Servant Leadership Lessons from Open AI's Firing and Re-Hiring of Sam Altman

When OpenAI's board of directors fired CEO Sam Altman, they unwittingly torpedoed the company's founding principle: the independent development of AI. OpenAI was formed to create AI for the benefit of humanity, rather than the benefit of corporate shareholders. This explains in part why OpenAI remained governed by a nonprofit board.

At the time, it looked as though OpenAI's charter, which promised "broadly distributed benefits" and opposed "unduly concentrate(d) power," had failed. It looked as though the most poweful AI minds in the world would work for the unequivocally concentrated power that is Microsoft. Within 48 hours, Satya Nadella recruited Altman to form an AI research lab within Microsoft. Shortly thereafter, the vast majority of OpenAI employees began to threaten defections to the world's second-richest company.

Eventually, OpenAI reversed course and re-hired Sam Altman as CEO. But in the process, they parted ways with the three board members initially responsible for firing Altman. While their votes to oust Altman now appears nonsensical, their departure means that OpenAI loses the voices most likely to question the unchecked development of this technology. They were the voices most likely to see the risks in AI's development, to raise concerns over AI falling intot he wrong hands.

While details remain sparse, Microsoft may take one of their board seats. Other board seats are likely to be filled with directors committed to acceleration and adoption, rather than ethics and prudence.

The development of generative AI, it seems, will now be controlled by companies opearting under the default corporate charter: that of short term returns to shareholders. Kevin Roose perfectly summarized this development in his column titled: A.I. Belongs to the Capitalists Now.

The circus that consumed OpenAI in recent weeks reveals something of the nature of organizational life. All organizations, nonprofit and for-profit alike, are beholden to the inevitable powers of entropy.

Chaos and disorder are inevitable outcomes in any organization's lifecycle. Even if we create innovative governance structures, even if we write an altruistic charter, even if we staff our board with directors inclined towards ethical reflection - disorder finds a way. And as the development of technology accelerates, entropy arrives faster and faster. Organizational successes plant the seeds of future disorder.

The practice of servant leadership (really, all effective leadership) requires an awareness of how all organizations trend towards entropy. But recognizing the inevitability of chaos, he or she also affirms the potential for positive impact that is vested in organizational life. After all, Robert Greenleaf, the founder of servant leadership, didn't work for a small NGO, but was committed to "creating change from within a large institution."

Servant leadership is thus a balancing act: the ability to drive positive change within an organization, even with the foresight that things will tend to fall apart.

Disorder is inevitable. It is thus the task of the servant leader to prepare their organization for the inevitability of chaos. The servant leader has a repsonbility to their communities to buffer them agains the worst effects of disruption, teaching and solidifying habits of resilience. Even if the organiziation fails, servant leaders prepare their people to continue working towards the realization of their values.

The single most effective practice in preparing for the inevitability of chaos may be to discern core values - at the individual and team level. As individuals and as small, functional teams, core values can keep us anchored to our principles when everything else becomes unmoored. Our values keep us facing outwards when circumstances threaten to turn us inward. They instill a capacity for creativity when a situation pushes us towards reaction and passivity. They perpetuate our impact even if the broader organization crumbles.

In a time of accelerating chaos, servant leadership looks like a coach who accompanies their team on a perpetual process of discernment. Leadership is thus no longer just about showing the way - it's about returning us to our starting line, reminding us of our foundations. When chaos inevitably emerges, the servant leader reminds us what really matters.

Video: 3 Things You May Not Know about Servant Leadership

Why LinkedIn Doesn't Want You to be a Servant Leader

Today I'm going to make the case that the greatest impediment to servant leadership in a digital age isn't TikTok, Instagram, Truth Social, or any of our other usual digital bad-guys. Rather, I'm going to suggest that LinkedIn of all places is the greatest obstacle to the practice of servant leadership in the workplace - particularly among Gen Z and Millennials.

LinkedIn creates a perpetual sense of vocational FOMO, limiting our ability to meaningfuly connect with our present moment contexts. The LinkedIn news feed produces this sense of malaise by cramming our feeds with two types of posts:

• "I'm thrilled to announce that I will be leaving to take a job (that sounds more more meaningful than yours)."

• "I'm beyond excited to announce that I have been promoted (to a rung on the career ladder that you may never attain)."

Exacerbating the FOMO, and arguably the imposter syndrome that these types of posts create, are the platform's endless lists of "relevant jobs," offering the allure of meaning and purpose on the other side of the career search.

This creates a vicious social media cycle:

1. I see my connections getting jobs that seem more meaningful than mine

2. This leads me to apply for more jobs

3. I don't land land those jobs, which heightens my FOMO and imposter syndrome

While LinkedIn's mission of creating opportunity is laudable, it's news feed and jobs app both condition us to expect constant and immediate gratification in our career. This expectation leads us to be dissatisfied and disengaged within our current vocations. And as a consequence, LinkedIn limits the practice of servant leadership.

When purpose and meaning are always one career move away from your current vocational home, service becomes secondary to status. Why seek to serve, and serve first, if you'd be better off working elsewhere? Why empty yourselves for the needs of your current vocational home when you'd be better off "bringing your talents" to someplace else? I've suggested that servant leadership is practiced when we commit to listening to one another's stories and learning one another's values. But to what extent is this conversational depth likely in the transient workplace created by LinkedIn?

Certainly, LinkedIn is not the only impediment to the relational depth required for servant leadership. Just as employees are increasingly disloyal to their employers, corporations have become disinterested in incentivizing long-term service. The median employee tenure at most companies is less than four years. Even the highest paid employees, the chief executives, rarely stay within an organization for more than three or four years. Those switching jobs stand to earn more than those who seek raises within their current institutions. And the recent spree of tech layoffs has shown that investors view job stability as less important than the momentary whims of the stock market.

But in our day to day experience, these macro trends are less palpable than the vocational fidgetiness produced by LinkedIn. 200 million Americans have a LinkedIn profile. 137 million Americans used LinkedIn every day. At this scale, we might forget the words of MLK, who spoke of the accessibility of service in all walks of life:

"Everybody can be great … because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love." -Martin Luther King Jr.

Servant leadership is a practice of prioritizing service amongst everyday realities. It can be practiced in all domains and vocations. A servant leader doesn't need to have the best job in their professional network. But they do need a heart motivated by service, a willingness to bring people together, and the ability (to paraphrase Robert Greenleaf) to make their communities healthier, wiser, freer and more autonomous.

When LinkedIn triggers a tinge of jealousy over a rapid promotion cycle, or sends you a jolt of FOMO about the job prospect that seems just beyond your reach, it doesn't inspire service. It stymies it.

Seek first to serve. Seek not to scroll. The world needs servant leaders in all jobs and vocations, especially the one you find yourself in today.

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@ryanpanzer is a recovering regular LinkedIn user.

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