Dehumanising leadership: AI and the construction of post-human leadership

Purpose This paper examines how the attribution of leadership to artificial intelligence (AI) challenges human-centric conceptions of leadership. It argues that the willingness to treat non-human systems as leaders exposes the socially constructed, cognitively embedded and culturally maintained nature of leadership. Using AI as a critical provocation, the paper deconstructs essentialist assumptions about leadership and develops a general model of post-human leadership. Design/methodology/approach The paper offers a conceptual analysis grounded in the social construction of leadership, attribution theory, implicit leadership theory and leadership categorisation theory. AI is used as an analytic lens to surface the interpretive processes through which leadership is inferred, legitimised and stabilised. The analysis culminates in a tentative model of post-human leadership grounded in the processes of attribution, legitimation and reification. Findings The analysis shows that leadership attribution operates retrospectively and is shaped by culturally embedded expectations rather than by human embodiment or intentionality. When leadership is attributed to AI, it reveals that leadership legitimacy depends on interpretation and shared acceptance rather than on inherently human qualities. This finding destabilises person-centric theories of leadership and highlights leadership as a cognitive and social artefact that can persist beyond the human subject. Originality/value This paper contributes to critical leadership studies by using AI to make visible the attributional foundations of leadership. It advances one of the first general theoretical models of post-human leadership, showing how leadership is constructed, legitimised and rendered durable under conditions where authority is no longer anchored exclusively in human actors.