TITLE:
Generative Artificial Intelligence as a Thought Partner for Academic Leaders: Opportunities, Boundaries, and Directions for Research
AUTHORS:
Glenn Stone
KEYWORDS:
Generative Artificial Intelligence, Academic Leadership, Higher Education, Decision-Making, Thought Partner
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Leadership,
Vol.15 No.4,
November
2,
2026
ABSTRACT: Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) has become part of everyday work in higher education, yet much of the discussion has focused on teaching, academic integrity, and productivity. This conceptual article examines a narrower application: the use of GenAI as a thought partner for academic leaders. Drawing on emerging literature on educational leadership, human-AI collaboration, and organizational decision-making, it identifies five thought-partner functions: analyst, devil’s advocate, rehearsal partner, idea generator, and organizer. It then considers boundaries related to accuracy, privacy, context, bias, cognitive offloading, and accountability. The central argument is that GenAI is most useful when it broadens deliberation without substituting for human judgment. The article proposes a simple reflective approach for leaders and outlines directions for empirical research on how academic leaders use AI for production versus deliberation, where they draw boundaries between support and substitution, and whether AI-assisted reflection improves decision quality.