Ep-45 Adeline Tiah, Psychological Safety and Trust for the Future of Work

What happens when AI makes information and execution easier—but the trust, judgment and human relationships needed to use that technology well become even more important?

Adeline Tiahhas spent 28 years in corporate roles across telecommunications and banking, followed by nearly a decade in professional coaching. Today, she works with leaders and organizations to build team engagement, psychological safety and high-performing teams.

In this conversation, Adeline argues that psychological safety is not simply a matter of making people feel comfortable. It has direct consequences for business performance. When employees fear the consequences of speaking up, organizations lose ideas, opportunities and warnings they may need to adapt.

She calls this the “silence bill”: the business cost of the things people don't say.

As AI accelerates change, that cost may become even more significant. Employees may worry about their jobs, leaders are under pressure to deliver today while preparing for tomorrow, and organizations must make decisions in an environment where reliable long-term forecasts are increasingly difficult.

Adeline believes this calls for a different kind of leadership—one based less on title and more on trust. As AI makes information more accessible, a leader's value increasingly lies in creating the conditions for people to collaborate, challenge assumptions and do their best work together.

In this episode

00:00 – From corporate leadership to coaching01:46 – Why uncertainty makes psychological safety more important03:34 – How hierarchy and internal competition erode trust04:50 – The importance of being able to disagree safely06:16 – The “harmony trap” and the cost of silent disagreement07:55 – The “silence bill”: the business cost of withheld ideas09:25 – Cultural differences, trust and communication12:25 – What coaching really does: challenging assumptions and blind spots15:23 – How AI changes work, leadership and employee anxiety17:50 – Entrepreneurial leadership in an unpredictable environment21:21 – Why education must move beyond transferring knowledge23:26 – Using technology to create value, not just work faster28:59 – Adaptability and the changing nature of jobs31:23 – Leadership by title versus leadership by trust35:44 – AI, hierarchy and the human responsibility for decisions38:07 – What happens when we outsource our thinking?39:57 – Why human capability still matters in an AI-enabled world42:02 – Practical advice for leaders: experiment with AI yourself

Adeline Tiah is a professional coach and leadership consultant based in Singapore, and you can find more of her here:

http://www.adelinetiah.com/

https://www.soarcollective.asia/

The Future Was Yesterday explores how technological change is reshaping work—how work is organized, how organizations and society are affected, and how people can adapt.

Each episode starts with a person doing something interesting at the frontier of technological, economic or social change. From there, we explore what their experience can teach us about the world of work that is already emerging.

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Keywords: AI and the future of work, psychological safety, leadership in the age of AI, AI adoption, organizational trust, employee engagement, human judgment, critical thinking, AI and leadership, change management, entrepreneurial mindset, future of leadership, human skills, organizational culture, team performance