A Commentary on Palmer et al. (2024): Navigating Leadership Theories,Gender,and the Role of AI

Abstract

Keywords

Leadership Theories Artificial Intelligence Gender Culture

The interplay of artificial intelligence (AI) and cultural values, and its impact on leadership effectiveness, is a field that is underexplored, specifically concerning destructive leadership. Building on the work of Palmer et al. (2024), the present paper examines how leadership dynamics are influenced by various cultural factors, including gender egalitarianism, in-group collectivism, and performance orientation, as well as AI’s significant influence on reshaping leadership practices. By combining cutting-edge studies of AI leadership with implicit leadership theory, we expand the conversation regarding destructive leadership and its impact on workplace employee satisfaction. Our analysis highlights a flexible, intersectional approach that considers variations in subculture, change over generations, and ethics involved with artificial intelligence. We propose actionable strategies for organizations to foster inclusive and adaptive leadership practices, ensuring relevance in a rapidly evolving global landscape. This commentary not only extends Palmer et al.’s findings but also charts a path for future research, urging scholars to leverage cultural values and AI to mitigate destructive leadership’s negative effects, advancing inclusive, flexible, and globally meaningful leadership frameworks.

Implicit Leadership Theories – Cultural Influences on Leadership Expectations

Implicit Leadership Theories (ILTs) have long served as a foundational lens through which followers’ expectations about leaders are formed based on entrenched cultural values. Palmer et al. (2024) adeptly utilize ILT to demonstrate how cultural dimensions moderate the relationship between destructive leadership and job satisfaction. However, their explanation would be more helpful if it better explained the interplay between static cultural scores and dynamic social forces. For instance, even if high power distance cultures supposedly mitigate the negative effects of destructive leadership in such institutions in that junior staff in such institutions embrace authoritarianism as normative; such a perception fails to account for the speedy social transformations caused by urbanization combined with changed generation sentiments. Younger employees, increasingly influenced by globalized media and diverse cultural narratives, are more likely to reject traditional hierarchies, creating a dissonance between longstanding cultural expectations and emerging leadership ideals.

Moreover, the focal article’s treatment of gender egalitarianism as a moderator is limited by its failure to integrate an intersectional analysis. In cultures that emphasize gender egalitarianism, the negative impact of destructive leadership is amplified not only because such behavior violates norms of fairness but also because it disproportionately affects women and minority groups. These compounded experiences where gender intersects with ethnicity, class, and other identity markers (Friedrich et al., 2024; Koburtay et al., 2023) highlight the need for a dynamic framework that captures both traditional cultural values and the rapid evolution of social identities.

Finally, the static assessment of cultural scores overlooks emerging trends such as AI integration in leadership. For example, in high uncertainty avoidance cultures, the transparent and accountable nature of AI tools may reduce the tolerance for arbitrary behavior, thereby challenging traditional ILTs. Conversely, in high power distance cultures, AI’s neutrality might reinforce hierarchical norms. By integrating these dynamic cultural shifts, intersectional identities, and technological influences, future research can develop a more comprehensive framework that reflects the complexities of modern leadership.

The Paradox of Performance Orientation

Palmer et al. (2024) hypothesize that performance orientation weakens the destructive leadership-to-job satisfaction relationship, yet their findings reveal the opposite (r = −.42). This paradox aligns with evidence from high-performance cultures, where relentless pursuit of excellence often legitimizes destructive practices and excessive workloads, micromanagement, and aggressive leadership that ultimately undermine employee well-being (Lipman, 2006). For example, in technology industries, aggressive leadership may yield short-term gains, but over time, it erodes morale and retention (Harvey et al., 2007).

Importantly, this paradox intersects with emerging dynamics between AI transparency and uncertainty avoidance. In organizations with rigid, hierarchical structures, AI tools designed to enhance transparency can inadvertently reinforce uncertainty avoidance by embedding inflexible protocols that limit adaptive responses. In contrast, flatter, more agile organizational structures can harness AI transparency to empower employees with objective, real-time data, thereby challenging destructive behaviors and reducing uncertainty. This suggests that organizational design plays a pivotal role in mediating the effects of high-performance demands, transforming AI’s role from a mechanism that entrenches hierarchical rigidity into one that promotes accountability and adaptability (Schein, 2010).

Organizations can address these challenges by redefining success metrics to include well-being indicators, fostering ethical leadership through empathy-based training, and strategically aligning AI-powered monitoring with decentralized decision-making. Recent studies have shown that AI-driven innovations are transforming organizational frameworks, from hierarchical adjustments to decentralized decision-making models, enhancing efficiency and responsiveness (Elkahlout et al., 2024). Additionally, research indicates that higher uncertainty avoidance is associated with increased trust in AI applications, suggesting that cultural factors play a significant role in the adoption and effectiveness of AI-powered monitoring systems (Li et al., 2023). Future research should critically examine how structural configurations mediate the interplay between AI transparency, uncertainty avoidance, and performance orientation, offering pathways to balance competitive excellence with sustainable, human-centric leadership practices.

In-Group Collectivism – The Role of Group Dynamics

In-group collectivism fosters harmony, loyalty, and shared identity, shaping responses to destructive leadership. Palmer et al. (2024) argue that in highly collectivist cultures, followers prioritize group harmony over personal well-being, masking leadership’s negative effects on job satisfaction. This aligns with Gelfand et al. (2017), who suggest collectivist norms suppress dissent, enabling destructive leadership to persist. For instance, employees in Japan and South Korea may tolerate such behaviors to maintain cohesion, despite long-term dissatisfaction and decreased innovation. In contrast, in low collectivist settings like the United States, individuals may vocally resist destructive leadership but frequently find themselves isolated, lacking the collective support necessary to address systemic issues (House et al., 2004).

While promoting psychological safety is a crucial first step in enabling employees to voice concerns without fear of retribution it is insufficient on its own. Broader systemic interventions are needed to transform the organizational context. Organizations should also consider a process of organizational restructuring that would institutionalize participatory governance arrangements such as establishing employee councils or formal union representation, that allow a collective voice and enable dissent to be converted to actionable changes. Recent studies have highlighted the effectiveness of such participatory mechanisms in making organizational decision-making more productive and inclusive (Fung, 2015; Smith, 2009). Revising incentive systems to reward ethical behavior and transparency, alongside instituting robust leadership accountability frameworks, can further recalibrate organizational norms. Additionally, integrating AI-powered feedback systems offers an anonymous, real-time channel for employees to report issues without disrupting group cohesion. Empirical studies affirm that AI maximizes the precision and consistency of performance feedback, thereby enhancing employee performance, and bringing added value to organizations (Tong et al., 2021). This multifaceted approach, coupled with the basic provision of psychological safety, can effectively synchronize the natural strengths of collectivist cultures with the need for transparency and individual empowerment, resulting in a more resilient and ethically responsive organization.

Methodological Critique: The Aggregation Bias Dilemma

Overreliance on National-Level Data

A key limitation of Palmer et al.’s study is its reliance on country-level cultural scores from the GLOBE project. By aggregating data at the national level, the authors assume homogeneity within cultures, ignoring subcultural variations that can significantly influence leadership outcomes. For instance, a moderate negative relation between destructive leadership and job satisfaction in Germany (ρ = −.47) can overshadow considerable discrepancies between traditional hierarchical sectors and technology startups with an egalitarian ethos. In one case, workers can suffer from the deleterious consequences of authoritarian leadership, supported and deep-rooted in practice, and in technology startups, a similar leadership style will cause increased turnover and dissatisfaction in workers.

The aggregation bias problem is particularly acute in multicultural settings, such as in the United States, with its regions, ethnic groups, and work-related subcultures. For instance, Silicon Valley’s normative values of innovation and collaboration differ from the hierarchical and competitive values prevalent in Wall Street society. By failing to account for these subcultural variations, Palmer et al.’s findings risk misguiding multinational firms that operate across diverse cultural landscapes. Future research should adopt multilevel modeling to disentangle societal, organizational, and individual influences, offering a more granular understanding of leadership dynamics.

Gender Egalitarianism: A Missed Intersectional Lens

Palmer et al. identify gender egalitarianism as a strong moderator in their study (r = −.44); nevertheless, its interaction with other cultural dimensions is not examined. In cultures in which gender egalitarianism is prioritized, female leaders challenging destructive behavior can face heightened backlash through deep-rooted biases (Nadeem & de Luque, 2020). For instance, in Scandinavian countries that prioritize gender egalitarianism, high-profile female leaders consistently face detrimental consequences for challenging deep-rooted gendered conventions, a practice coined “the double bind”. As an important intersectional variable in explaining values-influenced leadership experiences, it is not, however, examined in Palmer et al.’s work appropriately.

Furthermore, in settings of high-power distance coupled with low gender egalitarianism, this intersection of these two influences has a profound impact on diminishing women’s leadership credibility. In such a case, the synergistic effects of systemic bias coupled with deeply ingrained hierarchical norms produce synergistic, not additive, barriers that lead to amplified challenges for marginalized group leaders (Friedrich et al., 2024). With a more intersectional analysis, future studies can better capture how these intersecting identities interact to impact leadership processes, making more inclusive leadership approaches more practical in more diverse organizational settings.

Theoretical Contributions – Implicit Leadership Theory in Focus

While Palmer et al. (2024) utilize Implicit Leadership Theory (ILT) to demonstrate how cultural values shape followers’ expectations, their framework does not fully capture the complexities of modern leadership challenges. Contemporary organizations are experiencing unprecedented change due to digital globalization, generational shifts, and the disruptive impact of artificial intelligence. To address these challenges, it is essential to integrate ILT with complementary theoretical perspectives.

Adaptive Leadership Theory as formulated by Heifetz et al. (2009) offers a valuable counterbalance to the relatively static view of ILT. Adaptive Leadership emphasizes the need for leaders to mobilize people to address complex, non-routine challenges through continuous learning and innovation. This aspect is increasingly relevant in situations in which artificial intelligence is revolutionizing decision-making processes, and digital connectivity is eroding national boundaries. In such situations, leaders need to be skilled in diagnosing adaptive challenges, experimenting with new approaches, and inculcating resilience in heterogeneous groups.

Similarly, Sensemaking Theory (Weick, 1995) provides an essential complement by exploring how followers continuously reinterpret and reconstruct meaning in the face of uncertainty. In AI-integrated contexts in which high-tech innovations disrupt established norms, processes of sensemaking allow followers and leaders to negotiate new paradigms of effective leadership. The coupling of these theories with ILT yields a more dynamic and participatory conceptualization of leadership one that is grounded in leadership’s fluidity in response to cross-cutting forces of culture, technology, and demographics.

Finally, incorporating an intersectional perspective into this integrative model further enriches our understanding. By examining how gender, ethnicity, and age intersect with cultural values, we gain critical insights into the differential impacts of leadership practices. In addition to advancing theoretical discourse, this all-encompassing approach provides helpful advice for creating leadership strategies that adapt to the complexity of modern, culturally varied, and technologically driven organizations.

Conclusion and Future Research Directions: Charting a Path Forward

Palmer et al. (2024) offer a foundational analysis of how cultural values shape the link between destructive leadership and job satisfaction. However, their framework relies on static cultural dimensions, which may not fully capture workplace complexities. Future research should adopt multidimensional perspectives, considering subcultures, intersectional identities, and evolving technologies. One promising area is cultural hybridity, where traditional and modern norms merge. Investigating how this hybridity moderates destructive leadership’s effects on job satisfaction could be insightful. Employees in urban tech hubs may react differently from those in rural, traditional settings, underscoring the need for tailored leadership strategies. Moreover, it is also important to widen the focus beyond job satisfaction to include stress, burnout, and mental health. There is evidence that coworker support in collectivist cultures can mitigate emotional harm, whereas individualist cultures may exacerbate isolation. Examining these dynamics can help organizations tailor particular well-being interventions. Further, intersectional identities such as gender, ethnicity, and class need to be explored. Women in high power distance cultures may face unique challenges, demanding more nuanced leadership models.

The incorporation of artificial intelligence (AI) in leadership approaches is a notable avenue for future research. The examination of AI’s perceived neutrality in different systems of cultural values can yield useful knowledge in terms of its effectiveness in different settings. For example, in high uncertainty avoidance cultures, AI may reduce uncertainty, while in humane-oriented contexts it can lead to a perception of detachment. Understanding such dynamics is crucial as more organizations increasingly adopt AI technologies. Finally, conducting longitudinal studies to track the long-term implications of cultural shifts and the evolving role of AI in leadership considering factors such as generational changes and technological advancements is crucial. This cohort’s unique experiences are reshaping implicit leadership theories, and understanding these shifts can help organizations adapt to changing workforce dynamics.

By addressing these frontiers, scholars can move beyond static cultural models to develop inclusive, adaptive leadership frameworks that resonate in a globalized, digitally mediated world. This commentary not only extends Palmer et al.’s work but also equips organizations to foster leadership practices that are culturally informed, ethically grounded, and globally impactful.

Footnotes

Author Contributions

The Six authors contributed equally to this work.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Ethical Statement

ORCID iDs

Abriham Ebabu Engidaw

Erstu Tarko Kassa

Author Biographies

Engidaw, Abriham Ebabu (PhD) (Corrs. Author) is an Assistant Professor of management and Postdoctoral researcher in the Shenzhen Research Institute, University of International Business and Economics, Shenzhen, China. His diverse research interests span business, management, public administration, e-commerce, international marketing, digitalization, leadership, and human resource management, reflecting a commitment to advancing knowledge across multiple disciplines. Among other things, he has published his research in international journals such as Group & Organization Management, Knowledge Management Research and Practice, Sage Open and others.

Haichun Yu is a Professor of Law and Doctoral Supervisor at the University of International Business and Economics (UIBE), where he serves as Dean of the Shenzhen Research Institute of UIBE, the Dean of the Market Supervision Research Institute, the Director of the Insurance Industry Policy and Law Research Center. Dr. Yu has authored over 50 academic papers and several influential books, including works on insurance consumer protection and corporate law in core journals. He has led significant research projects on regulatory frameworks, insurance market mechanisms, and technology enterprise cooperation. Dr. Yu is also an arbitrator and advisor for key legal and financial institutions in China.

Zou Weikang is Associate Professor of public administration, the associate dean at research institute of market regulation, assistant dean at School of Government and director of research center of transnational regulation and governance. He is working as a postgraduate professor at School of Government, University of International Business and Economics, Beijing, China. Weikang holds a Ph.D. in Political Economy from University of York, UK.

Kassa Erstu Tarko is currently a PhD student at the School of Government (Public Administration), University of International Business and Economics and an Assistant Professor of management at Woldia University, Ethiopia. He graduated in management from Mekelle University and received his master of business administration degree from the University of Gondar, Ethiopia, in 2018. His research interests are knowledge management in public sectors, green innovation, public sector innovation, public sector entrepreneurship, management tools and strategic management.

Jing Ning (PhD) is an Associate Professor of public administration graduated from Peking University and now she is working as a postgraduate teacher and researcher at School of Government, University of International Business and Economics, Beijing, China

Worku Marie Ayalew is a PhD Candidate at the School of International Relations, University of International Business and Economics, Beijing, China. Her research interests span international relations, global governance, and diplomatic studies, with a particular focus on the dynamics of emerging powers, regional cooperation, and the interplay between international development and peacebuilding. She is passionate about exploring how global actors influence geopolitical landscapes and contribute to sustainable development and conflict resolution across diverse regions.

Associate Editor: Yannick Griep

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