The goal of this work is to examine how transformational leadership influences employees’ AI usage intentions. Specifically, we look into the mediating roles of AI literacy, AI usage self-efficacy, and technology acceptance attitudes in the association between the leadership style and AI adoption in organizations.
Structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed to analyze survey data from 324 office employees in South Korea. The validity of the results was verified by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and the bootstrap method was used to prove the statistical significance of indirect effects.
Key findings were that transformational leadership has strong positive effects on AI literacy, AI usage self-efficacy, and technology acceptance attitudes. All three factors fully account for the relationship between leadership and AI usage intentions. AI literacy was the most important determinant of an employee’s intention to use generative AI.
The research is limited by the fact that it focused on South Korean professionals, and sociocultural factors such as hierarchical relationships could affect the perception. Moreover, self-reported data may lead to subjective biases on competency levels.
Organizations should move beyond one-time technical training and instead implement continuous, project-based learning programs to enhance AI literacy and self-efficacy. Leadership development programs should also focus on transformational skills (visionary and individualized support) to reduce employee anxiety and create an AI-ready workplace that is proactive.
This study expands transformational leadership roles and individual psychological competencies to generative AI use in organizations. It shows how transformational leadership and AI literacy of business organizations are critical to technology adoption in complex and uncertain organizational environments.
