Russian Managers under Storm: Explicit Reality and Implicit Leadership Theories (A Pilot Exploration)

This paper reports the results of a exploratory study on leadership and strategies in Russian companies under the present conditions of economic turmoil. The study revealed three clusters on inter-dependencies between external variables (company performance) and implicit variables (mental models and patterns): There are three main clusters of inter-dependencies: 1.The intensity of critique on boss and subordinates is related to dissatisfaction with a manager's own qualities and abilities. This signifies that as a manager improves his abilities (or at least asserts himself in self-improvement) he will be less willing to tolerate both incapable boss and incapable subordinates. 2.The positive performance dynamics weakens the critique on subordinates, but has no direct impact on the critique of boss. The critique of a boss doesn't depend on economic position, competitiveness level or even the current possibilities of the top management to retrace changes in a volatile economic environment. It means that we deal here in a deeper level of implicit leadership theory. 3.The main impetus for managerial re-training is not the dissatisfaction by managers of their own abilities or their boss' weaknesses, but rather the dissatisfaction by subordinates and awareness of negative performance dynamics of their own company. This signifies that the drift of "would-be-managers" towards the highest responsibility areas is limited. We discuss these findings and identify the promising next directions of research.