Abstract
In the current times of increasing turbulence and uncertainty defining organisational life, executive leaders need to develop their ‘capability for uncertainty’, that is, their ability to engage with uncertainty in their context, while managing their experienced uncertainty. However, what constitutes a holistic capability for uncertainty is not clear. The purpose of the study was to propose a coaching framework and guidelines towards developing executive leaders’ capability for uncertainty, including recommendations for future research. This purpose was achieved through an integration of insights derived from making sense of (1) executive leaders’ lived experience of uncertainty and what capability for uncertainty they develop through their experience; and (2) executive coaches’ lived experience of assisting executives with uncertainty and their views on what constitutes a capability for uncertainty.
A qualitative research approach was adopted, using interpretative phenomenological analysis. The research design was cross-sectional, multi-perspectival and retrospective, utilising a three-phased strategy, with data collected through semi-structured interviews. In Phase 1, six executive leaders were interviewed from two companies with different time periods of organisational uncertainty, resulting in integrated sample of twelve executives. Six executive coaches, with different training or educational backgrounds, and not in a coaching relationship with the executives in Phase 1, were interviewed in Phase 2. An integrative analysis in Phase 3 of the findings across Phase 1 (executive leaders) and Phase 2 (executive coaches) informed a proposed coaching framework towards developing executives’ capability for uncertainty.
The executive leaders’ lived experience of uncertainty in both companies was found to be one of flux. Their felt uncertainty was a complex and dynamic phenomenon that comprised overlapping and inter-related types of personal uncertainty and challenges experienced in their leader role. The net effect was that the executive leaders’ felt uncertainty seemed to manifest primarily as issues of identity and decreased personal agency. A core aspect of the executives’ approach to managing their uncertainty was through sensemaking and identity construction. The valence and intensity of the executives’ felt uncertainty appeared to affect the quality of and approach to their sensemaking. The findings clarify the sensemaking and identity construction processes adopted, and the inter-relationship between them, thereby adding to the body of knowledge on executive uncertainty and how it is approached...
D.Phil.