Inspirational and proactive crisis leadership: calling all novelty seeking, solution-focused big-picture thinkers!
Rebecca R. Langdon, Justin P. Brienza, Michael D. CollinsPurpose
The purpose of this study is to examine how leader personality traits and cognitive abilities influence perceptions of inspirational communication and organizational proactivity during a crisis.
Design/methodology/approach
A quasi-natural experiment design with multi-source data was used. The crisis condition included N = 217 frontline leaders, their managers (N = 217) and N = 1,112 followers. Non-crisis condition included N = 151 leaders, their managers (N = 151) and N = 753 followers. Leaders completed self-report measures of reward interest, change consideration and attentional focusing. Followers rated inspirational communication, and managers rated organizational proactivity.
Findings
During the crisis, leader reward interest and change consideration positively associated with follower perceptions of inspirational communication, which in turn predicted manager-rated organizational proactivity. Attentional focusing moderated this relationship such that low attentional focusing strengthened the link between inspirational communication and organizational proactivity. These effects were not observed in the non-crisis condition. Findings suggest that specific combinations of leader traits and abilities are more influential during crises, highlighting the importance of novelty-seeking, solution-focused thinking and cognitive flexibility in shaping effective leadership behaviors under conditions of uncertainty and disruption.
Practical implications
Leaders who are curious, open to change and can maintain broad situational awareness will inspire their teams and act proactively. Organizations could assess these traits when selecting or training frontline leaders.
Originality/value
An interdisciplinary approach to crisis leadership by integrating reinforcement sensitivity, wisdom and attentional control theory is used. This combines neurobiological, cognitive and wisdom-based perspectives to understand how personality and cognitive traits shape leadership effectiveness under uncertainty.