Algorithmic leadership and the game of business
(2026) In Leadership 22(3). p.184-201- Abstract
Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have renewed debates about the future of leadership, in particular the nature of the relationship between human leaders and intelligent machines. The literature tends to portrays human-machine relations in complementary terms: the machine does the data analysis and the number crunching while the leader makes the decisions, guided by their unique vision, gut-feeling, and inner moral compass. Drawing on the historical metaphor of the Mechanical Turk, the paper complicates this division of labour in two main ways. First, we revisit the influence of game theory on business thinking in order to question whether leadership has ever relied solely on uniquely human faculties such as intuition,... (More)
Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have renewed debates about the future of leadership, in particular the nature of the relationship between human leaders and intelligent machines. The literature tends to portrays human-machine relations in complementary terms: the machine does the data analysis and the number crunching while the leader makes the decisions, guided by their unique vision, gut-feeling, and inner moral compass. Drawing on the historical metaphor of the Mechanical Turk, the paper complicates this division of labour in two main ways. First, we revisit the influence of game theory on business thinking in order to question whether leadership has ever relied solely on uniquely human faculties such as intuition, vision, or moral judgment. Instead, we suggest that leadership has long been shaped by the algorithmic logic of strategic optimization. Second, we show that AI is becoming adept at simulating human leadership, a capability that makes it tempting to outsource traditional leadership functions to a computerized system. We warn that this dynamic risks producing a reversal of the Mechanical Turk: not a machine concealing human intelligence, but rather a human concealing machine intelligence. We conclude by arguing that AI, understood as a socio-technical system, is currently reshaping what leadership is and how it is enacted in organizations.
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- author
- Spoelstra, Sverre LU and Butler, Nick LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2026
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- algorithmic leadership, algorithmic management, artificial intelligence, automation, digitalization, ethics
- in
- Leadership
- volume
- 22
- issue
- 3
- pages
- 18 pages
- publisher
- SAGE Publications
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:105034593509
- ISSN
- 1742-7150
- DOI
- 10.1177/17427150261436598
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- additional info
- Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2026. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
- id
- 6f83792d-e616-49ac-8180-04df9ae5d4f4
- date added to LUP
- 2026-06-18 14:44:10
- date last changed
- 2026-06-18 14:44:20
@article{6f83792d-e616-49ac-8180-04df9ae5d4f4,
abstract = {{<p>Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have renewed debates about the future of leadership, in particular the nature of the relationship between human leaders and intelligent machines. The literature tends to portrays human-machine relations in complementary terms: the machine does the data analysis and the number crunching while the leader makes the decisions, guided by their unique vision, gut-feeling, and inner moral compass. Drawing on the historical metaphor of the Mechanical Turk, the paper complicates this division of labour in two main ways. First, we revisit the influence of game theory on business thinking in order to question whether leadership has ever relied solely on uniquely human faculties such as intuition, vision, or moral judgment. Instead, we suggest that leadership has long been shaped by the algorithmic logic of strategic optimization. Second, we show that AI is becoming adept at simulating human leadership, a capability that makes it tempting to outsource traditional leadership functions to a computerized system. We warn that this dynamic risks producing a reversal of the Mechanical Turk: not a machine concealing human intelligence, but rather a human concealing machine intelligence. We conclude by arguing that AI, understood as a socio-technical system, is currently reshaping what leadership is and how it is enacted in organizations.</p>}},
author = {{Spoelstra, Sverre and Butler, Nick}},
issn = {{1742-7150}},
keywords = {{algorithmic leadership; algorithmic management; artificial intelligence; automation; digitalization; ethics}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{3}},
pages = {{184--201}},
publisher = {{SAGE Publications}},
series = {{Leadership}},
title = {{Algorithmic leadership and the game of business}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/17427150261436598}},
doi = {{10.1177/17427150261436598}},
volume = {{22}},
year = {{2026}},
}