Matching leadership to circumstances? A vignette study of leadership behaviour adaptation in an ambiguous context

EasyChair Preprint no. 1169

Abstract

Leadership does not take place in a vacuum, but is embedded within a context. To address the various demands in their environment, leaders have to adapt their behaviour to fit with the situation. Working with competing values, multiple goals, different tasks, and a range of stakeholders generates contextual ambiguity, which is particularly prevalent in many public organisations. Nonetheless, whether and how leaders adapt their leadership behaviour to context remains elusive. This paper examines to what extent and how leaders adapt their leadership behaviour to ambiguity in their task context. Drawing on the concept of requisite variety it is hypothesised that more ambiguous situations require more complex leadership behaviour that involves more different types of leadership behaviour. Furthermore, it is hypothesized that such adaptation may be constrained by the distribution of formal authority which may limit –or stimulate–behaviours at the expense of others. Data were collected in a 2x2x2 vignette interview design with leaders holding formal leadership positions in Dutch universities, organisations particularly prone to ambiguity. The within-person design enables analysing how variations in context elicit different choices by the same participant, controlled for between-person differences. Preliminary results indicate that leaders' task context has an effect on leadership behaviour, emphasising the importance of continuing this line of research. Qualitative analyses of the interview data add further explanation about the mechanism of participants’ interpretations of and responses to the scenarios underlying the hypotheses.

Keyphrases: contextual ambiguity, public leadership behaviour, Vignette study

@Booklet{EasyChair:1169,
  author = {Marieke van der Hoek and Maarja Beerkens and Sandra Groeneveld},
  title = {Matching leadership to circumstances? A vignette study of leadership behaviour adaptation in an ambiguous context},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint no. 1169},

  year = {EasyChair, 2019}}