In March 2026, I sat down with David Eldon, former HSBC Chairman in Asia, to explore what “teamship”really means in a world being reshaped by AI. His career spans running branches in the Middle East, Hong Kong, leading HSBC in Malaysia, and steering global banking businesses through multiple crises – a vantage point that makes his warnings and encouragement impossible to ignore.
1. Early life and values
Jena: David, let’s start with your story. Where did you grow up, and what shaped how you see the world?
David: I was born in Scotland but moved to England when I was just a few months old because my mother needed work and the opportunities were in England. She worked as a domestic helper, and I grew up in some very large houses, I later discovered they even had front stairs aswell as the back stairs I was used to. So, I grew up in lovely surroundings, but there were definitely people who made sure I knew my place. I went to an army school for soldiers’ children, not officers and, thanks to the family my mother worked for, I spoke the Queen’s English. The other 449 boys did not, and they thought I was a bit odd. I left school at 16; I’d had enough by then.
Jena: Was there something you learned from your mother, father or an early mentor that you still carry today?
David: My father died before I was born, so my mother was the major influence. She drilled certain things into me: you have to be loyal, you have to be honest. And she gave me a few very simple rules that I’ve used all my life. One was: never ask somebody to do something you wouldn’t be prepared to do yourself. That comes with a caveat – you may not always have the knowledge, so you ask some one else because they do. But when you ask them to do it, you explain why. Don’t just say “do this for me”; explain your decisions. Those early lessons, plus advice from a few other people later on,shaped how I tried to lead.
2. Discovering teamship
Jena: When you think about “teamship” being part of a team, what’s one of the first moments from your career when you really felt it?
David: For me it started with sport. It doesn’t matter what sport, in my case it was mainly rugby and hockey, not so much football, if you’re playing in a team, you have to play as a team. You don’t expect a full‑back in rugby to be the hooker or the second-row forward, and vice versa, although I did end up at full‑back once or twice from my second‑row position. The point is, you rely on the others because you have one goal going forward.
In modern business, I see the opposite too often: people thinking about their own careers in their own silos, not about the larger organisation. I learned early on that you achieve a lot more working together, plus you get the friendships that comewith that.
Jena: Was there someone who shaped your understanding of what a great team feels like?
David: I don’t think there was one person. I grew up as an only child, very much “at the back of the house”, so I didn’t have lots of friends around me modelling teamwork. I sort of drifted into it. I’d notice, “If they can do that for me, I can do that for them,” and things worked better when we helped each other. There was a running joke at one bank I joined, supposedly when you walked in for an interview they threw a ball at you. If you caught it, you were probably going to be hired because you were obviously a team player.
Working overseas, you quickly learn that if you can’t adjust to your surroundings and get on with the people you work with, life becomes very difficult.
3. What makes ateam feel safe?
Jena: What’s one behaviour that tells you a team is safe and healthy?
David: It’s hard to narrow it down, but one thing I watch for is the over use of “I”. If someone is supposedly part of a team and their sentences are dotted with “I, I, I”, that’s a warning sign. What about the rest of the people who are doing the work? When my career was going well, I was never the brightest kid on the block – I left school at 16 – so I knew I didn’t have all the answers. The sensible thing is to gather people around you who do know the answers and then give them the credit. You don’t take the credit yourself. For me, that’s a very sensible way to build a team.
Jena: So that “we” language is part of psychological safety?
David: Mostly, yes. You’ll always have people in the so‑called team who look out for themselves, and I don’t blame them entirely. But if you work for an organisation, at the end of the day you should be able to identify what is good for the organisation as a whole rather than just yourself. That some times puts you at risk, people take shots at you particularly if you’re doing well and they’re not, but that’s life.
4. Teams underpressure: stories from Hong Kong and Malaysia
Jena: Can you share a story of a great team from your career that really captured that sense of safety and having each other’s backs?
David: One example is when I was running a large branch in Hong Kong and then became the District Manager for the area. I’d come in from the Middle East, and those already in the Hong Kong organisation had grown up with it. There was some suspicion about people like me arriving from outside. Over time, people got used to the fact that I was approachable, that I didn’t take snap decisions just because they suited me, and that they could give me their opinions and I would respond. We ended up doing very well as a branch. They could have made life difficult, but they didn’t. Treat people fairly and, in my experience, they tend to treat you fairly – it’s a two‑way street.
Another example iswhen I went to Malaysia as CEO. The deputy CEO had quite reasonably hoped toget the job I was given; plus, he was slightly more senior than me in bank terms. He could have made life difficult, and he’d been there long enough to get others to do the same. Instead, he was incredibly accommodating,helpful and supportive. We got on well, the business did well after a rough patch, and he later returned to Hong Kong for a while returning to ultimately takeover from me when I moved on. Those are the small moments that show you what real teamship looks like.
Jena: In real high‑pressure situations, what do strong teams do that average teams don’t?
David: They talk to one another. It’s very simple. I’ve seen plenty of situations, and you can see them from a distance, where if people don’t talk, things go wrong. It’s like with customers: in the old days, if things were going badly, some customers were very reluctant to come into the bank and tell us. I used to say loudly and often, “Come and talk to us before things get out of hand so we can help, rather than waiting until it’s almost too late.” The same applies inside teams.
5. Silos, cross‑functional teams and unspoken rules
Jena: Is there an “unspoken rule” that makes teams work, something not written down, but lived?
David: The unspoken rule is, once again: talk to one another. Putting it into practice depends a lot on leadership. If you’ve got someone at the top who makes it easy to do that – puts differences aside when necessary, especially in a crisis, that’s critical. People need to feel comfortable enough to speak up and have those conversations.
Jena: Have you seen situations where teamship, in the broader cross‑functional sense, breaks down?
David: Yes, particularly with business lines in banks. Charles Handy (who was an author who specialised in organisational behaviours) described it well: in a warehouse, people can walk around and talk to others in different divisions. When you move to business lines, it’s like putting each line in a separate room and closing the door. We had instances where one division went to see a customer and, as they left, another bit of the bank was going into see the same customer. It doesn’t work. The customer is confused and wonders who they’re actually dealing with. In the end, the bank suffers because not everyone is pulling in the same direction.
When I was running a division, my colleague in the investment bank and I made a point of sitting down at least once a month, over a meal, coffee, a drink, it didn’t matter –to talk about what we’d done with our clients. He’d say, “We’ve been to this client; we can’t help them on X, but they have a lot of staff who might need Y,” which suited my division. I’d say of my client, “They’re interested in an acquisition; maybe you can help.” That’s teamwork. Put people into separate rooms and it doesn’t happen. That’s the danger.
6. Myths about leadership and building teams
Jena: What’s the biggest myth leaders believe about building strong teams, and why is it wrong?
David: I’m not sure it’s a single myth. Many leaders actually know what’s important in building strong teams but then don’t do it. They get swayed by the last person they spoke to who says, “You can’t do that.”
There is a tendency to bring on board people who are clones of the leader because they’re easier to work with and say the same things. I’d much rather have a team that argues, or I mean debates, because if you argue, you get different points of view, and that gives you something to listen to and think about. Some leaders also subconsciously surround themselves with people who aren’t quite as strong, believing it will make them look better at the top. They then tell everyone they’ve got the best team going. That doesn’t work.
Jena: So where do leaders get it right or wrong when they build teams?
David: They get it right when they build indiversity, people who think differently, not clones or followers. They get it wrong when they focus only on getting the numbers and percentage growth right and assume that alone means they’re doing a good job. You can hit impressive numbers and still have a book of business where only a tiny percentage of customers are actually profitable. On the surface it looks fine, but underneath it isn’t.
7. Who carries the team in tough moments?
Jena: When things get tough, who carries the team, the leader, the loudest voice, the quietest person?
David: It should of course be the leader. Think of a sports team: is the goalkeeper the most important because they stop goals, or the centre forward because they score them? The right‑back can’t play on the left wing. The team leader may not be the most technically qualified person in any single position, but the buck stops with them.
In my own case, I’d listen to people’s views and ask questions, but I recognised that the final decision was mine, taken on behalf of the team. Not everyone would agree and that’s fine. If I made the wrong decision, I accepted the consequences. The loudest voice isn’t necessarily the right person to decide, there are plenty of loud voices who are simply wrong. If you explain your reasoning – “we’re going this way because of this, this and this” rather than “because I say so” –at least people know where you’ve come from and who you’ve listened to.
8. Emotional honesty, culture and “speak‑up”
Jena: How emotionally honest do you think teams are?
David: It depends on the team, and it varies by country and region. Good teams should be encouraged to be emotionally honest. But culturally, for example in many Asian contexts, there’s a reluctance to ask the first question, challenge the boss or admit not knowing something.
I tell people there are no stupid questions, only stupid answers. In my experience, if one person asks a question, at least three others are thinking, “Thank goodness someone asked; I wanted to but didn’t know the answer either.” The key is encouraging people to speak up and not biting their heads off when they do. If you don’t get that emotional honesty, you won’t get much other honesty either.
Jena: And what about bad days and personal stress, how should leaders and teams handle that without losing momentum?
David: It’s harder for the leader because they have to walk a line between what they must do professionally and what’s going on behind the scenes. They may have to show a degree of toughness that others don’t. What I tried to do was keep personal issues out of public meetings but encourage people to come and talk privately to someone they felt comfortable with, ideally me, but if not, then someone else, on the understanding that Iwould be made aware.
If you don’t know the backstory, you make judgments only on what you see in front of you. If you know what’s going on, you can handle things much better. I always wanted to be open and available so people felt safe bringing issues to me, knowing I wouldn’t respond in a way that embarrassed them.
9. Culture,generations and the impact of AI
Jena: Looking at culture, time and generations– have you seen changes in how teams form and how good teams become great teams? What role does AI play in that?
David: Yes, it has changed. Culture is important here. There’s this idea that you should only look forward and never back. I think that’s wrong. There’s huge value in looking back to see what our predecessors did, how they organised work, and what they were trying to carry into the next generation – while accepting that the environment has changed. If you don’t know your organisation’s culture and history, it’s a shame.
Technology and AI are changing the way work is done, and not always for the better. In service organisations like banks, one thing that should never change is how we treat our customers. We started by dealing with people; they’re the ones who pay our salaries. I worry that customer service is under threat and that we’re losing focus on being responsive and understanding what clients want. AI is here to stay and it will keep affecting how we do business, but the customer is still the one paying our salaries – at least until they too are replaced by AI, in which case who knows.
Jena: Do you see the same risk for teams, that as AI takes over more tasks, we forget that humans still need each other?
David: Yes. If we allow AI to do some of the menial jobs, that’s fine – it can save time and money. But it also removes opportunities for people to learn the basics. I worry about future leaders whorely on AI for information but don’t really understand what they’re leading.
That’s where the lending story comes in. Someone once came to me for a loan. On paper, the family name wasn’t a good one historically. But I went to see the business. In the end, I lent him as much as I could with out going to head office, knowing I might get the lending rejected. Happily he did very well, and later needed more money, at which point I did have to go to head office and got my wrists slapped. The thing is this, if you’d given his accounts to AI, it would have approved the loan in two minutes, they were solid. The order book was good too. But if I had walked around the factory and found it a mess, with unhappy staff, I wouldn’t have lent the money. AI wouldn’t see that, at least not yet.
We risk losing those small, human pieces of information that make a huge difference to judgment. If AI eventually learns to capture that as well, then we’ll all have to think hard about what jobs we’ll be doing.
10. Final reflections: behaviours to remove and when teamship begins
Jena: If you could remove one behaviour from teams everywhere, what would it be?
David: Excessive self‑interest, people who sit in the room thinking only about whether what’s happening will benefit them personally. It doesn’t matter. What matters is whether the group benefits, or whether the group avoids a problem. It’s up to the team to decide what is right or wrong for the people they’re working for and around, not just for themselves.
Jena: Finally, complete this sentence: “Real teamship begins when…”
David: …“When every member of the team feels comfortable and confident that their contribution is being listened to and that it benefits the group as a whole.”
Jena: I love that. David, thank you for putting teamship in the spotlight with us today.