Exploring mechanisms of outstanding business leadership facing transitioning environment: a life-narrative perspective

Purpose: Through a life-narrative perspective, this research seeks to reveal the underlying mechanisms driving and sustaining outstanding leadership among top Chinese business leaders in a transitioning environment.

Design/methodology/approach: The authors extracted primary thematic patterns of leadership activities by analyzing the qualitative data collected from in-depth semistructured interviews with 17 top business leaders in China.

Findings: Results revealed four major activities through which leaders can effectively lead their organizations toward a long-term growth, that is, balancing relationship with government, leveraging market uncertainties, reinventing and consolidating the organization and self-regulation and adaptation.

Originality/value: The findings explain how outstanding leadership can emerge in a typical transition economy through multidexterity in critical leadership activities and shed light on developing a contextually relevant theory of outstanding leadership.