A sociopolitical perspective on sensegiving and team commitment to change: the role of leader’s change-supportive willingness and political skill

Purpose Sensegiving is inherently a sociopolitical activity through which leaders shape their subordinates’ understanding of organizational change. However, it remains unclear as to why and which leaders actively engage in and effectively perform sensegiving during organizational change. This study employs social/political influence theory and develops a two-stage moderated mediation model to address this question. The study aims to examine the antecedent (leader’s willingness to support change) and outcome (team commitment to change) of sensegiving as well as the moderating role of the leader’s political skill in the relationships between the leader’s willingness to support change and sensegiving, and between sensegiving and team commitment to change. Design/methodology/approach This study utilized a two-stage, dual-source survey method. In the first stage, data were collected from 56 leaders. In the second stage, data were collected from 271 team members. Regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses. Findings The results show that a leader’s willingness to support change positively affects sensegiving, and sensegiving positively affects team commitment to change. The leader’s political skill moderates the effect of the leader’s willingness to support change on sensegiving as well as the effect of sensegiving on team commitment to change. Moreover, a two-stage mediated moderation model shows that the relationship between a leader’s willingness to support change and team commitment to change through sensegiving is moderated by the leader’s political skill. Originality/value This study, for the first time, investigates why leaders engage in sensegiving and the collective-level effects of sensegiving during organizational change, deepening our understanding of the antecedents and consequences of sensegiving. Furthermore, by revealing the role of a leader’s political skill in both the engagement in sensegiving and its effectiveness, this study extends our understanding of which leaders actively engage in and effectively perform sensegiving. These findings also contribute to the literature on collective-level change response.