Can Artificial Intelligence Lead with Emotional Intelligence? A Critical Review of AI-Augmented Leadership in Contemporary Organizations

Abstract

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in organizational contexts is altering the way traditional leadership has been understood. This transformation examines one critical aspect which is emotional intelligence (EI). This paper considers the implications of EI and AI together, particularly around how AI replicates, enhances or replaces emotionally intelligent leadership. Based on interdisciplinary literature concerning organizational psychology, artificial intelligence, and human–computer interaction, the study assesses AI capabilities regarding emotion recognition, sentiment analysis and decision support compared to the experiential-and ethical aspects of human empathy. These findings imply that while AI could facilitate leaders' emotional awareness by analysing data, at its core it is still incapable of genuine empathy, morality and socio-contextualisation. In addition, empirical results further suggest that AI-mediated leadership maybe indeed reduce emotional engagement and perceived authenticity, despite improving analytical efficiency. The paper instead argues for the redefinition of leadership as a socio-technical, hybrid process in which AI is not seen as a replacement of human leaders but simply provides assistance. It emphasizes the importance of building digital emotional literacy skills for leaders and points to important gaps in existing research, including how AI affects trust, engagement and psychological safety over time. The research concludes that effective leadership in a digitally driven age is based on having the tech lead but keeping uniquely human emotional styles of relating to and working with others intact.