What managers know about leadership (e.g. conceptual and procedural knowledge) does not necessarily predict what they do (applied knowledge) in organizations. This research explores the leadership knowing-doing gap, which we define as a discrepancy between managers' leadership knowing and the extent to which they transfer it into leadership doing.Taking a phenomenological approach, we explore how and why managers experience the leadership knowing-doing gap, analyzing 65 critical incidents from interviews with 22 managers in leadership roles across various organizational levels in the United Kingdom. We present the leadership knowing-doing gap as a multifaceted, dynamic and complex experience involving cognitive, affective, and behavioral elements. We discuss how these elements interplay in influencing the dynamics of creating or widening the gap on the one hand, and preventing or closing the gap on the other hand. We shed light into factors that influence the leadership knowing-doing gap: motivation, prioritization, and confidence to enact leadership. We also highlight the role of the context in discrepancies between leadership knowing and doing. Our definition and proposed framework offer a conceptualization that advances the understanding of the leadership knowing-doing gap. We end with our theoretical contributions and practical implications for both management learning and leadership development.
Alison Lindley -parents of Ella, their then 6-year-old daughter -with a passion to develop healthy and organic nutrition that sustainably changes the eating habits of young children. The company revolutionized the baby food market in the UK and became an internationally recognized brand, winning awards as an innovator and as an employer. Paul Lindley and his management team created what they coined "Ella's-ness", an organizational philosophy and way of being that combines business with fun and excitement to develop and maintain a highly energized and unique climate as a backbone for an innovative and successful organization. This case explores the shared purpose, vision, mission, and values, as well as the positive collective human experience of the company, all of which were crucial drivers for positive energy and performance.
Energising vision, mission and shared purposeThe Lindley's founded Ella's Kitchen with a passion to create healthy baby food and eating habits for infants and children. Paul Lindley states, "I set up Ella's Kitchen because I passionately believe that Ella, my daughter, along with her generation, should have the opportunity to eat better food and also to discover that healthy food can be fun, tasty, and cool… Our mission is to develop healthy eating habits that last a lifetime by offering a range of tasty, natural, and healthy 100% organic foods for
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.