Abstract
Purpose: In today’s organizational environments, decision-making processes are often complex and multi-phased in nature, requiring the involvement of multiple actors with expert knowledge during various phases of organizational work. While leadership literature has widely examined hierarchical, shared, and distributed leadership approaches, dominant leadership theories describe leadership as either constantly exercised by an individual or simultaneously shared among organizational members. In this article, we conceptualize a new form of leadership called Serial Leadership (SL), where leadership influence over organizational coordination is sequentially transferred among actors based on task phases, relevance of expert knowledge, or timing within the decision-making process. The objective of this article is to conceptualize Serial Leadership as a sequentially exercised leadership process within multi-phased organizational work.
Design/methodology/approach: In this article, we use a conceptual study design based on an interpretivist paradigm for understanding leadership as socially constructed. We use an inductive theory development approach to synthesize contemporary literature on distributed leadership, leadership as practice, and organizational coordination to develop the concept of Serial Leadership (Jaakkola, 2020).
Findings: The conceptual study reveals that leadership influence in complex organizational environments might sequentially transfer among actors based on task phases and expert knowledge relevance. The proposed framework of Serial Leadership might influence organizational coordination through issues of responsibility transfer, decision ownership, and strategic consistency.
Originality/value: By conceptualizing Serial Leadership as a sequentially exercised leadership process within multi-phased organizational work, we contribute to leadership literature beyond structural and relational theories of leadership influence. The proposed framework offers an opportunity for future empirical research on leadership influence across decision-making phases within complex organizational environments.