Leadership Sensemaking During Organizational Evolution: Exploring Cognitive Adaptation Mechanisms Among Senior Executives

Abstract

This study aimed to explore how senior executives make sense of organizational evolution and develop cognitive adaptation mechanisms during periods of strategic, structural, and technological transformation. This qualitative study used an inductive research design based on semi-structured interviews with 24 senior executives working in medium and large organizations in Tehran. Participants were selected through purposive and theoretical sampling because of their direct involvement in strategic decision-making, organizational transformation, digitalization, restructuring, or business model renewal. Data collection continued until theoretical saturation was reached, with saturation emerging after the twenty-first interview and three additional interviews conducted to confirm the stability of the emerging categories. Interviews lasted between 55 and 90 minutes and focused on executives’ interpretations of organizational change, uncertainty, strategic ambiguity, decision-making tensions, and adaptive leadership practices. All interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using open, axial, and selective coding with the support of NVivo software. Analytical rigor was strengthened through constant comparison, memo writing, peer review of codes, and participant validation of selected interpretations. The findings revealed five main categories of leadership sensemaking during organizational evolution: cognitive disruption and frame destabilization, temporal reframing of organizational change, collective interpretation and executive dialogue, experimental cognition and adaptive learning, and identity recalibration in leadership roles. Executives initially experienced organizational evolution as a disruption of familiar cognitive maps, especially when established assumptions about markets, employees, technology, and control no longer explained emerging realities. They adapted by reconstructing the meaning of change across past, present, and future time horizons, using strategic narratives to reduce ambiguity and mobilize commitment. Sensemaking was also described as a collective process in which executive teams negotiated competing interpretations through dialogue, conflict, and scenario-based reasoning. Participants emphasized experimentation, boundary scanning, and reflective learning as mechanisms for updating strategic assumptions. Finally, organizational evolution required executives to revise their leadership identities from controllers and planners toward facilitators of learning, interpreters of complexity, and designers of adaptive organizational conditions. The study shows that leadership sensemaking is not merely an interpretive response to change but a central cognitive adaptation mechanism through which senior executives transform uncertainty into strategic action. Organizational evolution challenges executives’ existing mental models, but it also creates opportunities for reframing, learning, dialogue, and identity renewal. The proposed qualitative model suggests that effective executive adaptation depends on the ability to tolerate ambiguity, reconstruct meaning collectively, experiment with alternative interpretations, and align leadership identity with complex organizational realities. These findings contribute to leadership and organizational change literature by explaining how senior leaders cognitively navigate evolutionary transformation rather than simply implement predetermined change programs.