Leadership Reloaded: EQ as the New Competitive Advantage
In the age of AI, the most valuable intelligence is still emotional.
At SXSW Sydney 2025, amid hundreds of talks on automation, algorithms and analytics, one theme quietly stole the spotlight: emotional intelligence.
From Kirstin Ferguson’s “Leading with Impact” to Lili Sussman “Taylor Swift was Right: It’s Me, I’m the Problem”, speakers challenged a simple truth we’ve long ignored: the future of performance won’t be led by “knower” but by “seeker”.
The leadership paradox
Technology is evolving faster than people’s capacity to adapt. Every AI session at SXSW echoed the same anxiety: tools are moving faster than trust.
As heard and described perfectly by one of the speakers: “We’ve become dinosaurs in our own expertise.” To stay relevant, leaders must learn, unlearn and relearn constantly.
This shift marks the end of the “knower era”. The new leadership currency is intellectual humility, the ability to say: “I don’t know yet, but let’s find out together.”
The emotional safety revolution
In Taylor Swift was Right, psychologist-turned-executive coach Lily Sussman reframed vulnerability as the cornerstone of high-functioning teams.
“Defensiveness kills connection. Curiosity keeps it alive.”
The neuroscience backs it: chronic stress reduces cognitive function by up to 40 percent. That means a stressed team is not a slower team, it’s a less intelligent one.
At SXSW’s High Performance & Purpose discussions, leaders shared that the best cultures today are not the busiest, but the safest. Emotional safety unlocks creativity, accountability and retention. 3 metrics every CMO or CTO should care about.
EQ meets AI
The irony of 2025? The more artificial our tools become, the more human our leadership must be.
Sessions like Human First, AI Forward and Enterprise Intelligence: The Future of AI in Business reframed “digital transformation” as a behavioural challenge, not just a technical one. Algorithms can analyse performance; only empathy can interpret it.
For Martech leaders, this means two priorities:
Human-centered data governance: designing systems that respect both privacy and emotion.
Augmented decision-making: pairing AI’s scale with a leader’s intuition.
At DBZ, we see this every day in campaign and CRM strategy: empathy and data don’t compete; they compound.
From performance to purpose
The Future is Generous and Founders & Funders sessions proved that profit and purpose are no longer opposites. Younger teams, clients, and consumers now expect emotional literacy at every level, from brand storytelling to boardroom decisions.
Leaders who ground strategy in empathy build what algorithms can’t: belief. And belief is what turns good organisations into movements.
SXSW 2025 Sessions that Inspired This Article
Leading with Impact: Why Blind-Spotting Is Your Secret Weapon.
Taylor Swift was Right: It’s Me, I’m the Problem.
High Performance & Purpose.
Human First, AI Forward.
Enterprise Intelligence: The Future of AI in Business.
The DBZ perspective
We believe Martech leadership is no longer about mastering technology, it’s about understanding humans at scale. We help organisations design systems, teams, and customer journeys that connect logic with empathy.
Because the smartest strategy still needs a heartbeat. And that heartbeat is emotional intelligence.
At DBZ, we're already helping organisations build Martech ecosystems that are not just intelligent, but trustable: by brands, for customers. Because intelligence without integrity isn’t progress; and progress, as the Oxford definition reminds us, means advancement with purpose, not just movement for its own sake.