The dynamics of organizational leadership transition

The purpose of this dissertation was to examine how leadership is symbolically constructed by the members of an organization experiencing leadership transition. The culture of a football organization experiencing three new head coaches in three years was examined through the talk, metaphors, narratives, stories, and drama reported by the players. The process members of the organization experience is detailed from the point when they find out the previous coach is leaving through the end of the first year of the third head coach. Previous research focused on the experience of the leader during the succession process; this study focuses on the experience of the members of the organization and adds a detailed description of the process they experience. Sensemaking during the first team meetings of each head coach is examined. Root-metaphors symbolic of the leader and the culture of the team under each head coach are discovered and examined to understand how they are symbolically created and enacted on a daily basis on the team. The change process is examined by gaining an understanding of the culture of the football team and how aspects of culture changed during each leadership transition. An examination of the process of how changes are accepted or resisted is detailed through the stories of those who accepted or resisted change. Coach leadership styles differed and are analyzed for narrative form. The structure of the organization is examined as it aided one transition and complicated the other transition.;The researcher spent one year observing the organization before interviewing players. Data collection included media reports, sports information releases, observation of games, practices, media interviews during the week and after games, and a series of player interviews at the end of the season. The interviewing process examined researcher-generated questions and player-generated questions to gain a more complete understanding of the culture of the leadership transitions.;An analysis of two radically different leadership transition reveals that one transition was drastic, but accomplished in a short period of time, while the other transition was still going on when the player interviews occurred. The second transition was plagued by conflicting expectations, a structure that impeded change, and a coach experiencing the role of a head coach for the first time attempting to follow a coach who won a championship in his first year. The sensemaking process, metaphors, narratives, and organizational dramas facilitate the analysis of how leadership is symbolically constructed during leadership transition.