Balancing the AI paradox: a conceptual model of leadership, digital well-being and relational energy at work
This conceptual paper examines how artificial intelligence (AI) reshapes leadership dynamics. It addresses a critical gap: the lack of an integrated framework explaining how AI leadership influences employees' psychological and social resources. The paper develops the AI-augmented leadership–well-being–relational energy model. This framework challenges the job demands-resources model's static view, theorizing digital well-being as a dynamic regulatory mechanism linking leadership behaviors to relational energy. The analysis finds that AI-empowering leadership enhances digital well-being and strengthens relational energy. Conversely, AI-monitoring leadership depletes these same vital resources. The proposed model is conceptual and needs empirical validation across different cultural and organizational settings. The model provides leaders and organizations with a critical, human-centered framework for the ethical integration of AI into leadership practice, aiming to foster more resilient and energized workplaces. Socially, it promotes digitally healthy, resilient workplaces. The primary contributions are extending the job-demands and resource model, uniquely re-conceptualizing digital well-being as a regulatory resource and relational energy as a collective amplifier and recasting the leader's role as a sociotechnical architect.