Contextual Leadership

Contextual Leadership intelligence is defined by Anthony Mayo and Nitin Nohria as the ability to understand an evolving environment, and to capitalize on those evolving trends. They have applied it to firms in changing markets over the past century. Steve Jobs at Apple, for example, seems to have a keen ability to pinpoint consumer trends. More broadly, it is an intuitive diagnostic skill that helps a leader to align resources with objectives. The leader understands the distribution of different power resources and moves with, rather than against, the flow of events to implement a strategy.

Contextual leadership implies both a capability to discern trends in the face of complexity and uncertainty as well as adaptability while still trying to shape events. It allows leaders to adjust their style to the situation and to their followers’ needs. It requires them to create a system for the flow of information that “educates their hunches.”

This ability involves the broad political skill, of not only sizing up office politics, but of understanding the positions and strengths of various stakeholders so as to decide when and how to use transactional and inspirational skills. It is the self-made part of luck. Some corporations train personnel to develop contextual intelligence. GE, for example, tries to fit styles to context at its training center for leaders: “whatever their styles, we can show them the kinds of meetings and review processes that play to their advantages.”