Effectiveness of Leadership Decision-Making in Complex Systems

This paper traverses the domains of leadership and decision-making within various types of systems with different levels of complexity. The article presents some background about both leadership and decision-making, and then explores the concept of leadership decision-making and some of the factors involved. The paper then reviews complex systems and provides examples to differentiate complex systems from other systems. Finally, these strands are brought together with a consideration of leadership decision-making in complex systems and presentation of a framework to assist managers faced with decision-making in complexity, based on data collected in a survey. The aim and practical contribution of this paper is to improve the outcomes of leadership decision-making within complex systems, based upon the findings and on a decision aid model derived from them. The paper, therefore, should help people in real life and leaders within organizational settings to improve their decision-making effectiveness within the ever-increasing range of complex situations which are now widely encountered.

[1]  Martin Mulder,et al.  Towards distributed leadership in vocational education and training schools: The interplay between formal leaders and team members , 2019 .

[2]  Kaija Collin,et al.  A meta-analysis of distributed leadership from 2002 to 2013 , 2016 .

[3]  W. Arthur Why Do Things Become More Complex , 1993 .

[4]  D. Dörner,et al.  Complex Problem Solving: What It Is and What It Is Not , 2017, Front. Psychol..

[5]  Kathleen M. Eisenhardt,et al.  Making Fast Strategic Decisions In High-Velocity Environments , 1989 .

[6]  Kirsten G. Volz,et al.  Emotions and Decisions , 2016, Perspectives on psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

[7]  Elke U. Weber,et al.  The Decision Making Individual Differences Inventory and guidelines for the study of individual differences in judgment and decision-making research , 2011, Judgment and Decision Making.

[8]  Colin Camerer,et al.  The Psychology and Neuroscience of Financial Decision Making , 2016, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[9]  A. Lusardi Financial literacy: Do people know the ABCs of finance? , 2014, Public understanding of science.

[10]  Matt Andrews Going Beyond Heroic Leaders in Development: Going Beyond Heroic Leaders , 2016 .

[11]  George C. Banks,et al.  A meta-analytic review of authentic and transformational leadership: A test for redundancy , 2016 .

[12]  Robert G. Lord,et al.  Leadership theory and research in the new millennium: Current theoretical trends and changing perspectives , 2014 .

[13]  Douglas Walton,et al.  An Argumentation Interface for Expert Opinion Evidence , 2016 .

[14]  Pauline Howie,et al.  Cognitive Abilities, Monitoring Confidence, and Control Thresholds Explain Individual Differences in Heuristics and Biases , 2016, Front. Psychol..

[15]  Gerd Kempermann,et al.  Cynefin as Reference Framework to Facilitate Insight and Decision-Making in Complex Contexts of Biomedical Research , 2017, Front. Neurosci..

[16]  Chris Brown,et al.  The Role of Emotional Intelligence in the Career Commitment and Decision-Making Process , 2003 .

[17]  Gerd Gigerenzer,et al.  Ecological Rationality: Fast-and-Frugal Heuristics for Managerial Decision Making under Uncertainty , 2019, Academy of Management Journal.

[18]  Alex Gorod,et al.  Flexibility of System of Systems , 2008 .

[19]  Christina Björklund,et al.  The importance of confidence in leadership role: A qualitative study of the process following two Swedish leadership programmes , 2017 .

[20]  Avishag Gordon,et al.  Leadership of the present, current theories of multiple involvements: a bibliometric analysis , 2016, Scientometrics.

[21]  Steffen R. Giessner,et al.  The Thin Line Between Empowering and Laissez-Faire Leadership: An Expectancy-Match Perspective , 2018 .

[22]  Mark Clayton Delphi: a technique to harness expert opinion for critical decision‐making tasks in education , 1997 .

[23]  H. Simon Rational Decision Making in Business Organizations , 1978 .

[24]  J. Birkinshaw,et al.  The sources of management innovation: When firms introduce new management practices , 2009 .

[25]  Z. Bakonyi,et al.  Why do firms centralise their strategic decision-making during crisis? A qualitative study , 2018, Journal of Organizational Change Management.

[26]  D. Snowden,et al.  A leader's framework for decision making , 2007 .

[27]  Bill Piersol Employee engagement and power to the edge , 2007 .

[28]  P. Slovic,et al.  Affect and decision making: A hot topic , 2006 .

[29]  Gary Klein,et al.  Naturalistic Decision Making , 2008, Hum. Factors.

[30]  Eran Halperin,et al.  Can Emotion Regulation Change Political Attitudes in Intractable Conflicts? From the Laboratory to the Field , 2013, Psychological science.

[31]  Kathleen M. Eisenhardt,et al.  Speed and Strategic Choice: How Managers Accelerate Decision Making , 1990 .

[32]  Karen M. Arnell,et al.  I want to media multitask and I want to do it now: Individual differences in media multitasking predict delay of gratification and system-1 thinking , 2017, Cognitive research: principles and implications.

[33]  Benyamin Lichtenstein,et al.  Relationality in Organizational Research: Exploring The Space Between , 2000 .

[34]  Edwin van Teijlingen,et al.  Guide to the design and application of online questionnaire surveys , 2016, Nepal journal of epidemiology.

[35]  Daniel Maxey,et al.  The Delphi technique: an untapped approach of participatory research , 2016 .

[36]  Grant Purdy,et al.  ISO 31000:2009—Setting a New Standard for Risk Management , 2010, Risk analysis : an official publication of the Society for Risk Analysis.

[37]  Ben Gray,et al.  The Cynefin framework: applying an understanding of complexity to medicine. , 2017, Journal of primary health care.

[38]  Thomas Maak,et al.  Responsible Leadership in a Stakeholder Society – A Relational Perspective , 2006 .

[39]  T. Judge,et al.  Personality and leadership: a qualitative and quantitative review. , 2002, The Journal of applied psychology.

[40]  B. Kuzmanovic,et al.  What is unrealistic optimism? , 2017, Consciousness and Cognition.

[41]  Lisa Bortolotti,et al.  Costs and benefits of realism and optimism , 2015, Current opinion in psychiatry.

[42]  Joreintje D Mackenbach,et al.  The Moderating Role of Self-Control and Financial Strain in the Relation between Exposure to the Food Environment and Obesity: The GLOBE Study , 2019, International journal of environmental research and public health.

[43]  Thea Zander,et al.  Why You Don’t See the Forest for the Trees When You Are Anxious: Anxiety Impairs Intuitive Decision Making , 2018 .

[44]  Witsinee Bovornusvakool,et al.  GLOBE Study culture clusters: Can they be found in Importance ratings of managerial competencies? , 2016 .

[45]  J. Lerner,et al.  Emotion and decision making. , 2015, Annual review of psychology.

[46]  T. Judge,et al.  Five-factor model of personality and transformational leadership. , 2000, The Journal of applied psychology.

[47]  B. McKelvey,et al.  Complexity Leadership Theory: Shifting leadership from the industrial age to the knowledge era ! , 2007 .

[48]  Alex Gorod,et al.  A Systemic Approach to Complex Project Management: Integration of Command-and-Control and Network Governance , 2018, Systems Research and Behavioral Science.

[49]  Kenda Crozier,et al.  How do informal information sources influence women’s decision-making for birth? A meta-synthesis of qualitative studies , 2018, BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth.

[50]  D. Kahneman,et al.  Conditions for intuitive expertise: a failure to disagree. , 2009, The American psychologist.

[51]  Shelley E. Taylor,et al.  Positive illusions and well-being revisited: separating fact from fiction. , 1994, Psychological bulletin.

[52]  M. Uhl‐Bien,et al.  Complexity Leadership in Bureaucratic Forms of Organizing: A Meso Model , 2009 .

[53]  Stephanie T. Lanza,et al.  Personality profiles of effective leadership performance in assessment centers , 2016, Human performance.

[54]  L. Buchanan,et al.  A brief history of decision making. , 2006, Harvard business review.

[55]  Elke U. Weber,et al.  The Financial Costs of Sadness , 2013, Psychological science.

[56]  L Eng,et al.  Cancer care-related social media (SM) and internet usage differences between adolescents and young adults (AYA), adults and elderly patients with cancer. , 2018, Annals of oncology : official journal of the European Society for Medical Oncology.

[57]  Gerben A. van Kleef,et al.  Deliberation Versus Intuition: Decomposing the Role of Expertise in Judgment and Decision Making , 2013 .

[58]  Devi Jankowicz,et al.  Why does subjectivity make us nervous , 2001 .

[59]  Robert G. Lord,et al.  A Network Analysis of Leadership Theory , 2016 .

[60]  Cong Liu,et al.  Ineffective leadership and employees' negative outcomes: the mediating effect of anxiety and depression , 2017 .

[61]  J. Baum,et al.  STRATEGIC DECISION SPEED AND FIRM PERFORMANCE , 2003 .

[62]  Erik Dane,et al.  Exploring Intuition and its Role in Managerial Decision Making , 2007 .

[63]  H. Simon,et al.  Rational choice and the structure of the environment. , 1956, Psychological review.

[64]  Michael Jackson,et al.  Towards a System of Systems Methodologies , 1984 .

[65]  G. Calabretta,et al.  The Interplay between Intuition and Rationality in Strategic Decision Making: A Paradox Perspective , 2017 .

[66]  H. Simon,et al.  Making Management Decisions: the Role of Intuition and Emotion , 1987 .