The contemporary landscape of leadership and management is highly complex, contested, and fragmented. Because the external environment changes so rapidly, the ability to make sense of ambiguities and uncertainties has become a critical leadership skill. In this context, learning in leadership is fundamentally defined as meaning-making or sense-making. The objective for leaders is to understand how to harness the processes of sense-making to develop their agency, navigate uncertainty, and shape both their professional identities and how their organizations develop and grow.
The insights and applications in leadership development in the video above and summarised in this article is based on the findings of the writer’s doctoral research on leadership sense-making and agency development. In this research, narrative inquiry was chosen as the research methodology as narratives are a natural way in which individuals make meaning and construct their reality by linking actions, characters and events across time into meaningful experiences. The findings are even more relevant today with even greater complexity and disruptive changes.
Leadership Sense-Making as an “outside-in” and “inside-out” dialectical process
How leaders construct reality or sense-making is less about discovery than it is about invention. When leaders make sense of ambiguous situations, they construct, filter, frame, and render the subjective into something more tangible to make their world intelligible. Meaning is constructed through a dual internal dialectic process: an “outside-in” internalization of knowledge and an “inside-out” process of self-construction. As a leader makes decisions in uncertain times, they are not just solving external problems; they are actively constructing their distinct professional self and identity through narratives of their experiences.
Unique patterns of Frames of reference used in Leadership Sense-Making
Leaders rely on unique internal mental structures, or frames of reference, to interpret complex situations. Dr Hee Soo Yin’s research on leadership sense-making finds unique patterns of three inter-related dimensions that leaders use to make meaning:
- Cognition: The process of coming to know and understand knowledge, asking “what is learnt and how?”
- Affect: The emotional interpretation of an experience, answering “how do I feel about people, objects or ideas?”
- Conation: The motivational and intentional aspect of behavior, rooted in a leader’s core values, self-concept, and purpose, answering “why is this being learnt or done?”
Conation is often the determinative factor when leaders must choose to act, adapt or change course in uncertain environments. When deciding to act, adapt or change, a leader clarifies their conative values and self-concept to construct their self in a way that provides continuity with who they intend to be and what is important to them.
Leadership Development as Agency Development through Leadership Sense-Making
Effective sense-making leads to agency development. The growing capacity of a leader to shape themselves and, with others, the world around them. Agency development requires the continuous interaction of two vital elements:
- Consciousness: A leader’s awareness of themselves, others, and the broader environment.
- Self-responsibility: The awareness of the need to know, decide, or act, which results in finding answers or making decisions for oneself or others.
In complex situations, a presenting challenge creates a developing consciousness of a need to know or act. The leader then seeks to gather knowledge, which subsequently empowers them to make a decision or take action, thereby developing their self-responsibility.
Navigating the “Inner Tension” of Leadership
In highly uncertain times, leaders are often placed in situations where the expectation to exercise self-responsibility far exceeds their current capacity or consciousness. This gap creates severe inner tensions and fears that must seek a resolution. Leaders may seek to resolve this tension by struggling through it, by actively learning to adapt, or even by quitting the situation. Recognising this tension as a natural part of agency development allows leaders to re-frame moments of feeling overwhelmed or intimidated as necessary catalysts for expanding their horizons and ultimately resolving the pressure.
Practical Strategies for Leadership and Agency Development by developing a Leader’s Sense-Making
- Engage in Narrative Practice and Reflection on their Professional and Life Biographies: By regularly reflecting on their professional and life biographies on their own or with a trusted mentor or professional coach can help them recognise their processes of meaning-making and help them to be more aware their own biases, mental habits, and self-constructions.
- Model Narrative Reflection: Leaders can by modeling their Narrative reflections of their mental processes of how they sense-make and construct their professional identities by inviting dialogue from colleagues in collective sense-making. This can foster an open and adaptive culture of collective learning to sense-make in complexity.
- Create Environments for “Action Learning”: Professional development that immerse leaders in authentic organisational challenges that require them to move beyond their current knowing, to learn and decide on forging a way forward with others. This includes organising cross-functional teams or assigning responsibilities in new areas, which stretches leaders to encounter diverse and even colliding perspectives, make difficult choices, and develop agency not only to act alone but together with others for organisational growth and impact.
Leadership as a Continuous Learning Journey
A leader’s identity is not static. A leader as sense-maker undergoes continual redefinition as they decide which self is appropriate for the interactions at hand. By becoming more conscious or aware of their internal dialectics of sense-making and how others sense-make, to continuously adapt to changing internal and external environments, leaders can transform the challenges of external complexity into opportunities for continuous personal and team development for organisational growth.
