Emotions in Strategic Leadership: A Literature Review and Theoretical Modelling For Future Research Directions

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Emotions in strategic leadership: A Literature review and theoretical modelling

for future research directions
Article in International Journal of Organization Theory and Behavior · March 2017

DOI: 10.1108/IJOTB-20-03-2017-B002
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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ORGANIZATION THEORY AND BEHAVIOR, 20 (3), 313-342 FALL 2017
EMOTIONS IN STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP: A LITERATURE REVIEW AND

THEORETICAL MODELLING FOR FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS
Alicia Ohlsson and Gerry Larsson*
ABSTRACT. The aim was to explore the existing literature on emotion and
strategic leadership in a systematic review and to synthesize it into a
theoretical model. A literature review on emotion in connection to strategic
leadership was undertaken. After adhering to the search strategy and
exclusion criteria, 46 peer-reviewed texts consisting of articles and relevant
book chapters remained. The texts were analyzed according to the grounded
theory method (GTM) to generate a new theoretical model and a core
variable was identified, organizational emotion shaping. The model attempts
to show how the interaction of individual and organizational framing factors
with the strategic leader’s tasks and challenges lead to emotion shaping
internal and external of the organization. Suggestions for future research
were formed and suggestions of practical implications were given. This
literature review and theoretical integration offers a starting point for
potential areas of further exploration.
INTRODUCTION
Traditionally speaking, emotional displays and reactions in
leadership have often been perceived as being maladaptive in
nature. There has been an anecdotal focus on emotion regulation
strategies meant to neutralize or buffer negative or unacceptable
emotions (Ashforth & Humprey, 1995; Gross, 1998; Jones & Bodtker,
2001; Lord --------------------------
* Alicia Ohlsson, MA Counseling/Clinical Psychology, is a researcher,
Department of Security, Strategy and Leadership, Swedish Defence
University. Her research interest is in the areas of leadership and stress,
emotion management and organizational psychology in military contexts.
Gerry Larsson, Ph.D., is a Licensed Psychologist, Professor, Swedish
Defence University, and an Adjunct Professor, Hedmark University College,
Norway. His research interest is in the areas of leadership, stress,
personality and organization.
Copyright © 2017 by PrAcademics Press

314 OHLSSON & LARSSON
& Harvey, 2002). Gross (1998) points out the misconception that
emotions are often seen as chaotic, immature and irrational.
However, research of emotion in leadership is a rapidly growing
concept and a focus has been placed upon the emotionally aware
leader (Ashkanasy, 2003; Ashkanasy & Humprey, 2011; Barsade &
Gibson, 2007). Leadership models such as transformational (Bass,
1995), authentic (Avolio & Gardner, 2005), charismatic (Conger &
Kanungo, 1988) and developmental leadership (Larsson & Eid,
2012), emphasize the use of empathic methods in order to appeal to
and further develop leaders and subordinates. These styles of
leadership focus on how to motivate, inspire, and create vision using
the power of emotion with their subordinates.
Within these leadership developments, little focus has been
placed on the differentiation of the use of and the consequences of
emotion at different levels of leadership. It seems that most of the
dominating leadership styles are assumed to be applicable to all
levels of leadership. A notable exception with an emotion focus is the
5-level model of emotions in organizations developed by Ashkanasy
(2003) and Ashkanasy and Jordan (2008). While this model offers a
valuable road map for the understanding of emotions in
organizations, it gives limited guidance when emotions are
approached from a strategic leadership perspective. Another
exception with a leadership focus is a model of indirect leadership
developed by Larsson et al. (2005, 2007). The model is specific in
depicting how high-level leaders exert their influence along two
parallel paths. One is through the traditional chain-of-command and
the other is through the positive or negative impact of their image on
lower levels. However, with the exception of trust, the indirect
leadership model is broad and unspecific when it comes to emotions.
Some leadership researchers (e.g. Cannella & Monroe, 1997; Day
& Lord, 1988; Finkelstein & Hambrick, 1996) argue that strategic
leadership is, in fact, unique in comparison to middle and lower levels
of leadership based on the types of defining organizational tasks and
responsibilities that strategic leaders perform. Jacobs and Jaques
(1991) describe strategic leaders’ responsibilities as being
qualitatively different from those at the lower level because executive
leaders must look “outside” of the organization to see things from a
more holistic approach in comparison to lower level leaders who must
look “inside”. They add that strategic leaders must be able to have
EMOTIONS IN STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP 315
analytical skills for separating out elements in problems/situations

but also have synthesis skills for seeing long-term patterns within
highly complex problems. Bass and Bass (2008) describe executives’
tasks to be more comprehensive in nature, with focus on
understanding the holistic, long-term goals of the organization and its
connection to the environment. This is accomplished through
activities such as boundary spanning and consensus building with
external actors. Bass (2007) adds that acquiring and integrating
resources for the organization is of top concern. A few prioritized
goals are to “reduce uncertainty, increase stability, increase
resources, and reduce competition” (Bass, p. 1, 2007).
Besides responsibilities, another obvious distinctions that an
executive leader holds in comparison to other leadership levels, is
one of heightened power and status. It has been traditionally argued
that the organization sets the formal rules and emotion rules of the
organization (Fineman, 2008). Upper echelon theory challenges this
general rule and suggests that organizations are reflections of
executive managers’ conditions and values (Hambrick & Mason,
1984). Thus, their unique status and power makes the organization
impressionable by the executive leaders that run them. However,
summing up it appears that research specific to the role of emotions
in strategic leadership is sparse and has not been subjected to a
comprehensive review.
The aim of this study was to explore the existing literature on
emotion and strategic leadership in a systematic review and to
synthesize it into a theoretical model. It should be noted that due to
the limited current research specific to emotions at the strategic
level, some aspects from the broader field of general leadership and
emotions were included. Finally, “emotion” may be one of the most
researched aspects of human life (see e.g. Lazarus, 1991). When
looking at emotion from a strategic leadership point of view, it may be
even broader as a vast array of additional individual framing factors
inevitable come into play. In the absence of clear definitions, we took
a pragmatic stance implying that all scientific papers fulfilling the
inclusion criteria and passing the exclusion criteria presented below,
and being evaluated as relevant for the topic of the study, were
accepted as being within the defined borders.
METHOD
Search Strategy and Inclusion Criteria
A search was conducted for literature on emotions at higher
levels of leadership in two stages. The first included a search in the
following databases: Psychinfo, PsycARTICLES, Sociological abstracts
and EBSCO services which included ERIC and E-JOURNALS.
Different combinations of the following search words were
included: leader(ship), strategic, executive, and emotion(s). Every
search included each descriptor or a combination of the descriptors.
The findings were restricted to the years 1990-2015 in order to focus
on the newest findings. The second stage of our search included a
complimentary qualitative search for articles found as references in
our first search. A select few were older than 1990 but were deemed
relevant to include.
Exclusion Criteria
Due to the large amount of articles generated during the
searches, exclusion criteria were created to refine the quality of the
findings. This included the exclusion criteria of articles that were
duplicates, not peer-reviewed, not written in English and which were
not strictly relevant to this specific study, e.g. should have a focus or
be applicable to higher levels of leadership. The quantitative findings
of the search were as follows: Leader(ship), executive and emotions:
98 articles and Leader(ship), strategic and emotions: 60 articles.
Articles excluded due to lack of relevance or duplication within
databases: 112. This resulted in 46 articles which met the
inclusion/exclusion criteria.
Data Analysis
Using the literature review findings as data, the data were
analyzed according to the grounded theory method (GTM) with the
intention of constructing theory through the analysis of data (Glaser,
1978; Glaser & Strauss, 1967). This means that other research
papers were used as data, which is in line with writings of Glaser
(2001, 2011, see also Larsson, Berglund, & Ohlsson, 2016 for a
recent example of this). The analysis took place in three stages. Stage
1: Here the content of the articles was initially sorted using the
constant comparative method and theoretical memoing (Glaser,
1965, 1978; Glaser & Strauss, 1967) into smaller, meaningful

chunks of information that were given a descriptive label or code. The
chunks of data were then systematically compared as new codes
were generated and then further organized into categories. This stage
resulted in ten distinct categories, some of which had subcategories,
as shown in Table 1.
TABLE 1
Strategic Leadership and Emotion Empirical Research Findings
Categorized Thematically
Superior Categories/ References
Categories Underpinning
Categories
Leader Emotion Kaplan et al. (2014), Avolio and
emotion management Gardner (2005), Gross (2002), Lazarus
framing (1999), Humphrey (2008), Dierfendorff
factors and Richard (2003), Butler et al.
(2003), Yaffe and Kark, 2011)
Emotion George and Brief (1992), George
contagion (2000), Bono and Ilies (2006), Kemper
(2011), Bass and Avolio (1993), Eres
et al. (2008), McAleer (2003)
Emotional Van Rooy and Viswesvaran (2004),
intelligence Goleman (1995, 1998), George (2000)
Empathy Goleman (1995, 1998), House and
Podsakoff (1994), George (2000),
Cooper and Sawaf (1997)
Organizational Emotion culture Fineman (2008), Hochschild
emotion (1983/2003), Schein (2004), Morris
framing and Feldman (1996)
factors Emotion capital Huy and Shipilov (2012), Huy (1999)
Strategic Strategic leaders’ Bass (1999), Bass and Bass (2008)
leaders’ tasks tasks
and
challenges Strategic leaders’ Poder (2004), Klann (2003), Avolio et
challenges al. (2004)
TABLE 1 (Continued)
Superior Categories/ References
Categories Underpinning
Categories
Organization Internal
Emotion organization
Shaping emotion shaping
- Positive emotion Huy & Shiplov (2012), Larsson et al.
magnification (2005), Yammarino (1994)
- Negative Jones and Bodtker (2001), Ashforth
emotion and Humprey (1995), Lord and Harvey
minimization (2002), Alvinius et al. (2015), Fineman
(2008), Stein (2004)
- Emotion Tracy (1990), Fors Brandebo et al.
empowerment/ (2013), Klann (2003), Campbell et al.
support for (2010), Nilsson et al. (2011), Goleman
subordinate et al. (2013)
leaders
External
organization
emotion shaping
- Building external
Mayo (2006), Alvinius et al. (2014)
resources
- Use of soft Nye (2008)
power
The investigators followed the coding process of the GTM,

increasing the reliability of the coding process. Stage 2: After further
comparison for perceived similarities these categories were
combined into four superior categories. Stage 3: Using the constant
comparison analysis, these four superior categories, with their ten
underpinning categories, were built into a theoretical model by
synthesizing the data into a meaningful whole. Therefore, in
agreement with Glaser and Strauss (1967), the constant comparison
analysis was used to build theory, as opposed to testing it; and to
identify, create, and see relationships among components of the data
when constructing categories.
In practice, the steps of analysis were not strictly sequential, as

the constant comparative method was the guiding principle for data
analysis and coding until there was a theoretical saturation, which
means that no new concepts or categories were being generated.
This process is in line with the iterative process of the grounded
theory method (Glaser & Strauss, 1967), determining a good fit for
the grounded theory as credibly representing the data.
RESULTS
The analysis of the existing research resulted in a suggested
theoretical model which illustrates the interaction of the individual
and organizational framing factors and the unique tasks and
challenges that strategic leaders are faced with, which in turn, shape
the leader’s use of emotion in strategic leadership. Figure 1 is a
result of the interaction of individual and organizational framing
factors and the strategic leader’s unique tasks and challenges.
A brief overview of the model and how the identified categories
interact will be described followed by an in-depth description of each
superior category and their underpinning categories.
The top two superior categories, respectively labeled Leader
Emotion Framing Factors and Organizational Emotion Framing
Factors, are to be interpreted as background factors related to skills
of the specific leader and emotion factors pertaining to the specific
organization. These factors are general in nature and applicable to
most leaders and organizations. These two aspects interact with each
other in order to “set the stage” for the level of allowance of emotion
in the specific organization; both through formal and informal
avenues. The relationship between the individual and organizational
framing factors is suggested to be bidirectional; however, the strength
of the bidirectional influence is unknown as the model is theoretical
in nature.
The middle superior category, Strategic Leaders’ Tasks and
Challenges, identifies from the data, the most commonly described
tasks and challenges strategic leaders are presented with. The final
superior category, Organizational Emotion Shaping is identified as our
core variable, summarizing the previous research into a theoretical
conceptualization of the use of emotion specific to strategic
leadership based on leaders’ tasks and challenges at this level.
Different ways in which strategic leaders use emotion as an

influencing tool in order to shape the organization are identified and
described.
FIGURE 1
Conceptual Model Illustrating Organizational Emotion Shaping
Leader Emotion Framing

Factors Organizational Emotion
o Emotion management Framing Factors
(self/others) o Emotion culture
o Emotion contagion o Emotion capital
o Emotional intelligence
o Empathy
Strategic Leaders’ Tasks and Challenges

o Strategic leaders’ tasks
 Long-term planning/ cognitive mapping
 Boundary spanning
 Network development
 Consensus building
 Creating vision
o Strategic leaders’ challenges
 Organizational change
 Responding to crisis
 Distance
ORGANIZATIONAL EMOTION SHAPING

o Internal organization emotion
shaping
 Positive emotion magnification
 Negative emotion minimization
 Emotion empowerment/ support
to subordinate leaders
o External organization emotion
shaping
 Building external resources
 Use of soft power
Leader Emotion Framing Factors

One of the framing factors in the strategic leader’s ability to
emotion shape is their basal level of emotion skills. The data analysis
yielded a description of basic emotion skills which frame the ability
the strategic leader has when influencing emotion in the organization
he/she is leading. This superior category is built upon the following
underpinning categories: emotion management, emotion contagion,
emotional intelligence and empathy.
Emotion Management
The results indicated that the concept of emotion management
was one of the most frequently written about emotion skills pertaining
to leadership, showing up in 7 different sources (see Table 1), and
was most generally discussed in different leadership theories;
however it was typically not specific to a particular level. The
frequency of this topic’s discussion has even led recently to its own
coined terminology, leader emotion management (LEM) (Kaplan,
Cortina, LaPort, & Nicolaides, 2014).
Authentic leadership theory (Avolio & Gardner, 2005) highlights
the importance of the leader’s self-awareness and his or her self-
regulation ability. Gross’ concept of emotion regulation (2002), as
well as Lazarus’ concept of emotion-focused coping (1999), are forms
of emotion management, which refer to the process of increasing,
decreasing or maintaining emotions. The role of the leader must not
only dampen undesirable emotional displays, but they must also
display certain emotions that derive from social norms (Gross, 2002).
Leaders’ ability to manage their own emotions has also been
demonstrated to be crucial in the work place. Leaders that have had
difficulty managing their own emotions may incur difficulties
attempting to emotion manage others (Humphrey, 2008). This also
falls in line with the concept of behavior modelling, as subordinates
often look towards their superiors for normative and acceptable
behavior (Dierfendorff & Richard, 2003; Kaplan et al., 2014; Yaffe &
Kark, 2011).
Butler et al. (2003) point out that people with a high ability to
regulate emotions are less likely to adopt dysfunctional emotional
suppression and instead use the more effective strategy of cognitive
appraisal. This could be especially pertinent in higher level

leadership, when dealing with long-term planning and strategy.
Emotion Contagion
The concept of emotion contagion was present in our data in four
different sources. Kemper defines emotion and behavior contagion
as “the tendency to catch and feel emotions and/or behaviors which
are similar to and associated with others” (Kemper, 2011, p. 163, for
earlier writings, see Hatfield, Cacioppo, & Rapson, 1994, Neuman &
Strack, 2000). This is usually an automatic response, which can often
be observed through overt behaviors such as mimicking of facial
expressions.
Leaders’ emotions have been theoretically linked to how their
followers feel, both positively and negatively through emotion
contagion (George & Brief, 1992). Bass and Avolio (1993) state that
leaders’ expression of positive emotions can be used to inspire and
motivate employees, both at the individual and group level. However,
on the opposite side of the spectrum, leaders that are experiencing
distress are likely to pass along these feelings to their followers as
well (Bono & Ilies, 2006; George, 2000). A leader’s awareness of
their own expression of emotion is therefore important and could be
argued as being a necessary prerequisite in order to effectively
emotion manage their subordinates.
Emotional Intelligence
The review yielded this as yet another popular researched
emotion skill, showing up in four different leadership sources (see
Table 1), which included many different definitions and descriptions.
For the purpose of this article, emotional intelligence can be
seen as “the set of abilities (verbal and non-verbal) that enables a
person to generate, recognize, express, understand, and evaluate
their own and others’ emotions in order to guide thinking and action
that successfully cope with environmental demands and pressures”
(Van Rooy & Viswesvaran, 2004, p. 72). Referring to the 5-level level
model of Askhanasy and Jordan (2008), it can be regarded as a
“between-person” characteristic (level 2).
Goleman (1995, 1998) argues that emotional intelligence is the
self-mastery, discipline and empathic capacity which allow leaders to
come into contact with their personal talents and the ability to attract
others. This refers to an individual’s “charismatic” appeal within
different contexts. Therefore, much of this element relies on the
empathy level of a leader.
George (2000) points out that both appraisal and expression of
emotion are important dimensions within emotional intelligence.
Accurately appraising emotion is important because it uses emotional
input for decision making. Accurate expression of emotion is equally
important because it ensures that people are able to meet their
needs and accomplish necessary tasks.
Empathy
The emotion skill of empathy was identified as an important
framing factor in 5 sources. It showed itself to be important in a
leader’s internal registration of empathy and external expression of
empathy towards others.
Just as Goleman (1995, 1998) labelled empathy as a defining
factor within his definition of emotional intelligence, other
researchers have also found the positive significance of this skill in
leadership. House and Podsakoff (1994) noticed that one of the
defining differences between outstanding leaders and less effective
leaders were their increased levels of consideration and sensitivity to
the needs of their subordinates. George (2000) concludes that a
leader’s perception of being empathic to his/her subordinates may
allow leaders to influence subordinates attitudes in favor of
organizational goals and visions. With specific connection to strategic
leadership, Cooper and Sawaf’s (1997) research indicated that an
executive leader’s ability to show empathy was the largest difference
between successful and unsuccessful executive leaders.
Organizational Emotion Framing Factors

The second framing factor is the basal level of emotion regimes
within the organization. The leader has to take into account the
organization’s pre-dispositioned acceptance of emotion, given the
context and history of the organization.
The review indicated previous research describing a few different
organization emotion elements which frame the strategic leader’s use
of emotion in the organization. This superior category is built upon the
following identified underpinning categories: emotion culture and

emotion capital.
Emotion Culture
Fineman (2008) discusses that within an organization there is an
emotion culture where each work-place has its own language, rituals
and meaning systems which include formal and informal rules about
the feelings workers should and should not feel and display. These
environmental factors make up the organization’s emotion culture.
Specifically, each organization has its own emotional framing of
acceptable emotions.
Hochschild (1983/2003) states that the institutional emotion
management begins with the institution shaping feeling rules about
how and what emotions should be displayed at work. It affects the
individual by creating an image of how one should think and feel at
the work place. Organizations all have unique emotional display rules,
ranging from very open to strict.
Schein (2004) explains how executive leaders create the
organizational emotion environment using their overt and covert
expressions of emotions to lead other members into acceptable
organizational behavior. Therefore, emotion functions as a
communication tool to express what is important to the leader and
what is expected. This approach to emotions proposes that
individuals deconstruct emotions with the aid of their understanding
of the social environment, thus emotions can to some extent be seen
as composed by social experiences (Morris & Feldman, 1996). With
this in mind, strategic leaders’ emotion expression can be seen as
fundamental in creating the emotion culture of the organization.
Emotion Capital
Emotion capital within organizations is defined as “the aggregate
feelings of goodwill toward a company and the way it operates” (Huy
& Shipilov, 2012, p. 74). They explain that emotion can be used as a
form of organizational capital by creating assets in its employees into
which other resources can be invested with the hope of some form of
return at a later date. The organization can build feelings of goodwill
based on positive emotions within their employees in an attempt to
gain access to resources such as support and information in return.
Larsson et al. (2005, 2007) labels this image-oriented influence and

it ca be achieved through strategic leaders’ clever use of multiple
routes of communication such as large personnel assemblies, written
information, telecommunication, social media, etc.
Huy and Shipilov (2012) looked at the special case of social
media and found that the organization is able to build this credibility
with its employees through its executive leaders and it is primarily
achieved through social media. The use of social media was
identified as being a useful connecting tool to bridge the gap between
the power and physical distance executive leaders have from their
subordinates. It was stressed that the key to success in this arena is
for the organization to make sure the capital is built before trying to
pull resource exchanges.
Huy’s earlier research (1999) identified four important factors in
building emotional capital: authenticity, pride, attachment and fun.
Therefore, the focus on strategic leaders using positive emotions to
build emotion capital is vital to the strategy’s success.
Strategic Leaders’ Tasks and Challenges

The unique tasks and challenges that leaders face at the senior
level helps set their level of leadership apart from intermediate and
lower level leadership.
Strategic Leaders’ Tasks

There were many descriptions from our data which summarized
and explained the tasks that strategic leaders often encounter in their
job descriptions. For the sake of this article, we will use Bass’ (2007)
compilation of senior executive tasks, which include: long-term
planning and high-quality cognitive mapping of the organization and
its environment, boundary spanning activities, network development,
and consensus building. The leadership factor of vision from Bass’
(1999) overview of improving organizations through transformational
leadership is also included because it has often been described as
applicable at the executive level.
When looking closer at these responsibilities, the majority involve
behavioral aspects relating to others which include the use of
leaders’ emotion framing factors. However, the cognitive
responsibilities, such as long-term planning/cognitive mapping, may
need further analysis to see the connection. Our interpretation is that

they also include emotion framing factors because they include the
responsibility to make large organizational decisions that have high
impact on peoples’ daily lives. For example, in the need for
downsizing a corporation for profit or organizational survival, senior
leaders ultimately perform analysis and long-term planning which
affects individuals’ daily lives. These types of emotional dilemmas are
characteristic of an executive leader’s job description.
Strategic Leaders’ Challenges

A few common challenges were also present in the data. The
three most common focused around dealing with organizational
change, responding to crisis and overcoming challenges related to
physical and emotional distance executive leaders often have with
their subordinates.
Poder (2004) proposes that organizational change is often
accompanied by conflicts and leaders’ fear of losing face, which
requires emotion management from the leader. Historically, a certain
social position in society granted an individual contextually
independent power, however, this is seldom accepted in today’s
society. Instead individuals can gain power by operating through
emotions. Therefore, power can be felt as an emotion when it is used
for change.
Klann (2003) points out the emotion leadership challenges when
responding to crises due to the emotionally volatile environment that
surrounds the crisis situation. He elaborates further by describing
three crucial tactics that leaders can use to promote results in crisis
situations: communication, clarity of vision and values, and caring.
Although strategic leadership has many challenges to endure, a
noteworthy focus pertaining to emotion is that of physical and
emotional distance to subordinates. Avolio, Zhu, Koh and Bhatia
(2004) state that distance is one of the largest challenges that
executive leaders may face. In high-risk situations, they are often not
close to the situations themselves but must be able to make
impactful decisions for others. In crisis situations these may even be
life-threatening.
In everyday contexts, Avolio et al. (2004) state that leaders’
physical distance has a negative effect on organizational
commitment. This suggests that strategic leaders, who experience

structural and physical distance, must adapt their leadership in order
to overcome the obstacle of physical distance to their employees. A
leader who does not manage to appeal to his/her followers’ intrinsic
values or provide an inspiring vision cannot expect a high level of
participation or solidarity from his/her subordinates.
Organizational Emotional Shaping

This was identified as the core variable within the analysis,
indicating that strategic leaders use emotion in order to shape their
subordinates actions in order to meet internal and external
organizational tasks and challenges. This superior category includes
two categories built by their respective underpinning codes: (1)
Internal organization emotion shaping, and (2) External organization
emotion shaping.
Internal organizational emotion shaping

This category includes underpinning sub-categories related to
strategic leaders’ ability to internally shape the emotional
environment of the organization based on their influence on the
organization.
Positive Emotion Magnification

A combination of the leader’s emotion framing factors and their
development of organizational emotion framing factors, strategic
leaders have an opportunity to influence their organization with the
use of positive emotion. The challenge arises in how leaders are able
to convey the emotion culture to lower levels of the organization
despite the inherent distance dilemma.
The data indicated that this can be accomplished in two ways,
directly or indirectly. As previously discussed in the model, this bridge
can possibly be gapped with the use of social media in order for the
executive leader to create emotion capital directly with their
subordinates (Huy & Shiplov, 2012). Another alternative is for the
leader to use an indirect form, by using subordinate leaders at
organizational links to the lower hierarchical chains of the
organization (Larsson, Sjöberg, Vrbanjac, & Björkman, 2005;
Yammarino, 1994). The latter alternative relies heavily on the image
that the leader creates through role-modelling behavior.
Charismatic and transformational leadership styles are two forms

of leadership theory that include the use of positive emotion in order
to inspire and motivate subordinates. Erez, Misangyi, Johnson, LePine
and Halverson (2008) found that charismatic leadership positively
influences a subordinate’s emotions relating to happiness.
Charismatic leadership entails a leaders rhetoric abilities as well as
his/her personal ability to attract and relate to others. Eres et al.
(2008) argue that when these qualities attract subordinates to follow
the leader’s vision, it would create a sense of identification with the
leader and, in turn, an internalization of vision.
Transformational leadership (Bass, 1998), and the closely related
authentic leadership (Avolio & Gardner, 2005), are leadership
theories that uses many different aspects of subordinates’ emotions.
According to Bass and Bass (2008), transformational leadership is
seen to be a leadership style that encompasses charisma concepts,
which include the leaders’ ability to create emotion within their
followers through their own emotion.
In sum, leader emotion framing factors and organizational
framing factors are imperative in order to lead subordinates to
achieve internal organizational tasks. These are addressed in several
modern leadership theories.
Negative Emotion Minimization

Looking at a few theoretical contributions in this area, Jones and
Bodtker (2001) describe emotional overloading as an experience in
which one is swamped with emotion to the extent that one cannot
function or think effectively. They describe symptoms to include
classical stress and anxiety symptoms such as tense muscles,
negative facial expressions, perspiration and rapid breathing. These
physiological symptoms and cognitive decrease in functioning can
naturally have devastating effects in crisis situations. This leaves
unique challenges for strategic leaders to prepare preventatively and
reactively to assist with emotional overload for themselves and their
subordinate leaders in crisis situations.
There are many ways to minimize negative emotions. Several
theorists have focused on a few specifics as being particularly helpful.
This includes tactics such as neutralizing, buffering or normalizing
emotions that may be interpreted as unhelpful according to the
context (Ashforth & Humprey, 1995; Lord & Harvey, 2002), thus
preventing emotion overload in crisis situations. Neutralizing is
thought to prevent the emergence of unacceptable emotions through
diversion tactics. Emotional buffering is used to encapsulate or
diverge potentially disruptive emotions from activities where they are
deemed unacceptable. Normalizing includes tactics such as humor
as a way to change the perception of something distressing into a
more acceptable frame of reference.
Several studies acknowledged that a decrease in emotion can be
functional in crisis situations (Alvinius, Elfgren-Boström, & Larsson,
2015; Fineman, 2008) in order to stay focused on the important
tasks at hand. Fineman (2008) specifies that in crisis situations, this
often requires remaining calm and/or distant within a work
environment while experiencing different emotions in order to
maintain professionalism within the job and complete necessary
tasks.
Alvinius et al. (2015) found that top-level leaders that were
involved in a crisis situation, made very little mention of emotion
despite the fact that the situation was life-threatening. They
concluded that this was due to organizationally embedded emotional
regimes, such as informal expectations of emotional expression for
leaders high up in the hierarchy to live up to by using emotion
management strategies.
It has been demonstrated in critical periods of crisis situations,
that a person’s anxiety levels may interfere with their critical tasks
(Stein, 2004). Stein argues that realistic anxiety awareness during a
critical period helps in handling acute situations. This means, not
underestimating a situation and “normalizing” it, nor exaggerating the
situation into being more critical than it actually is.
In sum, many theoretical and empirical contributions discuss the
functionality of managing negative emotion during times of crisis in
order to perform the important tasks at hand. However, there was
little discussion for how to organizationally handle this decrease in
emotion after the event itself. There was also no discussion regarding
the role positive emotion may have in critical situations. No
leadership theory was identified as including aspects of negative
emotion minimization.
Emotion Empowerment and Support to Subordinate Leaders

Given the distance challenge that is present for strategic leaders,
it is important for them to use their subordinate leaders to pass on
the emotion culture, vision and motivation to their subordinates. The
literature reflected that one way of doing this is through Tracy’s
(1990) coined expression, empowerment. She emphasizes that
power operated under the same principles as love, suggesting that
the more you give to others, the more is assumed that you will receive
in return. She states that leaders can maximize their own power and
the influencing opportunities by enabling their subordinates to
achieve their own sense of power and success.
Fors Brandebo, Sjöberg, Larsson, Eid and Kjellevold Olsen (2013)
stress that due to rapidly changing local conditions; strategic leaders
need to delegate power and authority to front line leaders in crisis
situations. They point out that this need for power delegation
highlights the importance of trust. This can often be seen in the case
of high level generals and commanders in the military when
responding to crisis situations.
In light of the challenges of distance and organizational
change/crisis in strategic leadership, offering emotion support for
subordinate leaders is an important factor. A few studies differentiate
leading in crisis situations versus the ordinary by illuminating the
need for increased emotion support (Klann, 2003). Campbell,
Hannah, and Matthews (2010) discuss that leaders that will be faced
with intense situations which can severely strain their moral
character, therefore they must be able to trust that they can meet
and handle the moral dilemmas that they will be faced with. They
conclude by stating that decisions leaders make in these stressful
situations will either increase the trust or lessen their influence on
their subordinates.
In response to these types of challenges, Nilsson, Sjöberg,
Kallenberg and Larsson (2011) found that emotionally supportive
leaders may create a safer climate and enhance moral sensitivity and
awareness within a crisis situation. Goleman, Boyatzis and McKee
(2013) point out the importance of leaders’ role of being emotionally
compelling and assuring as well as providing clarity during times of
threat or uncertainty.
External Organization Emotion Shaping

In this category, we have identified one underpinning category
that describes emotion influences that executive leaders use in order
to meet external organizational tasks and challenges.
Building External Resources

External networking activities have been described as one of the
important tasks senior leaders partake in for the organization. A large
portion of these activities focuses on networking and looking for
negotiation and organizational growth possibilities. Mayo (2006)
states a leader indicates contextual intelligence when they are able to
understand an evolving environment and can capitalize on trends.
This involves analytical skills of a leader to connect resources with
matching needs within the organization and moving with the current
of change instead of fighting it.
‘Boundary spanning’ describes the activities an individual can do
to increase the efficiency of their own organizations within the
surrounding external environment, particularly in times of crisis when
one is often dependent on the surrounding environment and tasks
are often more complex (Alvinius et al., 2014).
Alvinius, Kylin, Starrin and Larsson (2014) identified emotional
smoothness and confidence building as central themes in their
theoretical model for leader boundary spanning activities. Their
findings indicate that the most central aspect of networking
collaborations is the building of confidence between the different
parties involved. They also add that boundary spanners utilize
emotion management in order to fulfil demands negotiated by other
collaborators in hostile environments thorough emotion suppression
and acting smoothly in collaborative processes.
Use of Soft Power

Building on these concept, Nye (2008) describes soft power as a
leader’s ability to use their attractive personality, his/her moral
values or the values and visions he/she aspires to convey in order to
create chosen followership. Moreover, this type of power is seen as
attractive and “friendly”, relying on subtle emotion influences to
gently lead others to desire the same goals as the leader. This type of
power has often been tied to the political arena and to top level
leadership (Nye, 2008).
External organizational emotion shaping can be seen as the soft
power tactics that senior leaders use in order to span for
opportunities in the development and long-term planning of the
organization.
DISCUSSION
The aim of this review was to explore and synthesize existing
literature on emotions in strategic leadership in a systematic review
for theoretical model building. Using strict inclusion and exclusion
criteria, 46 international journal articles and book chapters were
identified as our data for analysis. Within this literature pool, ten
different categories were identified which, in turn, were clustered into
four superior categories, using constant comparison in the grounded
theory method (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Looking at these categories
and superior categories as “data”, the analysis was finally taken one
step further by combining them into a suggested causal model,
according to the methodological guidelines developed by Glaser
(1978). A core variable was identified from the data, organizational
emotion shaping. This variable highlights different ways strategic
leaders use emotion as an influencing tool to shape the organization.
When relating our model to the 5-level model of Ashkanasy and
Jordan (2008) on emotions in organizations, we conclude that our
conceptualization of emotions in strategic leadership includes
aspects from all five levels, with an emphasis on the meso-level. This
means that our model could be seen as an attempt to integrate the
individual level (the strategic leader) and the organizational level.
Based upon the synthesis of the data into our core variable,
hypotheses are given below to serve as platforms for future research
directions.
In the description above of the superior model category Leader
emotion framing factors, it was emphasized that it’s four
underpinning categories emotion management, emotion contagion,
emotional intelligence and empathy are important leadership skills
across all hierarchical levels.
The second superior background category Organizational emotion
framing factors is also relevant to all levels but here a strong notion
identified within the data is the influencing capability of the strategic

leader, given his/her heightened power and status. This aligns well
with the upper echelon theory (Carpenter, Geletkanycz, & Sanders,
2004; Mason, 1984) which implies that the organization, to a high
degree, is a reflection of its top managers, the so-called “upper
echelons” (Mason, 1984). It is also in agreement with the writings of
Larsson et al. (2005, 2007) on image-based influence processes in
indirect leadership. Carpenter et al. (2004) add that top managers
can strongly influence the organizations they lead by choices that
they make, which are affected by the top managers’ individual
characteristics. We believe this can be extended to also include the
emotion culture and emotion shaping capabilities of the organization
that the strategic leader leads. As illustrated in the model, this is
often based upon the strategic leader’s emotion framing factors, such
as their emotion management ability, emotion contagion, emotional
intelligence level, and empathy.
The third superior model category Strategic leaders’ tasks and
challenges, is by definition tied to the strategic leadership level. It
contains a number of things that strategic leaders must do
irrespective of emotions and how they are handled. However, the
model predicts that these tasks and challenges will be affected by,
and also affect, emotional aspects. This leads up to the core superior
category of the model, Organizational emotion shaping. This includes
internal as well as external organizational emotion shaping. Given the
limited literature that specifically focuses on strategic leadership and
emotion, we cannot claim that this core category is valid exclusively at
this leadership level. As noted above, parts of the model content
could be assumed to be relevant also at lower levels. However, the
core category and its suggested determinants represent our best
attempt to conceptualize strategic leadership and emotion.
The suggested model obviously needs to be tested. Ideally, this
would include longitudinal studies in a variety of organizational
contexts, using multi-level assessments with multi-sources of data.
We believe such designs are difficult to realize. Looking at it from a
quantitative methodological perspective, all the boxes in the model
are complex in themselves. Putting everything into a statistical
regression model, including all direct relationships between the
separate aspects within each of the predictor boxes and the parts of
the outcome box is hardly feasible.
Following from this, we offer two broad suggestions for future

research. Firstly, qualitative studies aiming to cover the whole model
are probably realistic although they by definition carry limited
evidence weight. Secondly, quantitative tests could be done on
selected parts of the model, both within and between boxes. This
could lead to more specific and interesting theoretical advancements
than the somewhat trivial “if conditions are good within and between
the three predictor boxes, then the outcome box will also be good and
vice versa”.
Nye (2008) introduced the concept of soft power in strategic
leaders’ way to influence others. This concept appears fruitful in
strategic leaders’ external emotion shaping efforts, however, there is
little explanation or direction on how a strategic leader uses this
power and what emotion is involved in the process. Therefore, a final
suggestion offered from the theoretical model is to qualitatively
explore soft power techniques strategic leaders’ use for external
resource building.
As for practical implications, it would be desirable for emotion
culture to be a more openly discussed topic and agenda for executive
leading groups with short and long-term emotion goals to be set
within their organizations. These could be systematically measured in
order to see if the subordinates and organization itself reflect the
desired emotional climate that the executive leaders and organization
are purposely out to create. This would assist in strategic leaders’
ability to plan and implement emotion shaping activities in order to
achieve their organizational emotion goals.
Although our model serves as a connection point for emotion and
strategic leadership, overall there is such a limited amount of existing
studies pertaining specifically to emotion in strategic leadership that
our suggestion is that doors should be kept open in future research
efforts, for instance context-free as well as context-specific
approaches (Blair & Hunt, 1986). The presented categories, superior
categories and the suggested model could serve as one point of
departure among several others.
We will conclude by pointing to a number of strengths and
weaknesses of this grounded theory inspired literature review and
then comment on the need for further research. Two strengths
deserve to be mentioned. Firstly, adherence to the inclusion and
exclusion criteria adds trustworthiness to the results. Secondly,

although hypothetical, we believe the identification and clustering of
content themes, and the causal model building attempt, adds value
and can be of guidance for future studies.
There are a few study weaknesses that should be considered.
First off, we performed literature searches in several data bases to
minimize the risk of overlooking fruitful studies. Despite our efforts, it
is possible that we did not find all the relevant studies to include in a
review. Although we included a generous amount of articles for a
qualitative review, many of the articles pertained to all levels of
leadership but could be applicable to strategic literature. The amount
of literature purely focused on emotion at the strategic level was
sparse, thus indicating that the field of emotions in strategic
leadership is under-researched.
Secondly, conceptually it should be emphasized that the
categories and superior categories derived from the literature may be
of a sensitizing rather than a definite character, to use Blumer’s
(1954) terms. This means that the borders of the categories and
superior categories tend to be unclear. This may not be because of
sloppy concept descriptions but because the phenomena are closely
interwoven.
A final weakness inherent in the chosen qualitative method is
that it does not permit generalizations. The goal with theory building
is not to test but to generate hypotheses, and a crucial marker of the
quality of the constant-comparative method is that the gap between
data, the generated concepts and their suggested relationships
should be as small as possible. In our own judgment, this gap is
acceptably small in the present analysis. In addition for a need for
further verification research, the suggested model also needs to be
integrated into a broader theoretical frame of reference. Here the
presented person-by-situation, interactional paradigm can serve as a
valuable point of departure as it is one of the most used perspectives
in psychology and the social sciences (Endler & Magnusson, 1976).
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Emotions in strategic leadership: A Literature review and theoretical modelling

Article in International Journal of Organization Theory and Behavior · March 2017

Alicia Ann Ohlsson

Soft leadership skills using the comprehensive approach View project

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EMOTIONS IN STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP: A LITERATURE REVIEW AND

Copyright © 2017 by PrAcademics Press

analytical skills for separating out elements in problems/situations

1965, 1978; Glaser & Strauss, 1967) into smaller, meaningful

The investigators followed the coding process of the GTM,

In practice, the steps of analysis were not strictly sequential, as

Different ways in which strategic leaders use emotion as an

Leader Emotion Framing

Strategic Leaders’ Tasks and Challenges

ORGANIZATIONAL EMOTION SHAPING

Leader Emotion Framing Factors

appraisal. This could be especially pertinent in higher level

Organizational Emotion Framing Factors

following identified underpinning categories: emotion culture and

Larsson et al. (2005, 2007) labels this image-oriented influence and

Strategic Leaders’ Tasks and Challenges

Strategic Leaders’ Tasks

need further analysis to see the connection. Our interpretation is that

Strategic Leaders’ Challenges

commitment. This suggests that strategic leaders, who experience

Organizational Emotional Shaping

Internal organizational emotion shaping

Positive Emotion Magnification

Charismatic and transformational leadership styles are two forms

Negative Emotion Minimization

Emotion Empowerment and Support to Subordinate Leaders

External Organization Emotion Shaping

Building External Resources

Use of Soft Power

identified within the data is the influencing capability of the strategic

Following from this, we offer two broad suggestions for future

exclusion criteria adds trustworthiness to the results. Secondly,

Bass, B. M. (1995). “Theory of Transformational Leadership Redux.”

Cooper, R. K., & Sawaf, A. (1998). Executive EQ: Emotional

Glaser, B. G. (2001). The Grounded Theory Perspective

Directions in Management Theory and Research (pp. 1-18).

Lazarus, R. S. (1999). Stress and Emotion: A New Synthesis. New

Strauss, A. L., & Corbin, J. M. (1998). Basics of Qualitative Research:

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