Leadership Sensemaking in Complex Management Systems: A Grounded Theory Study of Executive Decision-Making
Keywords:
leadership sensemaking, complex management systems, grounded theory, executive decision-making, strategic ambiguity, qualitative research, TehranAbstract
This study aimed to develop a grounded theoretical model explaining how executive leaders make sense of ambiguous, dynamic, and interdependent decision situations in complex management systems. This qualitative study was conducted using a constructivist grounded theory design. Participants included 24 executive managers working in medium and large organizations in Tehran, Iran, selected through purposive and theoretical sampling. Data were collected exclusively through semi-structured interviews focused on executives’ experiences of strategic ambiguity, stakeholder pressure, crisis interpretation, information overload, and decision enactment. Interviews continued until theoretical saturation was achieved; saturation was reached after the twenty-second interview, and two additional interviews were conducted to confirm category density. Interview data were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using constant comparative analysis, including initial coding, focused coding, axial integration, theoretical memoing, and core category development. NVivo software was used to organize transcripts, codes, memos, categories, and analytical comparisons. The analysis generated one core category, “adaptive sensemaking loops,” and five main categories: strategic ambiguity framing, collective cue integration, temporal balancing, political-emotional containment, and enactment through provisional commitment. The findings indicated that executive decision-making in complex systems was not experienced as a linear process of problem identification and solution selection, but as a recursive process through which leaders interpreted weak signals, negotiated meaning with others, stabilized anxiety, balanced short-term and long-term consequences, and acted before complete certainty was available. The study suggests that leadership sensemaking is a central mechanism through which executives transform uncertainty into actionable direction in complex management systems. Effective executive decision-making depends less on perfect information and more on interpretive discipline, dialogic intelligence, adaptive timing, emotional containment, and the ability to convert provisional meaning into coordinated organizational action.
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