April 5, 2026
The Sunday April 5, 2026, New York Times magazine contains an article entitled, “Worried About A.I. Taking Your Job? That’s Not Very ‘Agentic’ of You.”
The author, Nitsuh Abebe, explains, “That’s “agentic” as in, you know, having agency — possessing the capacity “to influence and control outcomes through assertive individual action,” as the Oxford English Dictionary has it…. In psychology, agency is the ability to act independently and, by doing so, to feel control over your own direction — steering your fate instead of watching helplessly as life happens to you. (Children, for instance, are said to gradually develop more “agency and autonomy” as they grow.)”
In tech culture. the language “echoes familiar dreams of becoming a rule-shattering visionary, a rugged-individualist lion instead of a placid, blue-pilled, normie sheep. Consequently, an agentic leader is envisioned as output-driven, deterministic, and obsessed with goal achievement. And with the assistance of Agentic AI, the leader can fulfill these ambitions.
The author concludes, “In the A.I. era, become an ‘agentic individual’ to thrive! Discover how work evolves with A.I. agents. Don’t get left behind! All that will matter is your own superior drive and will; every other aspect of achievement can be handled, as if by magic, in the guts of some colossal data center.”
How does this vision correspond to the principles of NOBLE LEADERSHIP? Unlike the focus of “individual superior drive,” the key to achievement in Noble Leadership frequently is teamwork, collaboration around a common purpose and vision. And while outcomes are important to Noble Leaders, correctly identifying and specifying the inputs is the critical starting point. How one achieves the outcomes – through higher purpose, living values, human spirit and oneness consciousness — is equally important to achievement of the outcomes themselves. As McKinsey & Company states the case, “Leadership is an inside job.”
While Agentic AI emphasizes goal-orientation and automation, in Noble Leadership we focus on judgment and critical thinking in decision making, continuous learning, learning from our mistakes, collaboration and communication. And we incorporate our values in assessing the trade-offs of our decisions. Very little in Noble leadership is automatic; rather we continuously assess the impact of our options and trade-offs among the various stakeholders.
If, for example, an organization could meet its short-run profit goals only by laying off workers, would a Noble Leader automatically do so? Or, alternatively, if AI led to increased efficiency and consequent redundancy in our workforce, would we simply lay off the excess workers or seek other positions for them through retraining and other creative responses?
A Noble Leader fundamentally is led by heart and soul as well as intellect and rational decision-making. Noble Leaders often need to reach difficult decisions, but they use truth, honesty and compassion in communicating and implementing such decisions. We are reminded that the key responsibility of leaders is to define reality. That reality should include new emerging technologies such as AI, but in the context of supporting decision-making and organizational growth and development in a heart-filled and responsible manner; not by abdicating such responsibility to the unquestioned decisions of AI agents.