Becoming A Leader In A Complex Organization

Jean‐Louis Denis, Ann Langley and Marc Pineault

Journal of Management Studies, 2000, vol. 37, issue 8, 1063-1100

Abstract: For a new leader, the process of entering and establishing a position of leadership in a complex organization presents a major challenge. This challenge seems particularly acute when authority, goals and technology are ambiguous, as in many professional service organizations. In this paper, we integrate ideas from the literature on socialization and role theory as well as that on executive succession processes to view new leader integration as a mutual adjustment process between two trajectories – that of the organization and that of the new leader. It is argued that this may lead to four possible types of integration outcomes: assimilation, transformation, accommodation and parallelism. Drawing on a case study of a large hospital, the paper identifies several mechanisms that can be mobilized by the new leader to enhance his or her room for manœuvre as the integration process evolves. The mechanisms can be classified as collaborative or affirmative, with each type having different risks and advantages. The case analysis further reveals that leader integration processes may be differentiated between different activity domains, dynamic over time (as the use of one type of integration approach alters the potential for another later), and interactive across different activity domains (as events in one part of the organization have consequences for those occurring in another).

Date: 2000
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