Metacognitive Foundations of Adaptive Leadership Behavior: An Empirical Examination of Ambidextrous Leadership and Task Variety in Organizational Contexts
AUTHORS
Keita Moriyama,Department of Management Studies, Faculty of Economics, Shimane University, Matsue, Japan
Yuki Arai,Graduate School of Human Sciences, Osaka Metropolitan University, Osaka, Japan
Satoshi Fujimoto,Faculty of Business Administration, Aichi University, Toyohashi, Japan
ABSTRACT
In contemporary organizations characterized by increasing complexity and uncertainty, leaders are required to continuously regulate their thinking and behavior in response to changing situational demands. From this perspective, the present study examines leaders' metacognitive regulation of creative thinking as a cognitive foundation for adaptive leadership behavior. Drawing on metacognition theory and the ambidextrous leadership framework, this study proposes a conditional process model in which ambidextrous leadership behavior mediates the relationship between leaders' metacognitive capability and employees' adaptive work behaviors, including role-congruent behavior and boundary-oriented activity. Furthermore, task variety is examined as a contextual condition that influences the strength of these indirect relationships. Data were collected from matched leader–member dyads across public and private organizations, and the proposed model was tested using structural equation modeling and bootstrapped mediation and moderation analyses. The results indicate that leaders with higher levels of metacognitive regulation are more likely to exhibit ambidextrous leadership behaviors, which, in turn, are associated with higher levels of employee adaptive behavior. In addition, the mediating role of ambidextrous leadership was found to vary depending on the degree of task variety, suggesting that leadership cognition and job design jointly shape behavioral outcomes within teams. This study contributes to the literature by clarifying the cognitive underpinnings of ambidextrous leadership and by demonstrating how leadership behavior and work characteristics interact to influence employee adaptation. The findings offer implications for leadership development and work design in organizations operating in dynamic, uncertain environments.
KEYWORDS
Creative metacognition, Ambidextrous leadership, Adaptive work behavior, Role-congruent behavior, Boundary-oriented activity, Task variety, Leadership cognition, Job design
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