Abstract
Five years ago The Leadership Quarterly published a special issue on the topic of complexity to advance a new way of thinking about leadership. In shifting attention away from the individual to the organizing process itself, complexity added an important focus on process and context to leadership and management research. Yet the complexity approach creates methodological challenges for researchers who must combine (or replace) more static methods—like surveys or factor analysis—with richer methodologies that investigate networked meso-dynamics, multilevel phenomena, and emergent processes (and outcomes). To address this challenge, the present analysis reviews theoretical and empirical work over the last several years. It identifies five specific areas where complexity inspired research has led to new insights about the mechanisms that enable the organization to perform and adapt. It suggests propositions that describe how leadership and management, defined holistically, might activate complexity mechanisms to perform five essential organizing functions.