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Measuring Human Leadership Skills with AI Agents

Author

Listed:
  • Ben Weidmann
  • Yixian Xu
  • David J. Deming

Abstract

We show that leadership skill with artificially intelligent (AI) agents predicts leadership skill with human groups. In a large pre-registered lab experiment, human leaders worked with AI agents to solve problems. Their performance on this “AI leadership test” was strongly correlated (ρ=0.81) with their causal impact as leaders of human teams, which we estimate by repeatedly randomly assigning leaders to groups of human followers and measuring team performance. Successful leaders of both humans and AI agents ask more questions and engage in more conversational turn-taking; they score higher on measures of social intelligence, fluid intelligence, and decision-making skill, but do not differ in gender, age, ethnicity or education. Our findings indicate that AI agents can be effective proxies for human participants in social experiments, which greatly simplifies the measurement of leadership and teamwork skills.

Suggested Citation

  • Ben Weidmann & Yixian Xu & David J. Deming, 2025. "Measuring Human Leadership Skills with AI Agents," NBER Working Papers 33662, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33662
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • M54 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Labor Management
    • O30 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - General

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