The experience of leadership during organizational identity transformation: A phenomenological study of Florida's state college presidents

The study was a qualitative investigation into the sensemaking experience of leaders during transformative organizational identity change. How people arrive at meaning (sensemaking) and the implications of that meaning for organizational performance are essential to effective leadership during change. Organizational theory holds that organizational identity (views of what the organization is and represents) has implications for how members identify with an organization and that organizational identification impacts members' own perception of self. Existing sensemaking studies during change comprise case studies and ethnographic studies focused on organizational effects and member behaviors. The literature gap centers on the leadership experience. The research questions for this study focused on the sensemaking and sensegiving nature of the leadership experience and personal effects of organization identity transformation on leaders. Data were collected and analyzed through phenomenological reduction and imaginative variation. In-depth interviews and recursive interactions with college presidents leading their institutions through identity change were used to describe the experience. Findings document the significance of community influence on leader behavior, the importance of an enacted internal sensegiving environment, the role of relationships in shaping sense, the emergence of an antagonist in the sense narrative, mitigation of identity issues, the emergence of a dominant lens, and college image issues. Senseshaping is offered as a construct to describe leadership behavior in conditions of multilateral, competitive sensemaking. This study contributes to social change by preparing leaders to guide socially important organizations through transformation.