In a moment defined by rapid advances in artificial intelligence, Salesforce CIO Advisor Chris Peña suggested that leaders should look beyond tools and platforms and focus instead on the human capabilities required to lead through technological disruption.
Peña spoke at Leading Through the AI Wave: Emotional Intelligence in an Age of Acceleration, as part of the IKNS Seminar series hosted by the Columbia University School of Professional Studies M.S. in Information & Knowledge Strategy (IKNS) program. A technology executive, author, and entrepreneur, Peña has more than two decades of experience leading digital transformation at global organizations. He currently serves as vice president and CIO advisor at Salesforce, where he advises executives on AI strategy, enterprise platforms, and large-scale digital transformation.
Like all IKNS Seminar events, Pena's presentation was followed by a lively Q&A and networking reception with Columbia students, alumni, and industry professionals from across New York City. The presentation was also livestreamed. Watch the recording here.
Leading Through Acceleration
Peña opened his remarks with a question that framed the evening’s discussion: “Do you think that you have to be the smartest person in the room to lead, or is it more important to understand the room?”
For Peña, understanding the room is ultimately more important than being the smartest person in it. That distinction is central to the current AI moment. While organizations are moving quickly to adopt new tools, run pilots, and develop strategies, the deeper challenge is not technological capacity, he said. It is leadership.
“We're at a moment where technology is accelerating faster than leadership is adapting,” Peña said. Leaders are being asked to guide organizations through uncertainty and rapid change as AI is changing organizations and teams faster than they can process and absorb it.
Drawing from his book, Déjà Boom: Hype, Hope, and Human Intelligence in the AI Era, Peña compared the current AI boom to the dot-com era. In both periods, he said, new technology created enormous excitement, inflated expectations, and pressure to act quickly. But the organizations that endured were not simply those that moved fastest. They were those that moved with clarity, quality, and thoughtfulness.
“The technology will deliver. That's not the question,” Peña said. “The question is whether the humans leading it can deliver through it.”
Emotional Intelligence as a Competitive Advantage
A central theme of Peña's talk was the growing importance of emotional intelligence in the workplace. To illustrate his point, he highlighted Anthropic, one of the most influential AI companies in existence. Its president and co-founder, Daniela Amodei, he noted, holds a degree in English literature—not engineering. Beyond hiring strong engineers, the company prioritizes people with high emotional intelligence, genuine kindness, and relentless curiosity. Its “fit interviews”, Peña said, are as rigorous as its technical ones.
“The people building the most advanced AI in the world are betting their future on people who understand humans,” he said.
Peña argued that as AI becomes more capable of producing technical outputs, the skills that distinguish professionals and leaders will increasingly be human ones: empathy, self-awareness, communication, judgment, and the ability to navigate ambiguity.
“The technical skills got you through the door,” Peña said. “Emotional intelligence will determine what happens once you're there.”
Four Superpowers for the AI Era
Drawing from his forthcoming book, Emotional Intelligence: The Next Superhuman Power, Peña introduced a framework of four capabilities he described as superpowers—not because they are rare gifts, he said, but because they compound, transfer, and make everything else work better once developed.
The first was empathy vision: the ability to understand what is happening in a room, notice what is not being said, and adjust in real time. He suggested this was not a soft skill, but a competitive advantage—the thing that determines whether ideas get adopted or quietly shelved.
He also emphasized emotional regulation. In periods of uncertainty, he said, teams look to leaders for steadiness. Boards may be asking for clarity that does not yet exist, investors may want road maps that are still emerging, and employees may be anxious about whether AI will change or replace their roles. In that environment, leaders who can remain calm, deliberate, and honest create stability for the people around them.
“Steadiness is contagious, but so is panic,” Peña said.
Another superpower Peña highlighted was social radar: the ability to understand how organizations actually work beyond formal reporting structures. In complex workplaces, decisions are often shaped by trust, influence, and informal networks as much as by official org charts. Leaders who understand those dynamics, he said, are better equipped to move work forward.
“AI can process a room full of data,” Peña said, “but it cannot read a room.”
The fourth superpower was influence force: the ability to motivate and persuade people who do not report directly to you. Much of professional life, he noted, involves influencing peers, partners, clients, and executives without formal authority. That capability will matter even more as organizations navigate AI transformation across functions.
Avoiding Common Leadership Failures
Peña cautioned against three common leadership failures in moments of technological disruption: overhyping, underestimating, and disappearing. Some leaders promise transformation before foundations are in place, damaging credibility when results do not follow. Others dismiss major changes and miss opportunities. Still others go silent during uncertainty, leaving employees to fill the void with fear.
“All of these three failures lead back to one thing,” Peña said. “These leaders will get technology right, but they get the human aspect of it terribly wrong.”
Instead, Peña encouraged leaders to name uncertainty directly, ask better questions, and be willing to say, “I don't know.” Intellectual honesty, he argued, is not a weakness but a leadership strength. In an environment where AI strategy is still evolving, pretending to have all the answers can be more damaging than admitting what remains unclear.
What Endures in Times of Change
Peña closed by identifying three qualities that he believes endure across technological cycles: curiosity, courage, and intellectual honesty. Technology will continue to evolve, he said, but leaders who remain curious, act with courage, and acknowledge mistakes openly will be better prepared to guide organizations through change.
On intellectual honesty, Peña was direct: “I was wrong, and here's what I did wrong, and here's what I'm doing about it. Those words separate the ones who last from the ones who don't.”
Peña emphasized that AI’s transformative impact is no longer in question. The more urgent issue is how leaders choose to respond. “What’s not settled,” he said, “is who we will become as leaders to guide this change responsibly.”
For IKNS students, the message underscored a core principle of the program: that the ability to work with information, knowledge, and technology must be paired with leadership, communication, and human judgment. In Peña's view, the future of AI leadership will not belong to those who only understand the tools. It will belong to those willing to develop the human capabilities that cannot be automated.
“The work is human,” Peña said. “And fortunately, so are all of us.”
About the Program
Columbia University’s M.S. in Information & Knowledge Strategy (IKNS) degree integrates data, people, and strategy skills for the AI age. The flexible and interdisciplinary curriculum trains leaders across the entire value chain of data-driven management: Getting the data and analytics right (e.g., AI adoption, business analytics), creating a high performing, people-centric culture (collaboration, team/project management, organizational psychology), and finally the right change management to turn your strategy into reality.
IKNS is available full-time or part-time, online or in-person on Columbia’s landmarked campus right here in New York City. To maximize opportunities for networking and community building, our online students join our New York-based students on Columbia’s campus for three in-person Residencies during their studies. The STEM-designated Master of Science degree offers International Students (F-1/J-1 visa) an opportunity for Curricular Practical Training during their studies (CPT) and 3 years of work authorization in the US upon completing their studies (OPT).
Students train under world-class faculty, including former and current executives from Google, IBM, NASA, and Oliver Wyman, and join a powerful global alumni network in coveted positions, including at Alphabet, Goldman Sachs, Nike, Pfizer, and the World Bank.
For more IKNS insights, news, and events, please go to our website, connect with us on LinkedIn, or attend one of our online info sessions. Visit the School of Professional Studies website to learn more about the SPS Student Experience.
