From Stories to Schemas: A Dual Systems Model of Leaders' Organizational Sensemaking. (November 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Steinbauer, Robert; Rhew, Nicholas D.; Chen, H. Shawna
• Is Part Of: Journal of leadership & organizational studies. Volume 22:Number 4(2015)
• Page Start: 404
• Page End: 412
• Publication Date: 2015-11
• Subjects: sensemaking -- dual systems -- intuition; Leadership -- Periodicals; Management -- Periodicals; Organization -- Periodicals; 658.4092
• DOI: 10.1177/1548051815598007
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1548-0518

Abstract

Today's leaders face unprecedented complexity and dynamism in the external environment. Sensemaking provides a useful framework for understanding how leaders extract meaning from that environment; however, its focus on purely conscious processes limits its applicability. We revisit and overcome major epistemological and ontological arguments against reconciling sensemaking with other decision-making models. This allows us to propose a dual systems model of sensemaking by introducing unconscious sensemaking as a complementary process that supports conscious sensemaking. We propose that the plausible stories that result from conscious sensemaking lead to schemas over time through which leaders can unconsciously make sense of their environment. This dual systems model holds important implications for leadership scholarship, in both describing leaders' cognitive processes and how those leaders can utilize this improved model to better effect change.