Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are increasingly integrated into management practices, particularly in providing performance feedback. While existing research primarily examines employee reactions, the potential impacts on managers, the key facilitators of this technology-integrated managerial practice, remain largely underexplored. Drawing on psychological ownership theory, we suggest that managers using AI assistance to write feedback would report lower leader identity. Across three experiments (total N = 594), we find that compared to writing negative feedback by themselves, AI-assisted negative feedback writing leads to managers’ lower psychological ownership, which in turn impairs their leader identity. Importantly, our research reveals that an AI-augmented leadership mindset, where managers believe that collaborating with AI in managerial practices can enhance overall leadership effectiveness, can serve as a psychological intervention that might buffer the negative effects on psychological ownership and leader identity. These findings deepen our understanding of AI and its implications for managers and provide theoretical and practical insights into the adoption of AI-assisted management.
