Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T12:51:48.784Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 10 - Mindsets for Change Leaders

Exploring a Cognitive Approach for Leadership Development

from Part IV - The Development of Change Leadership

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2023

By
Bradley Hastings ,
Dave Bouckenooghe  and
Gavin M. Schwarz
Edited by
Shaul Oreg ,
Alexandra Michel  and
Rune Todnem By
Shaul Oreg
Affiliation:
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Alexandra Michel
Affiliation:
Universität Heidelberg
Rune Todnem By
Affiliation:
Universitet i Stavanger, Norway
Get access

Summary

Decades of research confirms that the behavior of leaders influences change outcomes. Correspondingly, leader development has aimed to identify and develop the individual traits and attributes that are precursors to desired behaviors. However, where this approach has traditionally targeted static precursors and, thus, relatively stable sets of behaviors, there is growing evidence that successful change requires leaders to switch behaviors during change. We introduce mindset activation as a leader development approach to aid this switch. We elaborate on two common change processes – top-down and bottom-up – and establish a connection between the desired leader behaviors of these processes and the fixed and growth mindsets, respectively. In doing so, we propose a means of operationalizing the activation of fixed and growth mindsets for leader development during change. This new approach overcomes some of the limitations of the traditional focus on static precursors of behaviors, by providing a more precise account that encompasses the malleable and dynamic nature of personality system processes to enable effective change leadership.

Keywords

change leadershiporganizational changemindsetsleadership development
Type
Chapter
Information
The Psychology of Organizational Change
New Insights on the Antecedents and Consequences of Individuals' Responses to Change
 , pp. 208 - 234
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Avolio, B. J., Reichard, R. J., Hannah, S. T., Walumbwa, F. O., & Chan, A. (2009). A meta-analytic review of leadership impact research: Experimental and quasi-experimental studies. The Leadership Quarterly, 20(5), 764–784.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundation of thought and action: A social-cognitive view. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Bargh, J. A., & Chartrand, T. L. (1999). The unbearable automaticity of being. American Psychologist, 54(7), 462–479.Google Scholar
Bargh, J. A., Gollwitzer, P. M., Lee-Chai, A., Barndollar, K., & Trötschel, R. (2001). The automated will: Nonconscious activation and pursuit of behavioral goals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81(6), 1014.Google Scholar
Barrett, F. J., Thomas, G. F., & Hocevar, S. P. (1995). The central role of discourse in large-scale change: A social construction perspective. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 31(3), 352–372.Google Scholar
Barrick, M. R., Mount, M. K., & Li, N. (2013). The theory of purposeful work behavior: The role of personality, higher-order goals, and job characteristics. Academy of Management Review, 38(1), 132–153.Google Scholar
Bass, B. M., & Bass, R. (2009). The Bass handbook of leadership: Theory, research, and managerial applications. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Battilana, J., Gilmartin, M., Sengul, M., Pache, A.-C., & Alexander, J. A. (2010). Leadership competencies for implementing planned organizational change. The Leadership Quarterly, 21(3), 422–438.Google Scholar
Blackwell, L. S., Trzesniewski, K. H., & Dweck, C. S. (2007). Implicit theories of intelligence predict achievement across an adolescent transition: A longitudinal study and an intervention. Child Development, 78(1), 246–263.Google Scholar
Burnes, B. (2004). Emergent change and planned change: Competitors or allies?: The case of XYZ construction. International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 24(9), 886–902.Google Scholar
Burnes, B. (2017). Managing change (7th ed.). Harlow: Pearson Education.Google Scholar
Burnette, J. L., O’Boyle, E. H., VanEpps, E. M., Pollack, J. M., & Finkel, E. J. (2013). Mind-sets matter: A meta-analytic review of implicit theories and self-regulation. Psychological Bulletin, 139(3), 655.Google Scholar
Bushe, G. R., & Marshak, R. J. (2009). Revisioning organization development: Diagnostic and dialogic premises and patterns of practice. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 45(3), 348–368.Google Scholar
Bushe, G. R., & Marshak, R. J. (2014). The dialogic mindset in organization development. In Abraham, R. S. & Noumair, D. A. (eds.), Research in organizational change and development (Vol. 22, pp. 55–97). Bingley: Emerald Group.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bushe, G. R., & Marshak, R. J. (2015). Introduction to the dialogic organization development mindset. In Bushe, G. R. & Marshak, R. J. (eds.), Dialogic organization development: The theory and practice of transformational change (pp. 11–32). Oakland, CA: Berrett-Koehler.Google Scholar
Chiu, C.-Y., Hong, Y.-Y., & Dweck, C. S. (1997). Lay dispositionism and implicit theories of personality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73(1), 19.Google Scholar
Collins, J., & Hansen, M. T. (2011). Great by choice: Uncertainty, chaos and luck: Why some thrive despite them all. New York: HarperCollins.Google Scholar
Cooperrider, D. L., & Srivastva, S. (1987). Appreciative inquiry in organizational life. In Research in organizational change and development, vol. 1 (pp. 129–169). Bingley: Emerald Group.Google Scholar
Currie, G., Lockett, A., & Suhomlinova, O. (2009). The institutionalization of distributed leadership: A “Catch-22” in English public services. Human Relations, 62(11), 1735–1761.Google Scholar
Day, D. V., Fleenor, J. W., Atwater, L. E., Sturm, R. E., & McKee, R. A. (2014). Advances in leader and leadership development: A review of 25 years of research and theory. The Leadership Quarterly, 25(1), 63–82.Google Scholar
Derue, D. S., Nahrgang, J. D., Wellman, N. E. D., & Humphrey, S. E. (2011). Trait and behavioral theories of leadership: An integration and meta‐analytic test of their relative validity. Personnel Psychology, 64(1), 7–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Do, M. H., & Minbashian, A. (2014). A meta-analytic examination of the effects of the agentic and affiliative aspects of extraversion on leadership outcomes. The Leadership Quarterly, 25(5), 1040–1053.Google Scholar
Dweck, C. (1986). Motivational processes affecting learning. American Psychologist, 41(10), 1040.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dweck, C. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success (1st ed.). New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Dweck, C. S. (2000). Self-theories: Their role in motivation, personality, and development. Hoboken, NJ: Taylor & Francis.Google Scholar
Dweck, C. S., & Leggett, E. L. (1988). A social-cognitive approach to motivation and personality. Psychological Review, 95(2), 256.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dweck, C. S., & Sorich, L. (1999). Mastery-oriented thinking. In Snyder, C. R. (ed.), Coping: The psychology of what works, vol. 11 (pp. 232–251). New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Elliott, E. S., & Dweck, C. S. (1988). Goals: An approach to motivation and achievement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54(1), 5.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Feser, C., Nielsen, N., & Rennie, M. (2017). What’s missing in leadership development? McKinsey Quarterly, 2017(3), available online at: www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/leadership/whats-missing-in-leadership-development, last accessed February 6, 2023.Google Scholar
Ford, J. D., & Ford, L. W. (2012). The leadership of organization change: A view from recent empirical evidence. In Abraham, R. S., Pasmore, W. A., & Woodman, R. W. (eds.), Research in organizational change and development (pp. 1–36). Bingley: Emerald Group.Google Scholar
Gilpin-Jackson, Y., & Crump, M. (2018). Practicing in the grey area between dialogic and diagnostic organization development: Lessons from another healthcare case study. Organization Development Practitioner, 50, 41–47.Google Scholar
Gioia, D. A., & Chittipeddi, K. (1991). Sensemaking and sensegiving in strategic change initiation. Strategic Management Journal, 12(6), 433–448.Google Scholar
Gollwitzer, P. (2012). Mindset theory of action phases. In van Lange, P. A. (ed.), Handbook of theories of social psychology (pp. 526–545). Thousand Oaks: Sage.Google Scholar
Gottfredson, R. K., & Reina, C. S. (2020). Exploring why leaders do what they do: An integrative review of the situation-trait approach and situation-encoding schemas. The Leadership Quarterly, 31(1), 101373.Google Scholar
Graebner, M. E. (2004). Momentum and serendipity: How acquired leaders create value in the integration of technology firms. Strategic Management Journal, 25(8–9), 751–777.Google Scholar
Graetz, F., & Smith, A. C. T. (2008). The role of dualities in arbitrating continuity and change in forms of organizing. International Journal of Management Reviews, 10(3), 265–280.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Groysberg, B., Nanda, A., & Nohria, N. (2004). The risky business of hiring stars. Harvard Business Review, 82(5), 92–101.Google Scholar
Hambrick, D. C. (2007). Upper echelons theory: An update. Academy of Management Review, 32(2), 334–343.Google Scholar
Hastings, B., & Schwarz, G. (2021). Leading change for success: A dynamic application of diagnostic and dialogic organization development. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 58(1), 120–148.Google Scholar
Helmich, D. L. (1975). Corporate succession: An examination. Academy of Management Journal, 18(3), 429–441.Google Scholar
Heslin, P. A., & Keating, L. A. (2016). Stuck in the muck? The role of mindsets in self‐regulation when stymied during the job search. Journal of Employment Counseling, 53(4), 146–161.Google Scholar
Heslin, P. A., & Keating, L. A. (2017). In learning mode? The role of mindsets in derailing and enabling experiential leadership development. The Leadership Quarterly, 28(3), 367–384.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heslin, P. A., Keating, L. A., & Minbashian, A. (2019). How situational cues and mindset dynamics shape personality effects on career outcomes. Journal of Management, 45(5), 2101–2131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heslin, P. A., Latham, G. P., & VandeWalle, D. (2005). The effect of implicit person theory on performance appraisals. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90(5), 842.Google Scholar
Heslin, P. A., Vandewalle, D., & Latham, G. P. (2006). Keen to help? Managers implicit person theories and their subsequent employee coaching. Personnel Psychology, 59(4), 871–902.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hong, Y.-Yi, Chiu, C.-Y., Dweck, C. S., Lin, D. M.-S., & Wan, W. (1999). Implicit theories, attributions, and coping: A meaning system approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77(3), 588.Google Scholar
Hoyt, C. L., Burnette, J. L., & Innella, A. N. (2012). I can do that: The impact of implicit theories on leadership role model effectiveness. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 38(2), 257–268.Google Scholar
Jabri, M. (2017). Managing organizational change: Process, social construction and dialogue. Basingstoke: Palgrave.Google Scholar
Johnson, S. (2002). Emergence: The connected lives of ants, brains, cities, and software. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Kamins, M. L., & Dweck, C. S. (1999). Person versus process praise and criticism: Implications for contingent self-worth and coping. Developmental Psychology, 35(3), 835.Google Scholar
Kanter, R. M., Stein, B. A., & Jick, T. D. (1992). The challenge of organizational change: How companies experience it and leaders guide it. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Kotter, J. (1996). Leading change. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.Google Scholar
Kotter, J. P. (1995). Leading change: why transformation efforts fail. Harvard Business Review, 73(2), 59–67.Google Scholar
Kray, L. J., & Haselhuhn, M. P. (2007). Implicit negotiation beliefs and performance: Experimental and longitudinal evidence. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 93(1), 49–64.Google Scholar
Lanaj, K., Chang, C.-H., & Johnson, R. E. (2012). Regulatory focus and work-related outcomes: A review and meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 138(5), 998.Google Scholar
Livne-Tarandach, R., & Bartunek, J. M. (2009). A new horizon for organizational change and development scholarship: Connecting planned and emergent change. In Research in organizational change and development (pp. 1–35). Bingley: Emerald Group.Google Scholar
Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (2013). New developments in goal setting and task performance. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Mangels, J. A., Butterfield, B., Lamb, J., Good, C., & Dweck, C. S. (2006). Why do beliefs about intelligence influence learning success? A social cognitive neuroscience model. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 1(2), 75–86.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
March, J. G. (1991). Exploration and exploitation in organizational learning. Organization Science, 2(1), 71–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marion, R., & Uhl-Bien, M. (2001). Leadership in complex organizations. The Leadership Quarterly, 12(4), 389–418.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marshak, R. J., Grant, D. S., & Floris, M. (2015). Discourse and dialogic organization development. In Bushe, G. R. & Marshak, R. J. (eds.), Dialogic organization development: The theory and practice of transformational change (pp. 77–100). Oakland, CA: Berrett-Koehler.Google Scholar
Mischel, W. (2009). From personality and assessment (1968) to personality science, 2009. Journal of Research in Personality, 43(2), 282–290.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mischel, W., & Shoda, Y. (1995). A cognitive-affective system theory of personality: Reconceptualizing situations, dispositions, dynamics, and invariance in personality structure. Psychological Review, 102(2), 246.Google Scholar
Mischel, W., & Shoda, Y. (2008). Toward a unified theory of personality. Handbook of Personality: Theory and Research, 3, 208–241.Google Scholar
Mueller, C. M., & Dweck, C. S. (1998). Praise for intelligence can undermine children’s motivation and performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75(1), 33.Google Scholar
Murphy, M. C., & Dweck, C. S. (2010). A culture of genius: How an organization’s lay theory shapes people’s cognition, affect, and behavior. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 36(3), 283–296.Google Scholar
Nussbaum, A. D., & Dweck, C. S. (2008). Defensiveness versus remediation: Self-Theories and modes of self-esteem maintenance. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34(5), 599–612.Google Scholar
Oreg, S., & Berson, Y. (2019). Leaders’ impact on organizational change: Bridging theoretical and methodological chasms. Academy of Management Annals, 13(1), 272–307.Google Scholar
Park, D., & Kim, S. (2015). Time to move on? When entity theorists perform better than incremental theorists. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 41(5), 736–748.Google Scholar
Plaks, J. E., & Stecher, K. (2007). Unexpected improvement, decline, and stasis: A prediction confidence perspective on achievement success and failure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93(4), 667.Google Scholar
Rauthmann, J. F., Sherman, R. A., & Funder, D. C. (2015). Principles of situation research: Towards a better understanding of psychological situations. European Journal of Personality, 29(3), 363–381.Google Scholar
Robins, R. W., & Pals, J. L. (2002). Implicit self-theories in the academic domain: Implications for goal orientation, attributions, affect, and self-esteem change. Self and Identity, 1(4), 313–336.Google Scholar
Shantz, A., & Latham, G. P. (2009). An exploratory field experiment of the effect of subconscious and conscious goals on employee performance. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 109(1), 9–17.Google Scholar
Smith, B. P. (2005). Goal orientation, implicit theory of ability, and collegiate instrumental music practice. Psychology of Music, 33(1), 36–57.Google Scholar
Starbuck, W. H., & Milliken, F. J. (1988). Executives’ perceptual filters: What they notice and how they make sense. In Hambrick, D. C. (ed.), The executive effect: Concepts and methods for studying top managers (pp. 33–65). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.Google Scholar
Stouten, J., Rousseau, D. M., & De Cremer, D. (2018). Successful organizational change: Integrating the management practice and scholarly literatures. Academy of Management Annals, 12(2), 752–788.Google Scholar
Tabernero, C., & Wood, R. E. (1999). Implicit theories versus the social construal of ability in self-regulation and performance on a complex task. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 78(2), 104–127.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tett, R. P., & Burnett, D. D. (2003). A personality trait-based interactionist model of job performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(3), 500.Google Scholar
Van de Ven, A. (2004). Organizational change. Blackwell encyclopedic dictionary of organizational behavior. London: Blackwell Publishers.Google Scholar
Van Yperen, N. W., Blaga, M., & Postmes, T. (2014). A meta-analysis of self-reported achievement goals and nonself-report performance across three achievement domains (work, sports, and education). PloS One, 9(4), e93594.Google Scholar
Vandewalle, D., Nerstad, C. G. L., & Dysvik, A. (2019). Goal orientation: A review of the miles traveled and the miles to go. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 6(1), 115–144.Google Scholar
Weick, K. E., & Quinn, R. E. (1999). Organizational change and development. Annual Review of Psychology, 50(1), 361–386.Google Scholar
Weiss, H. M., & Cropanzano, R. (1996). Affective events theory: A theoretical discussion of the structure, causes and consequences of affective experiences at work. Research in Organization Behavior: Annual Series of Analytical Essays and Critical Reviews, 18(1), 34–74.Google Scholar
Welsh, D. T., & Ordóñez, L. D. (2014). Conscience without cognition: The effects of subconscious priming on ethical behavior. Academy of Management Journal, 57(3), 723–742.Google Scholar
Wilson, T. D. (2004). Strangers to ourselves. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Wood, R., & Bandura, A. (1989). Impact of conceptions of ability on self-regulatory mechanisms and complex decision making. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 56(3), 407–415.Google Scholar
Yeager, D. S., Hanselman, P., Walton, G. M., Murray, J. S., Crosnoe, R., Muller, C., Tipton, E., Schneider, B., Hulleman, C. S., & Hinojosa, C. P. (2019). A national experiment reveals where a growth mindset improves achievement. Nature, 573(7774), 364–369.Google Scholar
Yukl, G. A. (2012). Leadership in organizations (8th ed.). Boston: Pearson Education.Google Scholar
Zaccaro, S. J., Green, J. P., Dubrow, S., & Kolze, M. (2018). Leader individual differences, situational parameters, and leadership outcomes: A comprehensive review and integration. The Leadership Quarterly, 29(1), 2–43.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×