Leadership is fueled by values, which cannot be delegated to AI
Browsing an e-commerce platform for secondhand products, one can find everything: forgotten objects, collector’s items, bargains. Among them, one’s attention might fall on the uniforms of torchbearers, worn by those who carried the Olympic flame. A symbol of a millennia-old tradition, now displayed alongside ordinary products, with a price and room for negotiation.
Each of us might ask: “but can these things be resold?” From my point of view, that is not the right question. It is not so much a matter of rules as of the principles that guide our decisions. Increasingly often, in fact, the criteria that guide behavior tend to favor what is quantifiable and immediately translatable into results. When this logic prevails, it becomes more difficult to distinguish between what can be done and what should be done.
This tension between possibility and appropriateness is not new, but today it is emerging more forcefully, partly because of artificial intelligence. AI makes it possible to do more, faster, and on a larger scale: it automates tasks, supports decisions, and makes accessible skills that previously required years of experience. In many cases, the “how to do it” is no longer a limit. Precisely for this reason, a different and more demanding question arises: if doing is increasingly delegable, who decides which choices are appropriate?
Artificial intelligence does not answer this question. It does not set priorities, define limits, or assign meaning to choices. It amplifies the speed at which decisions are made, but it does not guide them. The risk is that decisions, whether routine or more sensitive, will also be made more quickly and on a larger scale, often with an appearance of neutrality because technological tools support them. This happens because technology tends to present choices as the outcome of an objective process, weakening the perception of individual responsibility. In reality, behind every use of AI, there are priorities, assumptions, and criteria that are not neutral and remain implicit. When these are not made explicit, the risk is not only error, but its gradual normalization: decisions that, taken individually, would appear questionable end up becoming standard practice.
In the face of this transformation, the response might seem simple: increase the rules. But experience shows that excessive regulation is unlikely to solve the problem. Not every situation can be anticipated, nor can every behavior be codified, especially in highly volatile and rapidly changing contexts.
It is precisely in these scenarios that values become a fundamental element, because they operate on a different level. In this sense, they can be understood as shared criteria for choice: they guide decisions when rules are not sufficient and make behavior consistent even in the absence of explicit instructions. This is where leadership takes on a decisive role, not so much in guiding execution or developing skills, but in making clear the principles that guide decisions and bringing them to life in everyday behavior.
Values, however, cannot be imposed. They must be built and reinterpreted over time, through people’s involvement and by listening to the organization, to avoid remaining formal statements and instead become a real point of reference for choices. This is something that also emerges clearly from working closely with companies: when values arise from a shared process and take shape in stories and experiences, in which everyone can recognize themselves, they tend to be more deeply lived and present in decisions; otherwise, they risk remaining declarations on paper. From this perspective, values are not a constraint on change, but one of the conditions that make it possible: they offer direction, help manage transitions, and foster coherent, sustainable evolution that is attentive to long-term impact. The benefits, including at the organizational level, are evident: a clear value system reduces decision-making ambiguity, accelerates processes, and strengthens internal trust. Research shows that employees who perceive a strong alignment between their own values and those of the organization report higher levels of engagement, and that a large majority of workers, especially among younger generations, prefer to work for companies that express a clear and coherent purpose.
The implications, however, go beyond the boundaries of the company. Evidence from the Edelman Trust Barometer indicates that businesses are now among the institutions expected to make an active contribution to building social trust. In this sense, transmitting values is not only an internal choice, but a broader responsibility, one that affects the quality of the context in which organizations operate. The more technologies expand the possibilities for action, the more decisive the criterion that guides them becomes: skills make it possible to act; values help us choose.
In a context in which more and more activities can be delegated, values remain among the few elements that cannot be. And when they are lacking, technology does not fill the void. Ultimately, they are one of the areas in which responsibility remains entirely human. And it is precisely in this responsibility that the value of leadership is at stake today, in organizations but above all in society.
