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7This chapter describes the role of metacognitive ability in
leadership development while providing practical ideas and tools
for the development of metacognitive abilities for current and future
leaders.
Thinking About Thinking About
Leadership: Metacognitive Ability and
Leader Developmental Readiness
Hunter Black, Lisa Soto, Sam Spurlin
Imagine two people, Jan and Steve, who have both recently been promoted
to leadership positions in their organizations. They were both highly suc-
cessful in their previous jobs; however, expectations and responsibilities
have changed signicantly in their new roles. They are now managing more
people, setting the direction for the organization, needing to collaborate
across department lines, and having to communicate a clear and compelling
vision for the future to others in the organization. Now imagine that Jan has
the ability to successfully reect on her current knowledge and identify the
areas in which she is lacking knowledge and ability. She then seeks out
the information and skills she is missing and monitors how well her learn-
ing strategies are working, while also modifying and adapting her learn-
ing as she goes. In contrast, Steve does not realize that his current skill
set is insufcient for the demands of the new job, and proceeds by using
the same behaviors and strategies that worked in his previous role. Un-
like Jan, Steve has low metacognitive ability. All else being equal, which
one of these individuals do you think will develop into a more effective
leader?
Metacognitive ability (MCA)—the focus of this chapter—is one of the
central components of leader developmental readiness (LDR). LDR is de-
ned as “the ability and motivation to attend to, make meaning of, and
appropriate new leader KSAAs (knowledge, skills, abilities, and attributes)
into knowledge structures along with concomitant changes in identity to
employ those KSAAs” (Hannah & Avolio, 2010, p. 1182). As can be seen
NEW DIRECTIONS FOR STUDENT LEADERSHIP, no. 149, Spring 2016 ©2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc., A Wiley Company
Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) •DOI: 10.1002/yd.20164 85
86 LEADER DEVELOPMENTAL READINESS:PURSUIT OF LEADERSHIP EXCELLENCE
in this denition, LDR requires that leaders have both the abilities neces-
sary to learn and develop and the motivation to take the steps required for
developing their skills.
MCA falls under the ability category of LDR and is conceptualized
as a leader’s capacity to engage in the process of “second order thinking”
(Hannah & Avolio, 2010, p. 1184) or metacognition. The ability to “know
about what we know” (Metcalfe & Shimamura, 1994, p. xi) is believed to
accelerate leader development by allowing for awareness of leaders’ cogni-
tive strengths and weaknesses, their understanding of what they know and
don’t know, as well as the ability to monitor and adapt their learning as
needed (Avolio & Hannah, 2008; Schraw & Dennison, 1994).
Although MCA is related to intelligence (Borkowski, 1985), research
suggests the two operate independently (Swanson, 1990). Whereas intelli-
gence relates to mental ability or aptitude, MCA allows leaders to under-
stand and regulate their thought processes, which contributes to learning
and problem solving. Every human being uses metacognition on a daily ba-
sis, often without being aware of it. When leaders think about how well
they understand something and whether they may be missing information,
or when they reect on the best way to learn a new subject or skill, they are
utilizing metacognitive strategies.
MCA plays an important role in leader development in two distinct
ways. First, leaders who have better MCA will likely be better at their
role as a leader. Past research has shown that MCA is related to creative
problem solving (Marshall-Mies et al., 2000), decision making (Batha &
Carroll, 2007), critical thinking (Magno, 2010), and leader performance
(Mumford, Baughman, Supinski, Costanza, & Threlfall, 1993). Second,
leaders with better MCA will likely gain more from developmental expe-
riences, as they are better prepared for richer information processing and
meaning making from these experiences (Hannah & Avolio, 2010). This
metacognitive reection leads “to greater self-insight, less maladaptive pro-
cessing, and changes to deeper self-structures” that can accelerate develop-
mental readiness (Hannah & Avolio, 2010, p. 1184). As a result, developing
this capacity in leaders not only benets their current leadership aptitudes,
but also puts them on a positive developmental trajectory throughout their
careers as they encounter opportunities to learn and grow.
Despite growing evidence of its importance to leader development, it
is rare for leader development interventions to target the development of
MCA. This chapter summarizes research on MCA, explains how it relates
to leader development, and provides strategies for developing MCA with
others or on your own.
MCA and Leader Development
Leadership skills are very complex and context dependent, which makes
MCA particularly important to developing as a leader (Marshall-Mies et al.,
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THINKING ABOUT THINKING ABOUT LEADERSHIP 87
2000). Unlike typical skill development, leaders face social challenges in-
volving high levels of novelty and ambiguity that require creative prob-
lem solving, social judgment, and knowledge of the task, organization, and
people (Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, Jacobs, & Fleishman, 2000). With-
out clear and consistent environmental circumstances, leaders often have
to monitor and adapt to a wide range of situational requirements.
The metacognitive abilities of monitoring and adapting cognition can
impact aspects of a leader’s capacity to develop. These may include a leader’s
self-awareness, regulation of learning from one’s experiences, understand-
ing and inuencing others, and even facilitating development of follow-
ers’ MCA. To begin, MCA plays an important role in self-awareness, which
has been argued to be foundational to leader development (e.g., Gardner,
Avolio, Luthans, May, & Walumbwa, 2005).
Specically, MCA can improve the accuracy of the leaders’ beliefs about
themselves by allowing them to identify inconsistencies and to adjust these
beliefs so that they are more representative of reality, thus increasing self-
concept clarity and self-awareness. In addition, when leaders have a new
developmental experience, MCA helps them incorporate this new experi-
ence into their past and current self-concept. If a leader has high MCA and
the new experience conicts with past experience, this discrepancy is more
likely to result in the expansion of the leader’s self-concept by incorporating
this new information into current beliefs and perspectives, ultimately allow-
ing the development of a more complex understanding of the phenomenon
(i.e., cognitive complexity).
In addition, leaders who have high MCA would be better able to adjust
the way they approach leadership challenges and to maximize developmen-
tal opportunities. For example, they could monitor when they are approach-
ing an experience with a learning and/or a performance orientation, and be
able to shift their thinking by recognizing their beliefs and moving toward
a learning mind-set to get more out of the developmental experience. Hav-
ing a learning orientation is benecial for leader development because it
involves persistence (e.g., overcoming obstacles), motivation to discover
new things, master new leadership skills, and a willingness to seek and use
feedback (DeRue & Wellman, 2009; see Chapter 5 of this volume).
Similarly, MCA is believed to support a leader’s capacity to develop by
allowing for more in-depth processing of learning experiences (Hannah &
Avolio, 2010). In particular, Lord and Hall (2005) assert that metacognitive
skills are especially important for leaders who already have acquired ba-
sic leadership skills. Because basic leadership skills have become automatic
for these individuals, they have the capacity to monitor and evaluate the
effectiveness of their leadership approach. This liberated processing capac-
ity allows leaders to amplify learning from their experiences adopting and
evaluating new strategies to enhance their effectiveness.
Once at this level of development, leaders can shift their focus from
their own cognition better understanding the cognition of others. As a
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88 LEADER DEVELOPMENTAL READINESS:PURSUIT OF LEADERSHIP EXCELLENCE
result, MCA can serve as an important tool for developing leaders’ social in-
uencing skills. Lord and Hall (2005) report that leaders can develop more
complex awareness of their followers’ cognition through understanding fol-
lowers’ needs, preferences, and reactions to the leader’s behavior. Through
this process, MCA aids in the development of the complex social skills es-
sential to effective leadership. To illustrate, imagine that Maria has recently
graduated from college and is entering the world of work. She took courses
on the subject of leadership and even managed a club at her university.
However, when she enters the workplace, she nds that there are many
conicting interests and perspectives, making it difcult to get things done.
Because Maria has strong MCA, she is able to intentionally reect on the
motivations of others, and to monitor and adapt her communication in a
way that brings together others’ diverse perspectives. This ability allows
her to develop a sense of shared direction and to facilitate communication
where there was previously conict.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, a leader who has high MCA will
be better able to stimulate metacognitive reection in others. This ability
is benecial because collective metacognitive reection leads to creative
and expansive thinking, which can support problem solving and the de-
velopment of new strategies to deal with similar situations in the future
(Brand, Reimer, & Opwis, 2003). Akey dimension of transformational lead-
ership, intellectual stimulation, may be one mechanism by which leaders’
MCA can inuence the development of the MCA of their followers. By
encouraging followers to reect on, reexamine, and challenge their own as-
sumptions, ways of thinking, and acting (Bass & Riggio, 2006), transforma-
tional leaders help followers assess and monitor their cognitions, which are
all foundational dimensions of the process of metacognition. Furthermore,
when leaders seek different perspectives, foster outside-of-the-box think-
ing, reward innovative and creative solutions (Sosik & Jung, 2010), and
critically challenge the assumptions behind their actions (Mezirow, 2000),
they are modeling these metacognitive and integrating them as a way of
approaching work. Thus, they are actively developing followers’ MCA over
time.
Developing MCA in Future Leaders
Research shows that metacognitive techniques can be taught, and that train-
ing in such techniques can improve learning (Pintrich, 2002) and decision
making (Batha & Carroll, 2007). Thus, learning about how one learns early
on can serve the leader for the rest of his or her life. Because the process
of metacognition often occurs at a subconscious level (Flavell, 1979), it
is important to begin intentionally developing positive metacognitive prac-
tices early in life starting with basic knowledge of cognition. Developing the
metacognitive practices of future leaders can start as early as elementary
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THINKING ABOUT THINKING ABOUT LEADERSHIP 89
school and can occur in various settings across the life span, such as in
school, during formal training, in conversations with others, or individu-
ally. These practices include many skills identied by Schraw and Dennison
(1994), such as:
•Monitoring understanding of material
•Using strategies that have worked in the past
•Time management and planning skills
•The ability to distinguish between important and superuous informa-
tion
•Learning to evaluate the effectiveness of learning strategies
•Brainstorming multiple strategies and deciding which to utilize
•Understanding, but not being limited by, cognitive strengths and weak-
nesses
•Associating new information with information that is already known
•Improving memorization by using strategies such as rehearsal
Once leaders develop the ability to comprehend more complicated cog-
nitive processes, they could also be taught psychological principles that
will help regulate their cognitive activity more effectively. For example,
Baumeister and Tierney (2011) report that the ability to think effectively
can be impacted by the amount of sleep one gets, how much stress one
is under, how recently one ate, and how many decisions one has made re-
cently. Using this knowledge of how the brain operates, leaders can monitor
their energy and regulate their behavior so that their minds are functioning
optimally for the task being performed.
As a leader learns to implement and rene these strategies, their use will
become increasingly automatic. When that occurs, this opens up cognitive
capacity to monitor and regulate cognitive processes (Lord & Hall, 2005).
With experience, the ability to understand increasingly complex cognitive
functions and knowledge of one’s strengths, weaknesses, and preferences
will grow.
The following sections present specic tools and strategies leaders can
use to develop their MCA.
Tools for Developing MCA
Many useful tools and activities exist that can help develop MCA. These
have been applied in various contexts, but what they have in common is
that they require leaders to reect on their own awareness and thought pro-
cesses. They can be used individually, in a group, or with a teacher or coach.
However, it is important for leaders to develop the ability to nurture their
own metacognitive development. Luckily, a myriad of activities and strate-
gies exist that can be tied to leader self-development.
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90 LEADER DEVELOPMENTAL READINESS:PURSUIT OF LEADERSHIP EXCELLENCE
Developing MCA Through Self-Development. Even the most rigor-
ous leader development programs are relatively short in scope when com-
pared to the amount of time that individuals spend in their daily work
and leisure contexts. Therefore, leaders need to focus persistently on devel-
oping their leadership abilities (Reichard & Johnson, 2011) during these
programs and beyond. Therefore, self-development or the purposeful inte-
gration of “self-initiated behaviors focused on developing leadership capac-
ities” (p. 35) can play an extremely large role in the development of MCA.
•Mindfulness meditation: Mindfulness meditation is a reective practice
where one sits quietly and observes thoughts, emotions, and/or body sen-
sations without trying to change or inuence them. Mindfulness medita-
tion can help develop MCA by increasing leaders’ ability to notice how
they think and feel. This practice is believed to improve cognitive abil-
ities (Zeidan, Johnson, Diamond, David, & Goolkasian, 2010) and the
capacity to regulate thoughts and emotions by creating more detachment
from them (Creswell, Way, Eisenberger, & Lieberman, 2007), thus giving
them the opportunity to be more intentional in choosing how to respond.
•Journaling: Research shows that leaders may benet over time from jour-
naling about what they are learning and about themselves as leaders.
McCrindle and Christensen (1995) conducted a study in which uni-
versity students in a freshman biology course were separated into two
groups. One group was instructed to keep a learning journal detailing
their learning processes throughout the course, and the other group was
instructed to complete a scientic report on what they were learning.
The students who kept a learning journal (weekly for ve weeks) used
more sophisticated and metacognitive learning strategies, and also per-
formed better on the nal exam. Dunlap (2006) recommends scheduling
journaling activities every two or three weeks to minimize burnout, or
scheduling them after key events or project milestones. Hence, leaders
can incorporate this practice after important presentations or meetings,
at the end of project phases, or at other meaningful points in time.
Developing MCA Through Conversation. Developmental relation-
ships such as coaching and mentoring provide a context where leaders can
reect on the nature and quality of their thoughts, as well as dene and test
strategies for developing as a leader. This type of relationship also allows
leaders to receive feedback that is deemed effective and credible because it
is provided by an objective third party and intended to contribute to their
growth. These relationships can occur as part of a formal development strat-
egy, but can also be intentionally sought after by leaders to advance in their
development path.
•Debrieng: Leaders, coaches, mentors, teachers, facilitators, or peers can
utilize debrieng methods to help others gain insight after a develop-
mental experience. Debrieng entails allocating time and effort to talking
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THINKING ABOUT THINKING ABOUT LEADERSHIP 91
about how learning is going, what is working and not working, or what
happened with a completed project or activity in terms of the process as
well as the outcomes. For example, DeRue, Nahrgang, Hollenbeck, and
Workman (2012) found that in a leadership development context, “after-
event reviews” are effective interventions for enhancing leaders’ develop-
ment through experiences. Leaders who engage in this type of debrief-
ing tend to “improve their performance of key leadership behaviors over
time” (DeRue et al., 2012, p. 1008). Debrieng supports a systematic and
deliberate way of processing and analyzing information, thus enhancing
leaders’ MCA.
•Think-aloud learning: By communicating thought processes verbally dur-
ing a task or activity, leaders can become more aware of their own and
others’ cognitive processes. This can promote individual and organiza-
tional learning, and enhance communication and teamwork. An exam-
ple of think-aloud learning would be to use case-based questions in the
classroom or leadership training. Leaders could read hypothetical sce-
narios and share not only how they would address the problem, but also
how they arrived at their conclusions. Through these types of think-aloud
activities, leaders learn metacognitive strategies from one another and
become more aware of their own thinking.
•Classroom and formal training: Teachers and facilitators can integrate
learning and application of metacognitive strategies in lectures and work
assignments. The deliberate teaching of these strategies can help students
apply them in other contexts or situations. For example, a teacher can
provide explicit instructions for students to think and write about their
thought process when performing a task or completing an assignment.
A facilitator may want to include reective questions as part of train-
ing or developmental activities to encourage participants to think about
which learning strategies are working best, or what information or skills
they may still be missing. Moreover, teachers and facilitators can openly
discuss metacognitive strategies to evaluate learning processes (Pintrich,
2002), or include best practices and study skills along with the lesson or
training.
•Coaching: Coaching is generally dened as a collaborative relationship
in which coach and client work together to support the client in obtain-
ing valued personal and professional developmental outcomes (Grant,
Passmore, Cavanagh, & Parker, 2010), and many coaching practices sup-
port the development of MCA. At the core of a coaching relationship is
an inquiry process, which fosters reection and insight on the part of
the client while setting, planning, and pursuing a goal. A key tool for
the coach is to ask questions that raise clients’ awareness and knowledge
about the thoughts and beliefs that inform their attitudes, characteristics,
and behaviors (e.g., values, perceived strengths and weaknesses). This
evaluation on the part of the client often leads to identifying and practic-
ing strategies to self-regulate.
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92 LEADER DEVELOPMENTAL READINESS:PURSUIT OF LEADERSHIP EXCELLENCE
Engaging in a conversation with a coach can help leaders explicitly
focus on discovering, evaluating, and, if needed, changing their cogni-
tions (thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes) about their capacity to lead. To
illustrate, imagine an emerging leader who discovers through the coach-
ing process that he lacks condence in his leadership ability because he
is an introvert and associates good leadership with someone who is out-
going or talkative. By working with the coach, he could overcome this
assumption and focus on leveraging his unique strengths to improve his
condence. Through the coaching process, leaders will likely learn to step
back and reect deeply upon other situations in their lives, thus further
enhancing their MCA.
•Mentoring: As with coaching, the relationship between mentor and
prot´
eg´
e focuses on development and improved performance. A mentor
is usually a member of the organization who has greater authority, expe-
rience, or tenure in the emerging leader’s eld of interest, from whom the
leader wants to learn. A key element that supports MCA in mentoring
is modeling. Leaders can learn metacognitive skills by observing their
mentors and actively asking them to share their thought processes and
rationales behind choices or decisions. In addition, the leader may be able
to shadow the mentor, paying close attention to thinking, problem solv-
ing, and interacting with others. A mentor can help leaders become more
aware of their own thoughts and beliefs through feedback and mirroring,
and help create strategies to monitor, plan, and evaluate those thoughts.
Discussion and Limitations
Despite the fact that metacognitive research has been ongoing for 35 years,
there is still quite a bit more that needs to be done on the subject to ad-
vance understanding of its importance to leadership. To begin, there needs
to be increased clarity about what does, or does not, constitute metacog-
nition and MCA. Currently, there is a wide range of conceptualizations,
denitions, and measurement techniques of metacognition. Part of the
challenge is that what is effective in one situation may not be effective in
another. As mentioned previously, leadership is a complex social process
that is highly contextual. Although self-reection may be extremely bene-
cial in one situation, it may actually progress in another. For example, being
thoughtful and deliberative about how you are completing a task may be a
hindrance if you are on a tight deadline.
This brings us to the potential dark side of metacognitive activity. Ex-
cessive monitoring or MCA may lead to paralysis by analysis, which refers
to the condition of becoming lost in evaluating possibilities at the expense
of forwarding action (Flavell, 1979). Additionally, one of the key attributes
of entering the ideal productive state of ow, or getting in the zone,isa
loss of self-consciousness (Csikszentmihalyi, 1991). Thus, monitoring
could potentially prevent leaders from entering this optimal state. Lastly,
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THINKING ABOUT THINKING ABOUT LEADERSHIP 93
maladaptive self-reection has the potential to turn into rumination, which
can result in anxiety and a loss of self-condence (Mor & Winquist, 2002).
This type of monitoring consumes critical cognitive resources that may
otherwise be dedicated to an activity that advances one’s growth as a leader
(Avolio & Hannah, 2008).
Despite these limitations, leaders can greatly benet from developing
their MCA and can inspire followers to do the same. It is intended that the
ideas and tools provided in this chapter help practitioners to instill those
metacognitive abilities in the next generation of leaders and inform future
directions into research in this domain. Given the nature of work, MCA
will be progressively important for developing leaders who are capable of
managing the rapid change of modern organizational life. These leaders are
those who are developmentally ready, who understand the need for con-
tinual learning and growth, and who strive to ensure the effectiveness and
relevance of their thoughts, beliefs, and resulting actions.
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THINKING ABOUT THINKING ABOUT LEADERSHIP 95
HUNTER BLACK is a doctoral student of positive organizational psychology at
Claremont Graduate University. His research interests include leadership de-
velopment, coaching, and assessment. In particular, he is interested in the key
variables that separate effective from ineffective leadership coaching, as well as
coaching strategies that can be applied in a leadership or managerial role.
LISA SOTO is a doctoral student of positive organizational psychology at Clare-
mont Graduate University. Her research interests include leader development
through positive interventions in the workplace in general, and coaching in
particular. She is a certied professional business coach with extensive experi-
ence in human talent development through training and development, coaching,
mentoring, and leader assessment.
SAM SPURLIN is a doctoral student of positive organizational psychology at Clare-
mont Graduate University. His research interests include self-management and
how individuals experience the actual moment-to-moment reality of meaningful
work. He works for The Ready as an organizational design consultant in New
York City.
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