Cynics would probably tell you that the opposite of cynicism is gullibility, blindly trusting other people, and that cynicism is a sort of wisdom, a hard-earned sense that, in fact, people cannot be trusted. Oftentimes, cynicism can spread just between people in all sorts of communities, but especially when leaders in workplaces are cynical, it’s so easy for their worldview to work its way into how they lead and into their people. JAMIL ZAKI: 100%, and you see it in the morale and experience of people who are on those teams, but again, I want to be clear here that sometimes when I talk with leaders about cynicism and the policies that make workplaces more cynical, they kind of say, “Yeah, you have a good point.”