A framework for examining leadership in extreme contexts

By S. Hannah, Mary Uhl‐Bien, Bruce J. Avolio, Fabrice L. Cavarretta. 2009

656 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract In this review, we develop a framework to guide future research and to examine the execution of leadership in extreme contexts. We start by defining and distinguishing extreme contexts from crisis and other contexts. A five component typology is developed comprised of magnitude of consequences, form of threat, probability of consequences, location in time and physical or psychological–social proximity. We discuss the unique influences these components have on leadership processes in extreme contexts examining the relevance of organization types such as critical action and high reliability organizations. Further, we present a set of factors that may attenuate or intensify the dimensions comprising an extreme context, thus influencing either a team or organization's ability for adaptive leadership response. Ultimately this framework seeks to develop a richer understanding of extreme contexts to advance the future development of contextualized theories of leadership for extreme contexts.

Subfields: Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management, Social Psychology, Strategy and Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0d0a3b25d1e4f9504cf8baa5877669e1c84a7a1f

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management

In Social Psychology

In Strategy and Management

Citations in the corpus

Moral Maturation and Moral Conation: A Capacity Approach to Explaining Moral Thought and Action (2011, methodology): “Based on the discussion of cognitive differentiation presented earlier, more complex individuals can better tailor their working self across a broader range of situations (Hannah et al., 2009b; Lord et al., 2011; Rafaeli-Mor & Steinberg, 2002).”
Special issue on entrepreneurship and crises: business as usual? An introduction and review of the literature (2018, neutral): “…unexpected unpredictable events or as more mundane everyday disturbances, sudden or gradual, crises have also been categorized as ‘major’ or ‘minor’ (Hannah et al. 2009), ‘internal’ or ‘external’ and as ‘technical/economic’ in nature or ‘people/social/organizational’ centric (Mitroff, Pauchant,…”
Relationships between Authentic Leadership, Moral Courage, and Ethical and Pro-Social Behaviors (2011, background): “First, it has been suggested that extreme contexts create unique causation and contingencies affecting leadership processes (see Hannah et al., 2009 for review).”
Organisational resilience capacity and firm product innovativeness and performance (2014, methodology): “…dimensions of extreme contexts (e.g. location in time/temporal ordering, magnitude and probability of consequences, proximity, form of threat) (Hannah et al. 2009), information technology usage and organisational intelligence influence organisational resilience capacity can be investigated.”
Ethical Leadership and Team Ethical Voice and Citizenship Behavior in the Military: The Roles of Team Moral Efficacy and Ethical Climate (2020, background): “military), the South Korean military is a male-dominated organization with formal rank systems and hierarchical structure, and routinized task behavior (Griffin & Mathieu, 1997; Hannah et al., 2009; Schaubroeck et al., 2012).”