NATIONAL FOUNDERS’ DAY THE BAHAMAS
Left: Grand Polemarch Jimmy McMikle’s personal touch was evident throughout the weekend. Right: General Via, Atlanta Mayor Andre D. Dickens (Lambda Delta 1996) and General Smith.
leaders, we typically have the answer,” he said. “The real power is, as leaders, do we ask the right insightful ques- tions that will allow creativity and innovation?” His three favorite questions, he revealed, were deceptively simple: why, how, and what if. Then, like any good engineer, he zoomed out. Over 2.6 mil- lion years of human history, he argued, our trajectory has been shaped by precisely those questions—by how we hunted and cooked, how we measured time, how we communicated across distance, how we lifted heavy things, how we saw the invisible, from atoms to distant stars. He traced three great eras: the 19th-century Industrial Revolution, when machines changed how people worked; the 20th-century age of digital transformation, when information technologies changed where and
how fast work could be done; and the emerging era he calls “industrial dis- ruption,” in which AI and automation are beginning to change what work humans do at all. On one side of his slide deck are the old punch cards and tabulators. On the other hand, a humanoid robot is deftly sorting packages in a warehouse. “These robots, they don’t get sick. There’s no drama in the workforce. They work 24-7,” Brother Adkins noted matter-of-factly. “We are in a world where we must have a higher appreciation for being globally aware and globally con- nected.” Some in the audience shifted in their seats. The possibilities were exhilarating, and the implications were sobering. But Adkins is no techno utopian. The most advanced quantum AI systems, he warned, would soon be able to complete in seconds what
once took months of computation, creating—for the first time— “a non-biological unit that exceeds our intelligence.” The only sustainable human advan- tage would be what machines could not replicate: values, relationships, culture, and the ability to lead other human beings. “There will always be tasks that humans will do better than machines,” he said. “And there’s one thing a humanoid will never be able to do that a human can do, and that is manage relationships.” He distilled the requirements of lead- ership in this new era into three words: accountability, humility, and generosity. Leaders, he argued, take a larger share of the blame and a smaller share of the credit; they build teams so strong that their own resumes almost become an afterthought. Then he modeled that generosity. Before leaving the stage,
WINTER 2026-2026 ♦ THE JOURNAL 41
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