Leading by Algorithm: Reconfiguring the Nature of Leadership in Digitalized Work Environments

The project examines the development and application of digital leadership tools in high-performance organizations (HPOs).

Our aim is to gain insights into how data-driven analytics are transforming the nature and scope of leadership in digitalized work environments.Spurred by developments in artificial intelligence and machine learning, algorithmic forms of management are now prevalent in almost every sector of industry.

Yet few studies have examined how AI-assisted tools impact on the practice of leadership, understood as a social influencing process.

The project thus explores the opportunities and challenges faced by organizations in which soft leadership skills are blended with automated inputs.

Empirically, we focus on the lived realities of ‘leading by algorithm’ in the tech sector in Sweden.Taking its cue from qualitative and interpretative research, the project addresses two main questions: 1) How is the task of leadership transformed by algorithms? 2) How do data-driven analytics affect the leader-follower relationship?

These questions are relevant for two reasons.

First, algorithms are shaping leadership tasks such as strategic planning and employee motivation, so it is crucial to understand how leaders make sense of and interact with these new technologies.

Second, the use of algorithms has ethical implications, so it is important to examine how leaders – and their teams – navigate the moral dilemmas that arise in digitalized work environments.