Lonely at the Top? CEO Sensemaking in the Boardroom

Abstract

Amidst the uncertainty and ambiguity characterizing CEO’s role, issues or events that are “novel, ambiguous, confusing, or in some other way violate expectations” (Maitlis & Christianson, 2014: 57) mobilize CEOs to seek information and to challenge their - and others’ - understanding. Drawing on in-depth qualitative interviews with 146 global CEOs, we conduct a micro-level analysis of how CEOs seek, process and make sense of information via their interactions with the TMT and others as part of their decision-making process. We explore the interchangeable and power-charged process of sensedemanding and sensemaking through which meaning-making and eventually decision-making occur. The process involves CEOs (nominally) conceding some of their power and voice to others, before retaining them prior to making a decision. CEOs invite dissension and hence, also invite multivocality (and as a result also equivocality) from their environment and seek to test or validate sensemaking and crystalize it into decisions. Our findings unpack the micro-dynamics of CEO decision-making drawing on the CEO-TMT interface, managerial cognition and decision-making literatures.