Senior Managers’ Motivation to Trust During Strategic Change: Managing Contextual Ambidexterity Through Sensemaking-Sensegiving Processes

In the dynamic and evolving landscape of contemporary organizations, the pursuit of contextual ambidexterity—balancing exploitation of existing competencies and exploration of new opportunities—has become paramount for sustained success. The management of individual ambidexterity thereby underscores the pivotal role and ability of leaders to manage tensions that arise when dealing with this situation. Undertaking action-based research, we explore the lived experiences of senior managers during a 12-month major strategic change initiative in an incumbent retail organization in South Africa. We find that senior managers’ experiences of tensions and their willingness to accept vulnerabilities during the initiative affected their perception of power and control over the process and their motivation to trust others to balance both, stability and change