Exploring complexity leadership and business modelling across crisis phases

Purpose Strategic leaders are increasingly facing severe and unprecedented crises that are threatening organisation survivability, making classical leadership practices less effective in complex environments. Using complexity leadership theory that constitutes three dynamic leadership styles - administrative, adaptive and enabling – this study explores how they interact across different crisis phases and how the prevailing leadership style in each phase is associated with specific business model changes necessary for organisation resilience and survivability. Design/methodology/approach Using a qualitative research approach, interviews were conducted with 22 organisations that have managed to survive a multitude of crises to reflect on leadership practices adopted during the disturbances. Findings The results show a prevailing role of administrative leadership across the entire crisis timespan. While administrative leadership ensured centralised decision and control, it was cautiously exercised during the crisis management phase with the manifestation of adaptive leadership at the executive level. The post-crisis phase witnessed a sequential layered leadership approach, from administrative to enabling to adaptive. These dynamic interactions correspond with distinct business model changes, including liquidity management at the early crisis stage, stakeholder management and product development during crisis management and globalisation and transformative innovations at the post-crisis phase. Practical implications Strategic leaders can be reassured that their leadership style, in particular administrative leadership, can be modified as the context necessitates, such as incorporating both adaptive and enabling capacities in a sequential manner. They can also benefit from the findings to reduce the risk of leadership-strategy misalignment, thereby reducing internal resistance and enhancing innovation with the optimal configuration of business model decisions. Originality/value This study provides a micro-level analysis of the interaction of the three leadership styles suitable for a complex adaptive system. In doing so, it explores the relevance of each at different crisis phases, while establishing a link between leadership practices and business model changes, a relationship that has been overlooked in the extant literature.