Leader Idea Championing for Follower Readiness to Change or Not? A Moderated Mediation Perspective of Prosocial Sensegiving

ABSTRACT Change agents influence employee attitudes in order for organizations to change. In an effort to unravel this influence mechanism, we examined the change leader-recipient relationship. More specifically, how change leaders’ championing (independent variable) relates to recipients’ readiness to change (dependent variable). Our conceptual model of change leaders’ prosocial sensegiving is based on adult attachment theory operationalized through storytelling. To test our model, we surveyed 164 change recipients undergoing organizational change in various industries. Results confirm the first part of our model: psychological need satisfaction partially mediates the relation between change leaders’ championing and recipients’ readiness to change. In other words, prosocial change leaders act as attachment figures alleviating anxiety caused by ambiguity addressing change recipients’ proximity-seeking behaviour. Despite what has been described in scholarly works, change leaders’ methods of persuasion seem to be a more accurate indicator of recipients’ readiness for change. Part two of our hypothesized model could not be confirmed: moderation effects of leader influence and narrative intelligence could not be confirmed. We conclude that prosocial change leaders’ who demonstrate narrative intelligence use stories to elicit an emotional response from change recipients, effectively increasing their perceived psychological need satisfaction, ultimately affecting their readiness to change. MAD statement Our research aims to deconstruct the underlying mechanics of prosocial organizational change leadership. We study how change leaders utilize championing, narrative intelligence and leadership influence tactics in an effort to influence change recipients’ change-related attitudes and affect their individual readiness to change. We confirm that change recipients’ psychological need satisfaction partially mediates this relationship and that the direct application of leadership influence tactics is a better predictor, contrary to what literature suggests. We recommend practitioners create compelling narratives in an effort to enhance message reception, and utilize specific leadership influence tactics to ensure the message is received.