The Leadership Quarterly 24 (2013) 390

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The Leadership Quarterly

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Call for Papers

The Leadership Quarterly special issue on leader cognition

Leaders are presented, by virtue of their roles, with multiple complex socio-technical problems. Moreover, some of theproblems presented to leaders are the outcomes of institutional crises which have great importance for the continued success andsurvival of organizations. As a result, in recent years, there has been a growing awareness that the ability of leaders to solve theseproblems is a critical aspect of leader performance. The ability of leaders to solve these problems is commonly subsumed underthe rubric of leader cognition.

Although leader cognition is held to be important to leader performance, research on leader cognition has been rare. By thesame token, research has served to demonstrate the importance of expertise and basic cognitive abilities. Other research hasexamined critical cognitive processes involved in problem-solving and the strategies contributing to effective execution of theseprocesses. Still, other work has examined biases in decision-making, the effects of affect (e.g. stress) on problem-solving and theimportance of information access. The intent of the special issue on leader cognition is to examine these, and other, potentialinfluences on leader cognition.

Some potential examples of the topics that might be appropriate for this special issue include:

1. The impact of expertise on leader performance.2. How leaders use knowledge in solving problems.3. The impact of general cognitive abilities on leader emergence and performance.4. Specific cognitive skills, for example causal analysis, leaders need to solve problems.5. Biases evident in leader problem-solving.6. Errors leaders make in problem-solving.7. Styles, or types, of processing strategies used by leaders in problem-solving.8. The impact of life experience, or case-based knowledge, on leader problem-solving.9. The strategies leaders use to acquire knowledge for problem-solving.

10. The impact of personal attributes (e.g. stress tolerance) on leader problem-solving.11. The impact of organizational or team level variable on leader problem-solving.12. The effectiveness of integrations for developing leader thinking skills.

With regard to these illustrative topics, three key points should be noted. First, all submissions should focus on how leadersthink. Thus, manuscripts examining how followers think about leaders are not appropriate. Second, studies focusing on howspecific aspects of leader cognition influence performance are sought. Thus, general reviews of cognition or leader cognition arenot sought. Third, appropriate studies should focus on high-level cognition as it is, or might be, applied in solving leadershipproblems. Thus, studies of recall processes on memory would not be considered appropriate for this special issue.

The deadline for submission of manuscripts is May 1, 2014. Decision letters will be provided to author(s) by September 1,2014. Revisions must be completed over the next six months. It is expected that the special issue will be published in 2015. Theeditor of this special issue will be Dr. Michael D. Mumford, George Lynn Cross Distinguished Research Professor, University ofOklahoma. Questions about the appropriateness of manuscript content should be sent to mmumford@ou.edu. All authors whowould like to submit manuscripts for this special issue must do so online at http://ees.elsevier.com/leaqua/default.asp. Thecorresponding author should register in the system, then submit their manuscript on behalf of all the authors of the manuscript.Please make sure that when submitting to the system, authors select the article type for the special issue on leader cognition. Allother submission instructions can be found at http://www.elsevier.com/ups/find/journaldescription.cus_home/620221/authorinstructions. Please contact the journal office, leadershipquarterly@elsevier.com, for assistance with online submissions.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2013.03.001