Mindsets for Change Leaders: Exploring Priming Approaches for Leadership Development

ABSTRACT

Diagnostic and dialogic organization development present two contrasting change practices that are frequently discussed in tandem. Yet, an increasing body of evidence shows they are co-applied in practice. For those involved in leadership of these practices, co-application means switching their engagement, such as commencing with a diagnostic analysis to determine the goals of change, then switching to dialogic processes to foster the emergence of new ways of working. However, theoretical descriptions of these two practices remain bifurcated and, as such, overlook leadership development approaches that help leaders switch between engagement styles. Addressing this problem, this paper explores a leadership development approach that focusses on mindsets. We propose six mindsets from psychology settings that are relevant for leadership of diagnostic and dialogic practices. A key contribution of this work is a new perspective on leadership development. Extending psychology-derived knowledge on how to activate mindsets provides leaders of change practices with a means to increase awareness of, and take control of, their mindset, helping them to adjust their engagement as change contexts dictate.

MAD statement

This paper seeks to Make a Difference (MAD) by offering a practical means to develop change leaders. Far too often, change practice literature has studied successful leaders with the aim to identify what they do, while at the same time overlooking the mechanics that develop these same actions and behaviours. The paper addresses this oversight with a focus on mindsets. It puts forward a means for leaders to increase awareness of, and take control of, their activated mindset and, in doing so, align what they do to change leadership contexts.

KEYWORDS:

• Organization development
• change leadership
• mindsets
• leadership development

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bradley J. Hastings

Bradley Hastings is a Lecturer at the School of Management and Governance at the UNSW Business School. Brad re-joined academia following a 20-year corporate career. During this time he was both a Deal lead at Capita Plc, developing solutions to transform government services, and a Partner at Stroud consulting, guiding multinational organizations to achieve step-changes in their performance. Converting to academia, Brad’s research focusses on mindsets and the leadership development opportunities this knowledge presents. He has published in The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Leadership in Health Services and Research in Organizational Change and Development.

Gavin M. Schwarz

Gavin Schwarz is a Professor in the School of Management and Governance at the UNSW Business School. His research and work interests include organizational change and organizational inertia, with a particular interest in better understanding how organizations fail when changing and developing applied strategies for dealing with failure to change. He is also interested in exploring how knowledge develops in organizational and change theory and has published in numerous journals including Academy of Management Learning and Education, Journal of Management, Organization Science, Group and Organization Management, British Journal of Management, and Administrative Science Quarterly. He is editor in chief for The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science and sits on several editorial boards.