Discursive Leadership: Harmonious and Discordant Framing-to-Sensemaking Outcomes

Abstract

Changes in the business world come from many different unfamiliar organizational events, including mergers and acquisitions, leadership takeovers or company-wide expansion. When these unfamiliar organizational events occur, employees feeling the negative effects (e.g. confusion, anger, anxiety) often need to make sense of the event in a way that is meaningful (Weick & Sutcliffe, 2007). Whatever the cause of change, leadership must take a proactive role in managing the meaning of organizational events in a way that makes sense for employees. Using framing (Fairhurst, 2010), sensegiving (Gioia & Chittipeddi, 1991) and sensemaking (Weick, 1995), this study explores the successful and unsuccessful framing attempts of small business leaders to manage the meaning of organizational events for employees during a turning point in the organizations development. Data for this study were collected via 27 in-depth interviews, ethnographic participant observation data collection and through archival data collection. Leaders’ attempts to frame fell into two categories: harmonious framing-to-sensemaking endeavours; and discordant framing-to-sensemaking endeavours.

Keywords

Framing sensemaking sensegiving leadership organizational communication

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