Follower insights on complex adaptive systems during periods of disruption and adaptation

Abstract

Leaders in the twenty-first century face a complex and challenging business environment. The pace of technological change and globalisation has created an environment that requires organisations to deal with increased complexity and uncertainty. Organisational leaders must navigate these complexities while also balancing operational stability. Managing disruption requires adaptive, innovative, and creative approaches. This research study aims to provide additional insights into the influence of leadership on innovation and adaptation within complex adaptive systems (CAS). It builds upon existing literature on leadership complexity theories, highlighting the significance of relational and emergent processes. The study examines leader-follower dynamics and their potential to enhance organisational adaptability to disruptions. This research study used a qualitative method to explore the lived experiences of 16 followers within the research setting of the COVID-19 epidemic. The study followed a phenomenological research design to explore the lived experiences of followers. The exploration included their observations of disruption, their perspective of leadership during disruption, the leaderfollower dynamics they experienced during disruption and their own experience of their role expansion during adaptation. Overall, followers' lived experiences within a complex adaptive system during disruption and adaptation are multifaceted. Effective leadership communication, the intricate dynamics between leaders and followers, and the environment's supportiveness shape these experiences. The findings highlight the need for further research on the impact of negative role perceptions and the potential of extending evolutionary leadership theory and constructionist leadership constructs to complex leadership theory as they contribute to understanding the dampening effects on leadership emergence and amplification. One of the study's main limitations is that it only looked at an external disruption within one sector. Including only followers provides a perspective on the complexity phenomenon; however, it is a limitation as there could be additional insights by expanding the study to include both the lived experience of leaders and followers.