Image in the original: pixabay.com
Most conversations about the future begin in the wrong place.
They begin with technology.
AI. Automation. Agents. Data. Platforms. The next interface. The next disruption. The next thing that will supposedly change everything.
But perhaps the better starting point is not technology.
Perhaps it is human nature.
I was reminded of this while listening to a three-part conversation between Ken Kusunoki, a professor of strategy at Hitotsubashi Business School, and Keita Fujimori of IBM Japan, in a podcast series about the CEO of 2035.
誰かに話したくなる”2035年のCEO”の話 (The story of “The CEO of 2035” that you’ll want to share with someone )
Kusunoki’s point is simple, but powerful:
If you want to understand the future, do not stare too hard at the future.
Look at the past.
Look at what has changed.
Then look even more carefully at what has not.
Because the present is noisy. It always tells us that this time is different.
This time, the technology is different.
This time, work will disappear.
This time, society will be transformed overnight.
This time, the old rules no longer apply.
But “this time is different” may be one of the oldest sentences in human history.
The Trap of the Turbulent Age
Kusunoki calls one of our recurring mistakes the “turbulent age trap.”
Every age thinks it is uniquely turbulent.
Every generation believes it stands at the edge of a rupture.
Revolution. Disruption. Transformation. Crisis. The end of work. The collapse of old systems. The new normal.
The words change.
The pattern does not.
The useful distinction here is between cycles and trends.
A trend moves in a durable direction over a long period.
A cycle moves back and forth.
Confusing the two is one of the easiest ways to make bad decisions.
Fashion gives a simple example. The long-term casualization of clothing is a trend. But whether trousers are loose or tight is a cycle.
The same is true in business.
When Covid arrived, many people predicted that everything would change permanently. Offices would disappear. Cities would empty. Human interaction would move online.
Some things did change.
But much more returned than many expected.
Why?
Because many old arrangements existed for a reason.
People gather physically for a reason.
Offices exist for a reason.
Informal conversation exists for a reason.
Rituals exist for a reason.
The future rarely erases human nature.
More often, it rearranges the furniture around it.
That is the first leadership lesson.
A leader should not ask only, “What is changing?”
A leader should also ask, “Why did the old thing exist in the first place?”
The Trap of the Magic Tool
The second trap is the “magic tool trap.”
Every time a powerful new technology appears, people expect the world to change all at once.
Today, that technology is generative AI.
Before that, it was the internet.
Before that, computers.
Before that, industrial robots.
Kusunoki does not deny that AI matters. His point is more precise.
Technology changes. But the user is still human.
AI has not given us four eyes.
It has not given us four hands.
It has not doubled the capacity of the human brain.
This is not an argument against technology.
It is an argument against forgetting the human being who uses it.
Kusunoki defines technology as the externalization of human tasks.
The steam train externalized walking.
Machines externalized lifting.
The internet externalized search and distribution.
Generative AI externalizes drafting, summarizing, translating, comparing, coding, and generating options.
That is powerful.
But once we define technology this way, the real question changes.
Not: What can AI do?
But: What should we allow AI to do for us?
Some things are easy to externalize.
Calculation.
Summarizing.
Searching.
Drafting.
Comparing.
Producing options.
But some things cannot be externalized so easily.
Responsibility.
Taste.
Courage.
Judgment.
Commitment.
The ability to disappoint one group of people in order to serve something larger.
This is where leadership begins.
Decision Is Not Optimization
The most important point in the conversation, for me, was Kusunoki’s definition of decision-making.
A decision is not simply choosing the option with the highest score.
If one option gives a 15 percent return and another gives 10 percent, and return is the agreed criterion, there is not much to decide.
You choose 15 percent.
That is calculation.
Real decision-making begins when there is no external criterion that can settle the matter.
It begins when there are two good things, and choosing one means giving up the other.
That is leadership.
A leader does not merely choose between good and bad.
A leader chooses between good and good.
Growth or craftsmanship.
Speed or trust.
Scale or intimacy.
Shareholder pressure or employee dignity.
Short-term efficiency or long-term resilience.
Safety or creativity.
Both sides may have reason.
In human affairs, almost everything has some reason.
The leader’s work is not to notice that both sides have merit. That is easy.
The leader’s work is to decide which merit to sacrifice.
This is why AI cannot replace leadership.
AI can clarify options.
AI can reveal trade-offs.
AI can simulate outcomes.
AI can help us think.
But if we ask AI, “Which one is best?” and simply follow the answer, we have outsourced the very thing that makes leadership necessary.
And if everyone asks similar AI systems to make similar judgments, everyone may drift toward similar answers.
That may be efficient.
It is not strategy.
Strategy requires difference.
One of the great paradoxes of the AI age may be this:
AI may make everyone more productive.
But it may also make everyone more alike.
The Slowest Changes Matter Most
The third lesson is about time.
The biggest changes are often the slowest.
We notice the AI demo.
We notice the quarterly earnings call.
We notice the exchange rate.
We notice the election.
We notice the crisis.
But the most consequential shifts often move underneath the noise.
Demography is one example.
Japan now treats population decline as a national crisis. But for more than a century, Japan worried that it had too many people. Overpopulation was once seen as the source of congestion, housing problems, resource pressure, and social strain.
Now that the population is declining, decline itself is treated as the root of all problems.
There is something almost comic about this.
Too many people is a problem.
Too few people is a problem.
A strong yen is a problem.
A weak yen is a problem.
Office work is oppressive.
Remote work is isolating.
Human beings are very good at turning any condition into a complaint.
Leadership requires a different posture.
Not: What condition would finally make things easy?
But: Given this condition, what becomes possible?
Population decline may be a crisis if the goal is quantity.
But it may be an opportunity if the goal is quality.
A smaller society may force better design. Better education. Better automation. Better use of human talent. Better care. Better forms of work.
The same fact can become decline or renewal, depending on the frame.
The Leadership We Need Now
The usual advice for leaders in the AI age is to move faster.
Learn faster.
Adopt faster.
Experiment faster.
Transform faster.
Some of that is true.
But it is incomplete.
The deeper leadership challenge is not speed.
It is orientation.
Can you distinguish trend from cycle?
Can you tell the difference between a tool and a transformation?
Can you see what technology can externalize, and what it cannot?
Can you make decisions when there is no external criterion?
Can you resist the temptation to ask AI to choose your values for you?
Can you think in decades when everyone else is reacting in days?
The future will not belong simply to leaders who use AI well.
It will belong to leaders who understand what AI cannot do.
AI cannot tell us what kind of human beings we should become.
AI cannot decide what is worth preserving.
AI cannot feel the cost of betraying a promise.
AI cannot carry the loneliness of a decision.
AI cannot know, from the inside, what a community should stand for.
That remains our work.
As someone who teaches leadership in Japan while studying philosophy, I find this point increasingly important.
The AI debate is often framed as a question of tools.
But leadership has never been merely about tools.
It has always been about judgment, restraint, courage, and the ability to see human beings clearly.
The future may be more technological.
But leadership will remain moral.
The task is not only to become more advanced.
It is to become less confused. ■
First published on Substack on May 27, 2026 (JST). Archived here as part of the Fabio Caipirinha permanent archive (published on this site: Oct 15, 2026). Images from the original are omitted here pending rights clearance. Original: https://fabiocaipirinha.substack.com/p/the-future-belongs-to-leaders-who
Cover image: Emanuel Leutze, “Washington Crossing the Delaware” (1851) (Public domain, Wikimedia Commons — source)
