Reflective Leadership Research Initiative
A research initiative dedicated to Reflective Leadership Capacity, leadership development, and decision-making in complex contexts
Developed by Stéphane Lelong
Researcher and Lecturer in Management Sciences
Université Paris Dauphine – PSL
Understanding how leaders develop their leadership and make decisions in complex contexts
In environments characterized by uncertainty and complexity, leaders and managers are not only faced with problems to solve, but with situations they need to understand, interpret, and address through action.
The quality of leadership and decision-making therefore depends not only on the actions undertaken, but also on how these situations are understood.
Leadership does not develop solely through experience itself, but through the way experience is analyzed, interpreted, and transformed into learning.
A reflective approach to leadership development and decision-making
The research conducted within the Reflective Leadership Research Initiative focuses on the role of reflective processes in leadership development and decision-making in complex contexts.
It draws on the concept of Reflective Leadership Capacity, defined as an individual’s capacity to mobilize several reflective resources in an integrated way in order to understand experience, learn from it, and develop leadership.
This capacity is based on five complementary dimensions: reflexivity, empathy, critical thinking, creativity, and continuous learning. Together, these dimensions contribute to the analysis of experience, the interpretation of complex situations, leadership development, and decision-making.
Positioning
The initiative is structured around a central question:
How do leaders develop their leadership and decision-making capacity through experience in contexts characterized by complexity and uncertainty?
Reflective processes reveal a central tension:
acting effectively while developing a deeper understanding of one’s experience.
Reflexivity plays a structuring role in leadership development by helping transform experience into learning, improve the quality of decisions, and strengthen the capacity to act in complex situations.
The leadership development process
Experience
↓
Reflective interpretation
↓
Learning
↓
Leadership development
↓
Decision and action
↺ Feedback into experience
Experience becomes truly developmental only when it is analyzed, interpreted, and transformed into learning that can be mobilized in action.
The work focuses on the role of reflexivity in:
It examines the processes through which leaders interpret their experience, develop their leadership, and improve their capacity to act in complex environments.
Three entry points into the project
Understanding the reflective processes involved in leadership development.
Designing programs that foster learning, reflexivity, and leadership development.
Exploring lived experience in order to deepen understanding and foster learning.
Research areas
Three areas structure the work:
They converge around a shared research question:
How do leaders develop their leadership and decision-making capacity through experience?
Activities
The initiative brings together several types of activities:
These activities aim to connect research, experience, and leadership development.
Stéphane Lelong is a researcher and lecturer in Management Sciences at Université Paris Dauphine – PSL.
After more than thirty years of experience as a senior executive, his current work focuses on:
His work aims to better understand how leaders develop their leadership and improve their decisions in environments characterized by uncertainty and complexity.
Ce site a été conçu avec Jimdo Creator. Inscrivez-vous gratuitement sur https://fr.jimdo.com