To Reveal or to Conceal: Pertinent Sacred Considerations for Transparent Leaders in a Super-Intelligent World

This chapter seeks to elucidate what transparent leadership is biblically and what biblical leadership behaviors are most likely to ensure an ethically-aligned design and use of advanced information technologies (IT) in such forms as artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain, and cloud services. In an exploration of a relevant, transparent entrepreneurial leadership style, this chapter will also look at what guidance the sacred scriptures contain concerning the wisdom of revealing or concealing organizational secrets. The chapter examines particularly those spiritually-aligned behaviors (prayer, learning, wise advice and prophetic consultation) and service-oriented characteristics (truth-telling, humility, kindness, and compassionate love), which enhance a leader’s discernment through the revelations of the Holy Spirit (e.g., scriptures on leading/guidance of Holy Spirit—“He will lead you into all truth,” John 16:13) and the organizational innovation that autopoietically (i.e., self-productively) results (Oster, 2011; De Pree, 2004). Thus, this chapter examines transparent leadership behaviors (such as trustworthiness, authenticity, and service) informed by the sacred scriptures which benefit leaders in a super-intelligent world, where the design, development, and use of artificial intelligence in an ethical manner is an emerging and growing concern. Within a hyper-connected always-vigilant communications environment with concomitant individual and corporate interests in privacy and security, these biblically based leadership behaviors promote honest relationships, provide for an ethical foundation, and promote openness through genuine self-concepts even when world-wide IT collaborative nets must not only be AI-augmented but spiritually and ethically sound. Further, within the intersection of business, government, and civil society, the complex interplay of proclivities and interests including international cultural ambiguities between multi-sector collaborators exponentially increases when differences in the purposes and approaches in IT are also added to the collaborative mix. Conversely, similarities in IT processes can also provide a common “work-language” of sorts (Iveroth, 2012), which facilities autopoiesis of the new collaborative entity as a unity (Luhmann, 1984/1999, 1985, 1990; Maturana & Varela, 1980; Maturana, 2002). As well, a common understanding of the moral and ethical foundations of the values-based systems emergent from the sacred scriptures work to “promote cooperative groups” (Houser, Levy, Padgitt, Peart, & Xiao, 2014), much like the Body of Christ which Apostle Paul described (e.g., I Corinthians 12) as members unified by the Holy Spirit. Moreover, leaders should proactively promote the organic growth (Morgan, 2006) of these platforms from circular, dynamic cultural models (Hatch, 1993), which themselves must be fully transparent to be effective (Spisak, van der Laken, & Doornenbal, 2019). Thus, transparent leaders can best utilize IT platforms that are values-informed and values-inculcated to selectively divulge or conceal pertinent operational facts down to what specific parties are allowed to see what information in accordance with prescribed privacy portals and specialized security gateways along with the compelling guidance of the sacred scriptures when designing, developing, and utilizing advanced technologies.