Transformational Leadership in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: A Systematic Review and Research Agenda

Abstract

Transformational leadership has been among the most influential and intensively studied constructs in organizational behavior for nearly five decades, and its empirical record is one of the most robust in the leadership field. Yet its foundational assumptions, leadership as an influence process between human actors operating within relatively stable, human-composed organizations, are increasingly unsettled by the rapid diffusion of artificial intelligence (AI) and digital technologies into the workplace. This systematized review integrates the theoretical, meta-analytic, and critical literatures on transformational leadership and examines how the construct is being reconceptualized for the digital and AI era. We trace the theory's lineage from Burns and Bass, synthesize four decades of meta-analytic evidence concerning its outcomes, mediators, and boundary conditions, and review the principal critiques of its conceptual and measurement validity. We then analyze the emerging literatures on e-leadership and digital leadership to articulate how transformational leadership is being redefined in AI-intensive organizations. We conclude by proposing a research agenda organized around four themes: theorizing the follower-transformation mechanism, reconceptualizing leadership as the design of human-AI symbiotic systems, expanding measurement beyond the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire, and situating transformational leadership across cultural and technological contexts.