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2. AI-Powered Leadership: A Systematic Review

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Part 2 of 17 of a research-based series exploring AI’s impact on leadership This post summarises the article AI-powered leadership: a systematic literature review by Aziz et al. (2025).

When AI delivers a ‘data-driven’ decision, who is responsible for the social and ethical fallout if it goes wrong? The emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has positioned itself as a critical factor in reshaping organisational dynamics, particularly in the realm of leadership. This systematic literature review investigated the evolving relationship between AI and leadership, focusing on definitions, prevalent themes, and challenges. The findings confirmed a complex range of key challenges in AI-powered leadership, including ethical dilemmas, difficulties in human-AI interactions, implementation hurdles, and long-term risks associated with deep AI integration. The study synthesises findings across diverse disciplines like management and ethics, aiming to advance the understanding of this complex relationship and facilitate scholarly investigations into the AI-powered leadership domain. Although AI offers tools to enhance efficiency and cognitive abilities, a clear, universally accepted definition of AI-powered leadership remains elusive.

The inherent fragmentation in defining AI leadership and the established link to ethical dilemmas underscore the absolute necessity of robust human critical thinking and moral judgment. The true value of critical thought here is its role as an essential safeguard against algorithmic overreach. Leaders must critically clarify how the benefits of AI are achieved while upholding ethical standards and human-centric values. This involves navigating the inherent risk that reliance on data-driven decision-making may fail to adequately factor in crucial ethical and social issues.

The authors suggest that clarifying the challenges presented by the integration of AI into leadership contexts empowers scholars and practitioners to understand the evolving AI landscape and its impact on effective leadership. What steps are organizations taking today to explicitly build human moral judgment into AI-powered decision architecture? Share your insights.

Reference: Aziz, M. F., Rajesh, J. I., Jahan, F., McMurrray, A., Ahmed, N., Narendran, R., & Harrison, C. (2025). AI-powered leadership: A systematic literature review. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 40(5), 604–630. https://doi.org/10.1108/JMP-05-2024-0389