A new model for meaning-based leadership

Meaning-based leadership

The core of leadership in organizations is to motivate all stakeholders to pursue the organization’s purpose. To that end, senior management must communicate why the organization exists and why the organization does what it does.

Leadership Theory

Yet no leadership theory is central to this idea of purpose. To address this problem, Professor Daan van Knippenberg proposes the concept of “meaning-based leadership”. Within the construct “meaning-based leadership,” leaders have a solid understanding of the organization’s higher purpose, advocate why that purpose is meaningful, and motivate everyone involved to contribute to the pursuit of that purpose.

Meaning-based leadership model

The author introduces a new model for meaning-based leadership, visualizing the core process and contingencies of this process. The researcher identifies key implications for the empirical study of this model, as well as directions for further conceptual and empirical development of key implications of the model.