[Market Pulse] From "Banner Leadership" to "Eoullieadership"

From Management of Antagonism to a Competition of Solutions in the Age of Soft Power

Jongrok Yoon, Adjunct Professor at KAIST

The leadership of an era often reflects the issues of that time. The challenges of the industrialization era were relatively clear: in a country lacking capital and technology, unity of purpose, accelerating speed, and unwavering advancement in a set direction were paramount.

The “follow me” banner leadership provided strong momentum in those days. When the leader raised the banner, the organization moved in perfect order, and achievements were measured by how quickly people fell in line. This was the era of hard power—leadership that concentrated strength through command, mobilization, and control.

However, the world has already transitioned into the age of soft power, where attraction, empathy, connection, and collaboration mobilize people and resources. Today’s problems are not easily solved by lining up everyone under one banner. The world of artificial intelligence represents a civilizational transformation, not merely a technological issue, but one entangled with education, labor, ethics, energy, and security. Challenges like the climate crisis, low birth rates, regional extinction, and supply chain restructuring cannot be resolved by any single ministry, company, or generation alone.

This is because we now live in a world of multiple codes, filled with countless variables between 0 and 1—not simple binary code. Today, a leader’s ability does not lie in stubbornly monopolizing non-existent “correct answers.” It lies in combining different answers to create better solutions.

Yet our politics still remains trapped in an outdated arena. Political camps raise their banners higher and treat their opponents not as people to persuade, but as obstacles to be removed. When factionalism, all-or-nothing thinking, and mutual denial become the grammar of politics, compromise is mistaken for betrayal, and listening for weakness. When “who said it” is considered more important than the substance of a policy, politics devolves into the management of antagonism instead of a competition of solutions.

While the world is raising the density of its connections, if we are merely increasing the density of divisions, it is a shameful reversal. Since reaching the global top 10 in GDP in 2020, we have been slipping down by almost one spot each year. Our approach for re-entering the single-digit ranks must be different.

In contrast, the world’s most innovative companies move in the opposite direction. Even a single semiconductor brings together design, materials, equipment, software, data, energy, and global supply chains. Artificial intelligence, too, is not completed by a single outstanding algorithm alone. Researchers, practitioners, designers, legal experts, large corporations, and startups must all fill each other’s gaps to reach the market.

Innovative companies do not ask, “Is this person on my side?” but instead, “What problems can we solve together?” Rather than obsessing over a nonexistent perfect solution, they connect various imperfect strengths to create new value. The same is true within organizations: if each department focuses only on protecting its own achievements, technology remains trapped in the research lab, the customer’s voice is stuck in the sales division, and warning signs are locked away in the audit office.

Innovation begins when these scattered pieces look at the same problem. An “Eoullieader” (roughly “harmonizing leader”) is not a judge who selects the best department, but someone who designs common goals and shared responsibilities so different departments will share information and authority. Harmony is not just a pleasant atmosphere—it is a structure through which achievements flow.

I call this era’s soft power “Eoullieadership,” a term that combines the native Korean word for harmonizing. To harmonize does not mean to erase one’s own color or to step back and concede. It is “harmony in diversity”—different individuals, each with their distinctiveness, strengthening each other towards a shared purpose. Just as a conductor does not play every instrument, an “Eoullieader” does not have all the answers. Instead, they open perspectives with questions, connect resources across boundaries, endure failures, listen to differing opinions, and ultimately take responsibility for the results.

This tradition runs deep in our history. King Sejong transcended social class barriers to employ the talents of Jang Young-sil and wove the diverse wisdom of the Hall of Worthies into national capability. King Jeongjo, through the Gyujanggak and the Chokye-munsin system, broadened the spectrum of talent and created new pathways for thought. Dasan Jeong Yak-yong combined the ideals of the classics with the reality of the people, scholarship with technology, and principles with execution, and turned them into blueprints for reform. Their greatness lay not in shining alone but in transforming diverse knowledge and ideas into public achievements.

The more we divide into camps, the more our potential is halved. Today, governments and companies must ask leaders not “Who will follow me?” but “Whom and what have you connected?” When opposing parties find policy ideas to adopt, when the government borrows wisdom from businesses and civil society, and when large corporations embrace the speed of startups and the reality of local communities, only then do solutions become three-dimensional. The middle ground is not a gray area, but a space where possibilities sprout. Recognizing the strengths of the other side is not a retreat from one’s beliefs, but a skill in moving the community forward.

Of course, “Eoullieadership” cannot function on the basis of mere slogans like “let's govern together.” First, we need to define the shared agenda and openly share facts and data, building trust through small pilot projects. While credit is shared, the leader must take the primary responsibility for failure. There must also be rules that prevent disadvantage for voicing differing opinions publicly, and which ensure the team acts as one after reaching consensus. Building harmony not on goodwill alone, but as a system and habit—that is leadership in the AI era.

Banners line people up, but harmony weaves capability together. Under a banner, only the person at the front is visible; in harmony, everyone’s differences become shared assets. We need not deny the banner leadership that led to our industrialization successes. But while hard power has served its function and soft power is now a decisive force, we still have not escaped from the old grammar of success.

The strong leader now is not the one who speaks the loudest, but the one who makes space for other voices to compose a solution. In a society that seems to know only 0s and 1s, it is now time to lower the banners and grasp the many hands of connection hidden in between.

Jongrok Yoon (Adjunct Professor at KAIST, former Vice Minister of Science, ICT and Future Planning)

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.