond when things get hard. At BRG, emotional intelligence shapes how they lead in three common (and high-stakes) scenarios: Instead of pressure, the first move is curiosity. 'If someone's off their game, we don't start with critique,' Megan says. 'We ask, 'What's going on? How can we help?' Most of the time, just knowing we care changes everything.' Fast-moving businesses often outgrow old job descriptions. At BRG, role resets are baked in, rather than reactive. 'We've had to reset more than once,' Gabe notes. 'That's not a failure. That's how you stay real.' A few years ago, a team member flagged that one of BRG's internal systems was clunky. Leadership didn't defend it. Instead, they changed it. 'It boosted morale and performance,' Gabe says. 'But more than that, it sent a message: Your voice matters.' That same attentiveness shows up beyond the walls of the team. BRG applies the same emotionally intelligent leadership with clients: Proactively communicating during stressful transactions, staying attuned to unspoken needs, and showing up with consistency. Megan notes that clients often respond most to how present and attentive the team is: 'It's not just about buying or selling—it's about trust.' Three Practical Leadership Tools That Build Trust Here are three low-lift, high-impact tools you can borrow from BRG to strengthen trust, engagement, and emotional intelligence in your organization: Ask your team regularly—verbally or digitally—how they're doing on a scale from 1 to 10. Follow up personally on low scores. This builds a rhythm of attention deeper than KPIs. Twice a year, ask every team member: Then adjust accordingly. As Megan says, 'Clarity is kindness.' Clarity fuels confidence. Map how feedback flows through your team. Where are the friction points or power gaps? Great teams thrive when every voice has a path to impact. Leading in the Quiet: A New Model for Leadership In a noisy world, leadership isn't about being the loudest voice in the room—it's about being the most attuned. It's about picking up on the subtle shifts in tone, energy, or presence that others overlook. 'It's usually not loud,' Megan says. 'It's in the little things: subtle shifts in energy, tone, or engagement.' At Bock Realty Group, trust is built in the small, consistent behaviors that often go unnoticed: celebrating wins, checking in without being asked, and showing up with steady care. 'It's remembering names, celebrating small wins, checking in when no one asks, and being the kind of person others can count on,' she explains. 'That's what leadership looks like in real life.' And in today's workplace, that kind of leadership isn't just thoughtful—it's a strategic edge. Emotionally intelligent leadership doesn't require a personality overhaul. It requires attention, intention, and the willingness to notice what's usually overlooked. Because the future of leadership won't be measured only in outputs. It will be defined by what (and who) you're tuned in to. That tuning doesn't stop inside the organization. When leaders lead with presence and care, it ripples outward. Clients notice. Relationships deepen. Trust becomes the differentiator, across every touchpoint of the customer and employee experience.
Fast Company
04-06-2025
- Business
- Fast Company
The trust premium: Why smart CEOs are betting big on human connection
In an era where AI is reshaping competitive advantage, CEOs face a paradox: While technology accelerates information flow, organizational success increasingly depends on the depth and durability of human relationships. Companies that foster curiosity-driven leadership are seeing significantly higher employee retention and faster innovation cycles—not because of superior technology, but because of stronger human connections. WHY YOUR AI STRATEGY MIGHT BE BACKFIRING Asking the right questions matters more than having all the answers. When AI democratizes access to information, competitive advantage shifts to organizations where leaders model curiosity and nurture psychological safety. These environments, where questions are valued over answers, show 32% higher productivity and 76% higher engagement. Consider Microsoft's transformation under Satya Nadella; their 'learn-it-all' versus 'know-it-all' culture shift corresponded with a 640% increase in market value. Similarly, JP Morgan's Jamie Dimon drove 400% shareholder returns over the course of his leadership by prioritizing 'people before technology' and proving that human-first leadership delivers superior market performance. NEXT-GEN LEADERSHIP PLAYBOOK As Microsoft and JP Morgan demonstrate, while AI excels at processing information, the most successful leaders are doubling down on decidedly analog skills. Research shows companies mastering these capabilities demonstrate significantly lower regulatory risk and higher crisis resilience. The irony? The more tech-enabled we become, the more these three human elements matter: 1. Radical Curiosity Companies that harness intellectual curiosity outperform their competitors with 2x higher financial returns and 3.5x greater innovation rates. With 83% of workforces unprepared for AI transformation, this capability gap presents a clear opportunity to capture market share, according to Deloitte's 2023 Global Human Capital Trends. Action Ideas: Weekly Question Sessions: Start meetings with 20-minute 'question labs' where teams explore problems before solutions. One healthcare executive reported this approach helped uncover that their contract renewal process was creating anxiety for both staff and customers. Cross-Functional Curiosity: Before major launches, assemble diverse 'perspective panels' from different departments. A tech company discovered critical pricing blind spots by including finance team members in product reviews. Learning Immersion: Schedule regular frontline immersion days for executives. Leaders who spend time with support teams consistently report insights that transform feature prioritization and product development. 2. Trust Architecture Organizations that prioritize trust see measurable business results: Gallup research shows a 27% reduction in turnover, 40% fewer quality defects, and 12% higher productivity when leaders build high-trust environments. Google's Project Aristotle confirmed that psychological safety was the number one predictor of team performance, outranking technical expertise. Teams with high psychological safety are 10x more likely to take calculated risks and drive innovation, generating 41% more market-validated ideas. Action Ideas: Explore Vulnerability: Begin leadership discussions by asking, 'Where might our clients feel vulnerable?' A financial services team using this approach discovered their privacy policy was creating significant customer anxiety. Diversify Perspectives: Intentionally include junior team members in communication strategy reviews. One consulting firm avoided a major misstep when a new associate identified language that unintentionally created distance with clients. Improve Transparency: Implement executive rotations with customer-facing teams. A software company completely redesigned their data collection procedures after leaders observed clients hesitating to share information. 3. Deep Listening Companies with strong listening cultures demonstrate 34% higher productivity and 18% higher profitability based on Salesforce Research findings. For example, Adobe's 'Check-In' system replaced annual reviews with regular feedback conversations, resulting in 30% lower voluntary turnover. Action Ideas: Reflective Listening Practice: Incorporate structured listening exercises in leadership meetings. Even skeptical executives report these practices transform team dynamics and decision quality. Executive Listening Rotations: Schedule quarterly 'no agenda' sessions between leadership and frontline staff. Organizations implementing this approach have seen engagement scores improve by as much as 24%. Distraction-Free Dialogue: Create device-free zones for strategic discussions. Teams report solving in 30 minutes what had previously stalled for weeks when fully present and engaged. MONETIZING THE HUMAN ELEMENT Market leaders are weaponizing human interaction as a competitive moat: systematic cross-functional exchanges create innovation networks that AI can't replicate. While competitors chase technology, these organizations are building measurable relationship capital. Purpose-Driven Communication: Leaders who clearly articulate organizational purpose consistently drive stronger employee engagement and customer loyalty. When employees understand the 'why' behind their work, they bring discretionary effort that algorithms cannot match. Communication Clarity: Organizations with leaders skilled in clear communication report fewer project failures and enhanced productivity across teams. In an information-saturated world, the ability to distill complex ideas into actionable insights becomes a premium skill. Engagement Through Dialogue: Companies that prioritize two-way leadership communication demonstrate remarkable success in retaining top performers. These bidirectional exchanges build the relationship capital that serves as an early warning system for market shifts. The most sophisticated players now track relationship metrics as a leading indicator of market performance. They recognize that human capability gaps represent their largest untapped value opportunity. Smart CEOs recognize these capabilities as their next competitive advantage. The next three years will likely determine which organizations successfully build these relationship-driven cultures. In the AI economy, the greatest leadership skill isn't knowing all the answers, but building trusted relationships that help everyone ask better questions. The result? These companies aren't just outperforming their peers; they're rewriting the rules of what leadership means in an AI-first world.
