{"id":214230,"date":"2026-02-16T16:34:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T21:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/16\/ai-wont-decide-who-wins-leadership-will-im-studying-both-at-harvard-wral-com\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T16:55:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T21:55:10","slug":"ai-wont-decide-who-wins-leadership-will-im-studying-both-at-harvard-wral-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/16\/ai-wont-decide-who-wins-leadership-will-im-studying-both-at-harvard-wral-com\/","title":{"rendered":"AI won\u2019t decide who wins, leadership will; I&#8217;m studying both at Harvard :: WRAL.com"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wral.com\/business\/technology\/donald-thompson-ai-leadership-harvard-february-2026\/\">AI won\u2019t decide who wins, leadership will; I&#8217;m studying both at Harvard :: WRAL.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wral.com\/business\/technology\/donald-thompson-ai-leadership-harvard-february-2026\/\">https:\/\/www.wral.com\/business\/technology\/donald-thompson-ai-leadership-harvard-february-2026\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-02-16 16:34:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"www.wral.com\">www.wral.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Later this month, I\u2019m heading to Harvard to learn<br \/>\nabout AI.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Artificial intelligence was once a science fiction<br \/>\ntrope; today it\u2019s a business fact. It shapes how decisions get made, how work<br \/>\nis evaluated, and how much stakeholders trust organizations. Leaders aren\u2019t<br \/>\nbeing asked if they\u2019re using AI; they\u2019re being asked how they are<br \/>\nintegrating it\u2014and they are being judged on their response. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>That reality is what drove my decision to explore<br \/>\nAI-driven, human-centered solutions with a world-class instructor and a cohort of<br \/>\nbusiness leaders. \u00a0<\/p>\n<h2>AI is a culture and performance issue\u00a0<\/h2>\n<p>When executives talk about AI, most conversations are<br \/>\nabout tools, speed and efficiency. Less often are discussions about the human<br \/>\nelement and how to responsibly adopt the technology.<br \/>\nBut this is where the real impact shows up. When organizations focus on the<br \/>\n\u201chow\u201d of AI integration, instead of the \u201cwhy,\u201d they risk damaging their<br \/>\nworkplace culture and eroding psychological safety.<\/p>\n<p>In<br \/>\nmy role as managing director for Workplace Options\u2019 Center of Organizational<br \/>\nEffectiveness, I lead a<br \/>\npractice focused on culture and performance. Across industries, I see the same<br \/>\npattern when AI enters decision-making environments.<\/p>\n<p>With<br \/>\neach machine-generated recommendation, people pause and ask:<\/p>\n<p>\u25cf\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<br \/>\nIs it safe to<br \/>\nquestion this?<\/p>\n<p>\u25cf\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<br \/>\nWill disagreeing make me look less competent?<\/p>\n<p>\u25cf\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Does<br \/>\nleadership want my perspective or just&#8230;<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wral.com\/business\/technology\/donald-thompson-ai-leadership-harvard-february-2026\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AI won\u2019t decide who wins, leadership will; I&#8217;m studying both at Harvard :: WRAL.com https:\/\/www.wral.com\/business\/technology\/donald-thompson-ai-leadership-harvard-february-2026\/&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":214231,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/images.wral.com\/7550f5f0-bcc0-414e-ab2b-48c58e7ec167?w=1200&h=630","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-214230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214230"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214230"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":214232,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214230\/revisions\/214232"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}