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An adaptive organisational leadership framework through systems thinking
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to present an adaptive organisational leadership framework using systems thinking (ST) to address challenges within volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA) environments. The framework is intended to guide leaders in improving organisational adaptability and resilience.
Design/methodology/approach
A systematic literature review was conducted alongside qualitative interviews with 16 experienced leaders from various sectors. A semi-structured interview format ensured robust validation of the proposed framework. The synthesis of primary and secondary data identified critical elements for effective adaptive leadership in a VUCA context.
Findings
The adaptive leadership framework consists of three core components: the leader, the followers and the organisational context. ST, future thinking, mental models and adaptive change management form the structural basis of the framework. Interviews with industry experts highlighted mental models’ critical role in adaptive change, highlighting their importance for decision-making. The findings demonstrate the framework’s potential for enhancing strategic responses to complex challenges.
Practical implications
The framework provides practical guidance for contemporary leaders, helping them to foster a culture of adaptability within their organisations to manage complex situations better.
Originality/value
This research introduces a novel framework integrating adaptive leadership qualities with ST principles. A systemigram illustrates how interconnected elements empower leaders to navigate dynamic environments effectively. The framework addresses current leadership model gaps by promoting resilience and agility.
... In the context of Chinese logistics SMEs, this transformation aligns with recovery models under dynamic, evolving conditions (Sindhwani et al., 2024), fostering improvements in technology, productivity, and operational efficiency (Teece, 2007), while adjusting strategies to create emerging businesses (London & Hart, 2004). This adaptability and responsiveness are key to enhancing competitiveness and successfully navigating technological changes (Abukalusa & Oosthuizen, 2025;Bernardes et al., 2009). ...
This study investigates the high-quality development of Chinese logistics SMEs by analyzing the effects of digital technology adoption, organizational resilience, utilization innovation, and exploratory innovation. It explores how digital transformation improves operational efficiency and adaptability, while assessing the mediating role of utilization innovation in connecting technology adoption and resilience to enterprise success. Additionally, the study examines the moderating effect of exploratory innovation on these relationships. A survey of 340 logistics professionals and SMEs within China's supply chain sector was conducted, with hypotheses tested using SPSS and SmartPLS-4. The results reveal that digital technology adoption and organizational resilience significantly contribute to enterprise development, with utilization innovation playing a pivotal mediating role. Furthermore, exploratory innovation moderates the relationship between digital adoption and innovation, highlighting the importance of adaptability in dynamic markets. This study presents a comprehensive framework integrating digital adoption, resilience, and innovation, offering valuable insights into how SMEs can address the challenges of digital transformation. Policymakers and industry stakeholders are encouraged to implement supportive policies, financial incentives, and technological investments to enhance the competitiveness of SMEs.
... Fourth, future research could also explore how management fashion theory intersects with adaptive systems thinking, particularly in understanding how organizations selectively adopt and integrate new industrial paradigms [118][119][120]. Examining the feedback loops between fashionable discourse and technological implementation may offer deeper insight into how firms navigate uncertainty while maintaining legitimacy. ...
The industrial landscape has undergone rapid conceptual evolution in recent years, marked by the successive emergence of Industry 4.0, Industry 5.0, and the nascent Industry 6.0. This study explores the emergence of Industry 6.0 as a prospective industrial paradigm, characterized by intelligent, autonomous, and sustainable systems, which builds upon the digital foundations of its predecessors. Using management fashion theory as a theoretical lens, we analyze how these industrial concepts arise, diffuse, and potentially become institutionalized within management discourse. The study reveals that the adoption and dissemination of these paradigms are influenced not only by technological advancements but also by the discursive efforts of a fashion-setting community comprising academics, policymakers, consultants, and media actors. Industry 6.0, while still largely speculative, continues a broader trend of using numbered industrial revolutions to frame ongoing innovation. The findings suggest that such paradigms serve both practical and rhetorical purposes, driving organizational change while also reflecting shifting societal and managerial values. The study concludes with reflections on the implications for managers and policymakers as they navigate the evolving industrial landscape.
... Research has often treated agility and resilience as isolated constructs, with limited focus on their interdependence and combined effect on organizational readiness. This study addresses this critical gap by analysing how agile leadership practices influence strategic resilience and ultimately contribute to future-readiness in the age of disruption (Abukalusa et al., 2025). ...
Orcid no: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0598-9543 In an era defined by rapid technological advancements, shifting workforce dynamics, and pervasive market volatility, the ability of organizations to remain adaptive and forward-looking has become paramount. This study explores the intertwined roles of agile leadership and strategic resilience as critical enablers of organizational preparedness in the face of disruptive innovation and the evolving future of work. The purpose of the research is to examine how agile leadership practices foster strategic resilience, enabling organizations to not only respond effectively to disruptions but also proactively anticipate change and innovate continuously. Using a qualitative methodology, the study employs semi-structured interviews with 20 senior leaders and managers from diverse industries who have navigated major disruptions such as digital transformation, AI integration, remote work transitions, and global supply chain challenges. The findings reveal that agile leaders play a central role in promoting organizational learning, psychological safety, flexible decision-making, and innovation orientation-key components that underpin strategic resilience. The study contributes to leadership and change management literature by offering an integrative framework linking agility, resilience, and readiness for the future of work. It also provides actionable insights for practitioners and policymakers aiming to build future-fit organizations. The research is particularly useful for HR leaders, strategy professionals, and executive decision-makers who seek to embed agility and resilience into their organizational culture and strategic planning processes. Practical implications include the need to invest in agile leadership development, foster adaptive capabilities, and redesign organizational structures to support continuous transformation in an uncertain and fast-paced business environment.
... Research has often treated agility and resilience as isolated constructs, with limited focus on their interdependence and combined effect on organizational readiness. This study addresses this critical gap by analysing how agile leadership practices influence strategic resilience and ultimately contribute to future-readiness in the age of disruption (Abukalusa et al., 2025). ...
In an era defined by rapid technological advancements, shifting workforce dynamics, and pervasive market volatility, the ability of organizations to remain adaptive and forward-looking has become paramount. This study explores the intertwined roles of agile leadership and strategic resilience as critical enablers of organizational preparedness in the face of disruptive innovation and the evolving future of work. The purpose of the research is to examine how agile leadership practices foster strategic resilience, enabling organizations to not only respond effectively to disruptions but also proactively anticipate change and innovate continuously. Using a qualitative methodology, the study employs semi-structured interviews with 20 senior leaders and managers from diverse industries who have navigated major disruptions such as digital transformation, AI integration, remote work transitions, and global supply chain challenges. The findings reveal that agile leaders play a central role in promoting organizational learning, psychological safety, flexible decision-making, and innovation orientation-key components that underpin strategic resilience. The study contributes to leadership and change management literature by offering an integrative framework linking agility, resilience, and readiness for the future of work. It also provides actionable insights for practitioners and policymakers aiming to build future-fit organizations. The research is particularly useful for HR leaders, strategy professionals, and executive decision-makers who seek to embed agility and resilience into their organizational culture and strategic planning processes. Practical implications include the need to invest in agile leadership development, foster adaptive capabilities, and redesign organizational structures to support continuous transformation in an uncertain and fast-paced business environment.
The present study examines the correlation between current leadership models and three key elements of contemporary society: the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) environment, the rapid digital revolution occurring in our surroundings, and the emergence of the next generation within our organizations. This study presents a framework for successfully incorporating and applying several leadership paradigms in exploratory, reflective, and analytical operations. Effective leadership in the digital era necessitates the use of a variety of leadership styles. Companies must succeed in integrating into the varied and inclusive work environment required by modern society. Achieving the desired results requires not just the abandonment of past methods but also the commitment to applying “next practices”. The current leadership concepts should be in accordance with the prevailing working conditions and beliefs of the current employee and those of future employees. By adopting the viewpoint of the “next up”, existing leadership theories can better accommodate the emotional, historical, and intrinsically imperfect situations that present leadership usually perceives and utilizes to evaluate its activities. The complex structure of this study’s framework enables the use of a single, collaborative, robust leadership model to drive rapid and seamless digital transformation in both enterprises and the contexts that initiate and guide such changes. Furthermore, it enables the exploration of the possible benefits of this approach for both the leaders and team members who struggle with the complexity of these adjustments.
Purpose
Leading with vision while granting employees autonomy is one effective organizational response to the demands of a dynamic external environment. The former is thought to align followers' behavior by providing guidance, the latter to increase variance in their behavior by relinquishing control; both exert beneficial but distinct effects on organizational performance. What has remained uncharted heretofore is how these leader behaviors shape their followers' cognition and, subsequently, yield improvements in performance. The authors argue that a leader's vision communication transforms followers' cognitive representation of their work. This not only enables them to specify their goals in alignment with the vision (goal clarity) but also to locate the meaning of their work within the bigger picture of the vision (construal level). By contrast, perceived autonomy in terms of power-sharing might directly affect followers' work engagement more narrowly.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors tested the model on a sample of 408 employees from eleven enterprises of a holding company. In the survey, employees reported perceived vision communication and autonomy provided by their leader. Furthermore, the authors assessed the employees' goal attainment. To capture how employees represent their daily work activities, the authors measured their construal level and their goal clarity.
Findings
The results show that both perceived vision communication and granted autonomy improve employees' goal achievement. Moreover, two processes mediate the relationship between vision communication and goal achievement in followers: first, specifying goals in terms of clarity; second, composing a higher-level mental construal of their work. In contrast, no mediation of empowering leader behaviors was found.
Originality/value
Better goal achievement through visionary leadership is therefore achieved through cognitive alignment of followers, while leader-granted autonomy acts as a motivational tool directly on performance.
This study explicated the mediating role of leader–member exchange (LMX) and identification with the leader linking authentic leadership and innovative work behavior. The data were collected from the three sectors of the service industry. The final sample size obtained was 347. The data were collected both through the Google form and pen-filled questionnaires. SPSS was used to compute demographic profiles and conduct a hierarchal regression, while Smart-PLS was used for evaluating the constructs for their psychometric properties and testing the structural relations as proposed in the model. This study found LMX and identification with the leader to mediate between authentic leadership and the innovative work behavior of the employees.
PURPOSE: Explore what entrepreneurship and success factors can help drive business to resilience and stability and achieve competitive advantage through innovation in different countries and business realities in the era of digital transformation and turbulent times. METHODOLOGY: Based on the narrative literature review, we present research findings concerning new strategies and outlooks for business innovation in times of many unknowns. Each organization wants to find its way to gain success and create its unique business model, which can capture value creation and innovativeness and be more adaptive, resilient, and stable in critical moments and sustainable over time. FINDINGS: The articles presented in this issue explore the essential factors of business innovation and success in different organizations and the environments in which these businesses function. IMPLICATIONS FOR THEORY AND PRACTICE: This article synthesizes the presented research field’s importance and relevance, connecting its theoretical background with practical research. Recommendations and implications for future trends of this research stream might also be helpful for professionals and academicians. ORIGINALITY AND VALUE: The novel studies presented in this issue were done in five different (developing and developed) countries and business sectors that present human-based and non-human-based factors as crucial factors needed to empower business transformation in a complex world. Each group of elements is essential in business success, and their components are interdependent. We need to look at the interactions and interdependencies of their components in a dynamic and network form and cannot simplify the reality, focusing only on one group of business components and ignoring the other. These unique studies provide a valuable outlook to establish dynamic, adaptive business pathways towards a sustainable and resilient organizational future and propose future research paths needed to execute structural changes in businesses.
Peter Vaill's evocative metaphor of "living in permanent whitewater" is very relevant to universities today. Leaders in our institutions (and elsewhere) are navigating unfamiliar territory-and they are doing so without a map. The demands and expectations placed on leaders can be extreme and is testing the abilities of our institutions' leaders to the extreme. Leaders and leadership paradigms has been disrupted and the old model of fear and control do not work. However, the primary leadership challenge is not simply to develop a new leadership competency model-describing a group of behaviours we expect from our leadership. The deeper challenge is to develop a new mind-set that anchors, informs, and advances these new behaviours. The ability to question your own deeply entrenched assumptions and well-established worldviews, habits and mind-sets will be critical. When unpacking the case for change versus the capacity for change, this chapter surfaced, five kinds of shifts needed to lead in a world characterised by complexity, disruption and uncertainty. I have labelled these shifts as the Awareness shift, the Identity shift, the Mindset shift, the Paradigm shift and lastly the shift from Fear to psychological safety. Are these the only shifts that matter in the current state? I am sure not, we can add many more. But, I believe that these five shifts that demonstrate the complexities of the challenges facing higher education has the potential to reposition and reinvent our leadership for the future.
A Florida-based obstetrics and gynecology facility reported in February 2019 that they lost data because of a ransomware attack. In November 2017, 107,000 healthcare records were exposed from data breaches, and 340,000 records were exposed in December 2017. In 2019, 23,000 patient records at Critical Care, Pulmonary & Sleep Associates were compromised when a hacker gained access to an employee's email account and sent out phishing emails to the other employees, eventually exposing the patient data. On January 11, 2018, Adams Memorial Hospital and Hancock Regional Hospital, both in Indiana, experienced independent ransomware attacks, with Hancock Regional Hospital paying $50,000 in ransom. These incidents point to significant and complex cybersecurity risks for all healthcare organizations. Effectively managing these risks requires healthcare managers to develop system thinking and adaptive leadership skills. This paper explores the nuances and complexities around systems thinking in the healthcare cybersecurity environment.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to review the strategic planning process of the Hong Kong Police Force (the Force) and its outcomes for the planning cycle of 2019-2021.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on an insider's perspective drawn from documentation, internal reports and field observation, this study is an analysis of the five-step strategic planning process of the Force as a case study over the two-year period by using the 3-H (Heart-Head-Hand) framework and futures studies.
Findings
This study demonstrates the Force's strategic management in practice. The 3-H framework and the Six Pillars Foresight Process are found to be useful tools in strategic planning. When the Heart, Head and Hand elements are developed and integrated as a mindset during the process, they help theorise the practice and experience of police officers towards a holistic and effective strategic management. Coupled with the foresight process, the Force will be more agile and outward focused in the Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous (VUCA) world.
Originality/value
This is the first study to apply the 3-H framework and futures thinking in analysing the process in a police organisation in Hong Kong. While strategic planning is an important process to set directions for an organisation to move forward, this study describes the process in terms of relevant practice and theoretical concepts. It is hoped that such experience can serve as reference for practitioners in other government departments and police organisations.
Purpose
While many approaches in the field of unlearning aim at describing, understanding or explaining the “what” and/or “how” of unlearning, this paper aims to focus on the “where-to” and the goal of unlearning. In many cases, unlearning starts off with a specific result or goal in mind. This paper suggests that such an approach has to be challenged in the context of a highly complex and uncertain world and to introduce a mode of unlearning following a strategy of future-oriented open-endedness.
Design/methodology/approach
This conceptual paper draws on (both theoretical/philosophical and empirical) interdisciplinary evidence from a wide variety of fields, such as organization studies, organizational (un)learning, systems theory, cognitive science and innovation studies.
Findings
It turns out that open-endedness in unlearning processes plays a central role, especially if we are confronted with high levels of uncertainty and complexity. In such an environment, following a strategy of co-becoming with an unfolding environment and with an emergent goal seems to be more promising than aiming at a preconceived (un-)learning goal.
Originality/value
The unlearning literature provides various approaches to what unlearning is and how it can be executed. However, understanding the actual goals and outcomes of unlearning and how these goals are identified and determined is a rather under-researched field. In many cases, they are preconceived in advance finding their realization in new forms of knowledge, assumptions, belief systems, values or routines. This paper challenges this strategy and addresses the gap of how it is possible to unlearn toward an uncertain future. This has an impact on the process of unlearning itself; it has to be reframed and understood as an open-ended strategy for identifying emerging future potentials, purposes and goals in a process of co-becoming with an unfolding future.
The future being shaped by Industry 4.0 has arrived. Tools are available that anticipate the future, approximate it, estimate it, and select a preferred future; but do we know how to make disruptive futures part of our business and lives? Building on technology readiness levels and manufacturing readiness levels, future readiness levels and a future readiness index are suggested in this paper. The future readiness levels (FRL) are based on readiness at the capability levels of technology, behaviour, event, and future thinking. A future readiness index (FRI) is then determined, based on the entire future thinking space (technology, behaviour, events, and capability to do future thinking). Once the FRL and FRI are known, it will become clear what strategic interventions are required to thrive in a preferred future. The existing and desired situations in future readiness are compared, and the gaps are addressed. This approach provides a tool for the internal monitoring and evaluation of the state of the organisation to remain sustainable and competitive in a future that is fast arriving; to compare organisations competitively in a similar cluster; to benchmark at industry level; and ultimately to have the potential to measure the future readiness of nations. © 2018, South African Institute of Industrial Engineering. All rights reserved.
Purpose
Organizations increasingly operate under volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) conditions. Traditional command-and-control leadership can be ineffective in such chaotic environments. The purpose of this paper is to outline an alternative model to help leaders and organizations navigate effectively through VUCA environments. By developing three fundamental capacities (absorptive, adaptive and generative), leaders can cultivate organizations capable of continuous synchronization with their fitness landscapes. Central tenets of the framework include diversity, slack, learning, humility, reflection in action and abductive logic.
Design/methodology/approach
This framework is designed based on literature insights, conceptual analysis and experts’ judgment. The paper integrates knowledge from a variety of disciplines and interprets them through the lens of complex adaptive systems.
Findings
This paper argues for a process centered, contemplative approach to organizational leadership and development. By providing the underlying rationale for the proposed interventions (e.g. Ashby’s law of requisite variety), the paper also reorients busy leaders’ mental models to show why these time investments are worth implementing.
Practical implications
This actionable framework can help leaders and organizations be more effective operating in a VUCA context.
Originality/value
This paper provides a historic context as to why prediction and certainty are favored leadership strategies, why these approaches are no longer suitable and specific steps leaders can take to develop absorptive, adaptive and generative capacities to transform their organizations. Its scholarly contribution is the synthesis of disparate bodies of literature, weaving those multiple academic perspectives into a practical roadmap to enhance organizational leadership.
Complex Adaptive Leadership offers ways to shift the focus of practice to one that reflects, embraces multiple points of view, and changes in response to new knowledge and data. From a societal perspective, complex adaptive leadership provides organizations with the opportunity to grapple with the most significant and persistent problems of our time and potentially achieve real change. The paper explores complexity theory in more detail and its influence on social systems using gender bias and terrorism as examples. Using the Human Security Framework as a complex adaptive leadership approach in addressing Wicked Problems, this paper describes the Human Security dimensions to understand the wicked problems in which 21st-century organizations grapple with and the type of organizational leadership needed to confront these challenges
This paper discusses the latest model and theoretical understanding around the concept of organisational resilience as it relates to organisational readiness to handle and manage complex socio-technical system fluctuations. The five key principles of organisational mindfulness are discussed along with what is seen as a nexus between the five principles and modern era complex system leadership theory. Suggestions are offered on how to enhance the collective mindfulness principles through strategic leadership efforts across the workforce, with a view to enabling organisations to become more resilient.
The pluralistic and often competing goals of myriad constituents, the changing demographics of students, the uncertainty of funding, and the growing demands for accountability from stakeholders have increased the complexity of systems which community college leaders must manage. Emerging from the recent literature on community colleges is a call for new models of leadership in the context of leading in an increasingly uncertain and complex environment. Systems thinking offers a means to help leaders respond to these growing organizational complexities and move leadership from a traditional bureaucratic model to a more adaptive model. A systematic review of literature on systems thinking’s application to organizational performance in higher education was bolstered with evidence from healthcare. Findings revealed three reoccurring ways in which leaders apply systems thinking processes for improving organizational performance. A conceptual model for systems thinking leadership is proposed in which the three processes, characterized as discovery, framing, and action, can be enacted either individually or sequentially for enhancing organizational performance. The model draws upon boundary critique, critical systems thinking, systemic intervention, total systems intervention, systems dynamics, soft systems methodology, complexity theory and complex adaptive systems, yet uses language more readily identifiable to community college practitioners.
Evaluating the quality of research is essential if findings are to be utilised in practice and incorporated into care delivery. In a previous article we explored ‘bias’ across research designs and outlined strategies to minimise bias.1 The aim of this article is to further outline rigour, or the integrity in which a study is conducted, and ensure the credibility of findings in relation to qualitative research. Concepts such as reliability, validity and generalisability typically associated with quantitative research and alternative terminology will be compared in relation to their application to qualitative research. In addition, some of the strategies adopted by qualitative researchers to enhance the credibility of their research are outlined.
A generic foresight process framework is outlined, based on prior independent work by Mintzberg, Horton and Slaughter. The framework was developed as part of work carried out by the author during the introduction of foresight into the formal strategic planning of a public-sector university in Australia. The framework recognises several distinct phases, leading from the initial gathering of information, through to the production of outputs intended as input into the more familiar activities of strategy development and strategic planning. The framework is also useful as a diagnostic tool for examining how foresight work and strategy are undertaken, as well as a design aid for customised foresight projects and processes. Some observations and reflections are made on lessons learned from a two-and-a-half year engagement as an organisationally-based foresight practitioner.
NOTE: This framework has recently (2017) been updated and re-worked in a new book chapter:
Big History and Anticipation: Using Big History as a framework for global foresight. See the Comments for the link.
This working paper has been thoroughly revised and superseded by two distinct articles. The first is a revised and peer-reviewed version of the original article: Okoli, Chitu (2015), A Guide to Conducting a Standalone Systematic Literature Review. Communications of the Association for Information Systems (37:43), November 2015, pp. 879-910. This article presents a methodology for conducting a systematic literature review with many examples from IS research and references to guides with further helpful details. The article is available from Google Scholar or from the author's website. The second extension article focuses on developing theory with literature reviews: Okoli, Chitu (2015), The View from Giants’ Shoulders: Developing Theory with Theory-Mining Systematic Literature Reviews. SSRN Working Paper Series, December 8, 2015. This article identifies theory-mining reviews, which are literature reviews that extract and synthesize theoretical concepts from the source primary studies. The article demonstrates by citation analysis that, in information systems research, this kind of literature review is more highly cited than other kinds of literature review. The article provides detailed guidelines to writing a high-quality theory-mining review.
Purpose
COVID-19 has dramatically changed how people live, socialise and think about their future. The disruptive shock that hit societies all over the world had a significantly negative impact on businesses, creating not only economic discontinuity but also uncertainty and disorientation. This special issue on COVID-19 aims to phrase the pandemic crisis and its impact on how to do business.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors follow MacInnis’s (2011) suggestion that a conceptual article sees what others have identified in a new or revised way.
Findings
The authors develop the crisis management framework. The authors acknowledge that disruptive events may be repeated, and their consequences will have long-term and permanent impacts. These aspects highlight the need for a systemic approach in which the focus is not limited to an analysis of the cause of the crisis and ways of solving it but includes the paths through which the business, economic and social systems evolve because of the crisis.
Practical implications
Managerial policies, business models and practices that have been effective up to now will probably no longer work. Beyond this backdrop, the articles compiled in this special issue aim to help set the agenda for post-COVID business research
Originality/value
The authors identify four primary themes captured by these articles: strategies, capabilities, organisational transformations and value processes. In their entirety, they represent pieces of a conceptual puzzle that do not provide knowledge of “hard facts” but rather a “soft interpretation of how to approach the “new normal”, i.e. a new social and business context.
Purpose
Over the past few decades, the environment for organisations has been frequently described using the acronym VUCA: a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environment. In spite of the popularity of this acronym, it is not unusual to find some overlap concerning the meaning of those terms, as well as poor definitions of each in the literature. Consequently, the main purpose of this paper was to conduct a systematic literature review to obtain a conceptual map of the components of VUCA and their relationships and to highlight some avenues for future research.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted a systematic review of various databases between 1999 and 2021. A total of 833 papers were identified and 26 of them met the inclusion criteria for the current study.
Findings
The subsequent analysis revealed several overlaps and relationships between the four terms. Based on this analysis, the authors propose a conceptual map that could serve as a basis for future research and practice.
Research limitations/implications
Because of the exploratory nature of the study and the scarce number of empirical studies, the impact that the use of the VUCA framework has had on businesses could not be addressed.
Originality/value
By clarifying the different components of VUCA and specifying the relationships between them with a comprehensive conceptual map, this paper may contribute to more rigorous empirical research, as well as help managers and executives more effectively deal with turbulent environments.
Purpose
Contemporary workplaces undergo frequent reorganizations in order to stay competitive in a working life characterized by globalization, digitalization, economic uncertainty, and ever-increased complexity. Managers are in the frontline of these challenges, leading themselves, organizations and their employees in high stress environments. This raises questions on how to support managers’ work-life sustainability, which is crucial for organizational sustainability. Mindfulness has been related to enhanced capacities to cope with challenges that are associated with organizational change. The authors evaluated short- and long-term effects of an eight-week mindfulness-based intervention in a company setting, which was going through reorganization.
Design/methodology/approach
Forty managers (42.5% males), mean age 54.53 (SD 5.13), were randomized to the mindfulness intervention or a non-active wait-list control. Self-report data were provided on individual sustainability factors in a work context: job demands and resources, psychological detachment, i.e. possibilities for letting go of work-related thoughts during leisure, control over work-nonwork boundaries, work-life balance, and mindfulness at baseline, postintervention, and at 6-month follow-up.
Findings
Linear mixed models (LMMs) analysis (all ps < 0.005 to 0.05) showed that the intervention group had a larger decrease in job demands and a smaller decrease in job resources, a larger increase in psychological detachment, work-nonwork boundary control, work-life balance, and mindfulness from baseline to postintervention when compared with the reference group. These initial effects were sustained at 6-month follow-up.
Originality/value
The study provides evidence that mindfulness practice can enhance managers’ long-term capacity to cope with challenging working conditions, and increase their work-life sustainability in times of organizational change and disruption.
Purpose
This paper aims to contribute to discussion around the need for improved models for change in a rapidly changing world. It also aims to provide insights for further discussion around how a Nordic management approach can relate to the need for new change ideas. Since Lewin proposed that change requires unfreezing, moving and refreezing, several changes in models have been introduced. Many models include similar factors such as the need for a vision, a clear process and to motivate change. These change factors are investigated in this paper and related to a fast-paced, uncertain and volatile environment
Design/methodology/approach
Based on a collaborative research approach, engaging with leaders in five organizations, all headquartered in the Nordic countries, this paper examines problems with traditional change models in a contemporary context as well as how these challenges could be handled.
Findings
This paper concludes that leaders still find value in traditional models but see that these models need to be adapted to include elements of more recent research. This paper suggests tweaks in traditional change factors and ends with a proposition with a renewed model for change.
Originality/value
The ideas in this paper could be seen as a bridge between traditional and modern models – a bridge that seems to be needed in practice. It draws on action research and close relationships with top management, as they are working with change – potentially giving the study a unique angle on a practical, widespread problem: succeeding with change
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of systems thinking and its value for strategic foresight and scenario planning to address disruptive forces from the outside, with the outbreak of COVID19 as a case study.
Design/methodology/approach
This conceptual paper concisely discusses the notion of systems thinking and the concept of complex adaptive systems and puts this in the context of contemporary society in general and travel and tourism in particular. Strategic foresight and scenario planning are introduced as an approach to anticipate disruptions in the complex adaptive travel and tourism system.
Findings
As COVID-19 has demonstrated, travel and tourism is sensitive for disruptions from the outside. To ensure long-term resilience and sustainability, a systems approach embedded in strategic foresight and scenario planning is emphasised.
Practical implications
Strategic foresight and scenario planning is a competence that can be learned.
Originality/value
Given the present status of COVID-19 and other disruptors on travel and tourism, a resilient approach to the future is necessary; thus, the value of this viewpoint paper is the proposition of an adaptive capacity system. This paper offers advice to understand and manage complexity and adaptive systems.
Purpose
This paper aims to adopt the complexity theory (CT) as a frame of reference to analyze leadership action within a military organization. Through the CT framework, it considers a military organization as a complex adaptive system (CAS), which evolves and adapts to the environment to survive, similarly to a living organism. This case study identifies complex dynamics, which are proper to CAS and it proposes avenues to harness them to increase organizational performance. Ultimately, this paper provides insights on how a CT framework may be used in describing and understanding an effective leadership action and grant it with mechanisms to measure its effectiveness.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper rests on a single case study, which examines a leadership action in a military organization. Capitalizing on privileged access to top managers of an Air Force’s Major Command, the author carried out tailored surveys aimed at identifying organizational leadership effectiveness.
Findings
Based on these data, the study provides qualitative evidence that suggests a relevant relationship between CT-based leadership action and organizational effectiveness.
Originality/value
The CT-based leadership approach challenges the paradigm of ordered, hierarchical organizational design by proposing a more flexible, networked approach in relation to organizational effectiveness. The complexity-based approach to leadership proposed in this paper suggests an adaptive leadership model that better corresponds to complex human organizations, and helps leaders identify more effective management solutions.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to apply the aspects of decision theory (DT) to performance measurement and management (PMM), thereby enabling the theoretical elaboration of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity in the business environment, which are identified as barriers to effective PMM.
Design/methodology/approach
A review of decision theory and PMM literature establishes the Cynefin framework as the basis for extending the performance alignment matrix. Case research with seven companies explores the relationship between two concepts under-examined in the performance alignment matrix – internal dominant logic (DL) as the attribute of organisational culture affecting decision making, and the external environment – in line with the concept of alignment or fit in PMM. A focus area is PMM related to sustainable operations and sustainable supply chain management.
Findings
Alignment between DL, external environment and PMM is found, as are instances of misalignment. The Cynefin framework offers a deeper theoretical explanation about the nature of this alignment. Other findings consider the nature of organisational ownership on DL.
Research limitations/implications
The cases are exploratory not exhaustive, and limited in number. Organisations showing contested logic were excluded.
Practical implications
Some organisations have cultures of predictability and control; others have cultures that recognise their external environment as fundamentally unpredictable, and hence there is a need for responsive, decentralised PMM. Some have sought to change their culture and PMM. Being attentive to how cultural logic affects decision making can help reduce the misalignment in PMM.
Originality/value
A novel contribution is made by applying decision theory to PMM, extending the theoretical depth of the subject.
This article argues that the leadership industry has been beset by a bias. This bias has been directed toward leaders and away from two other variables that equally pertain–and that equally explain the trajectory of human history. The first is followers, or others who are in any way relevant, even if passively. And the second is contexts, within which leaders and followers necessarily are embedded.
Together these three parts, each of which is equally important and each of which impinges equally on the other two, make up the leadership system. This article suggests that the approximately forty-year-old leadership industry has paid a heavy price for its obsession with leaders at the expense of whoever/whatever else matters. For the industry has not in any major, measurable way improved the human condition, which is precisely why it should be reconsidered and reconceived.
The pluralistic and often competing goals of myriad constituents, the changing demographics of students, the uncertainty of funding, and the growing demands for accountability from stakeholders have increased the complexity of systems which community college leaders must manage. Emerging from the recent literature on community colleges is a call for new models of leadership in the context of leading in an increasingly uncertain and complex environment. Systems thinking offers a means to help leaders respond to these growing organizational complexities and move leadership from a traditional bureaucratic model to a more adaptive model better suited for today's dynamic community colleges. Despite a robust body of literature on systems thinking in myriad fields, there is comparatively scant evidence of systems thinking's application to organizational management or leadership per se in higher education and even less in community colleges. Hence, a systematic review of literature on systems thinking and complexity theory and their application in higher education was bolstered with evidence from healthcare. Findings reveal three reoccurring ways in which leaders apply systems thinking processes for improving organizational performance. A conceptual model for systems thinking leadership is proposed in which the three processes, characterized as discovery, framing, and action, can be enacted either individually or sequentially for enhancing organizational performance. The model draws upon boundary critique, critical systems thinking, systemic intervention, total systems intervention, systems dynamics, soft systems methodology, complexity theory and complex adaptive systems, yet uses language more readily identifiable and accessible to community college practitioners to encourage the use of these systemic practices. Systems Thinking Leadership, as proposed in this paper, provides a framework for community college leaders-presidents, chief academic officers, deans, department chairs, and faculty-to view their organization through a systems lens, and to enact and engage the adaptive and participatory practices of discovery, framing, and action for improving organizational performance.
The interests of the organization and its members need to be aligned. Such is a task for the transformational leader. In contrast to the transactional leader who practises contingent reinforcement of followers, the transformational leader inspires, intellectually stimulates, and is individually considerate of them. Transformational leadership may be directive or participative. Requiring higher moral development, transformational leadership is recognized universally as a concept. Furthermore, contrary to earlier expectations, women leaders tend to be more transformational than their male counterparts. Although a six-factor model of transformational/ transactional leadership best fits a diversity of samples according to confirmatory factor analyses, whether fewer factors are necessary remains an open question. Another important research question that has only been partially answered is why transformational leadership is more effective than transactional leadership in a wide variety of business, military, industrial, hospital, and educational circumstances.
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