In an era defined by artificial intelligence, data and hyper-competition, a leading voice from India’s financial sector is urging young professionals to rethink what really drives long-term success: wisdom, not just intelligence.
Radhika Gupta, Managing Director and CEO of Edelweiss Mutual Fund, has sparked conversation online after sharing a candid message to early-career professionals on LinkedIn. Her note challenges the long-held belief that academic brilliance and quick thinking alone guarantee leadership.
Moving beyond the ‘smartest person in the room’
Drawing from her own journey as a high-achieving student and corporate leader, Gupta reflected on how conventional success metrics — grades, pedigree, and fast answers — can shape a professional identity centred on being right rather than being effective.
She observed that intelligence often opens doors, but it does not necessarily build trust, collaboration, or influence. Over time, she wrote, professionals may realise that achievement without empathy can make workplaces feel transactional and isolating.
Her central message: learning to be wise is what sustains careers once the initial advantages of intelligence fade.
Wisdom as a workplace skill
Gupta reframed wisdom not as an abstract virtue but as a set of everyday behaviours that often go unnoticed:
- Participating in team-building moments that may seem unproductive at first glance
- Listening fully before responding, instead of rushing to critique
- Exercising patience when colleagues need repeated guidance
- Mediating conflicts even when they fall outside formal responsibilities
Such actions, she argued, may appear like “soft” skills to high performers, but in reality they form the operational backbone of leadership.
Why likeability & trust are becoming strategic assets
Gupta warned that professional stagnation often affects technically strong individuals who are difficult to work with. Conversely, she noted that people who foster goodwill and collaboration frequently accomplish complex goals because teams willingly rally behind them.
Her advice challenges the stereotype of the lone, hyper-rational achiever and instead highlights social capital as a multiplier of intellectual capital.
Intelligence in the Age of AI
One of the most striking themes in her message is its relevance to the AI-driven economy. As automation increasingly handles analytical and computational tasks, Gupta suggested that human relevance will depend less on raw intelligence — something machines can replicate — and more on judgement, empathy and ethical decision-making.
In essence, while intelligence can be engineered, wisdom remains deeply human.
A long-term view of ambition
Gupta positioned wisdom not as a rejection of ambition but as ambition stretched across a longer time horizon — similar to principles that guide investing itself. Sustainable success, she implied, is built through relationships, credibility and emotional intelligence rather than short bursts of performance.
Her closing advice to young professionals was simple yet countercultural: Don’t strive to be the smartest in the room; strive to be the person others want to work with.
