New Perspectives on Leaders’ Motivational and Emotional Experiences and the Role of Basic Psychological Needs Not to Fail Organizational Change in a Multi-Crisis Context—A Content Analysis ()
1. Introduction
Organizations have long been confronted with the need for disruptive change and an attitude of “change or die” (Mikhailova, 2022) due to the various crises converging today such as climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, and geopolitical conflicts (Gencer & Batirlik, 2023; Islam, 2023; Lanier, 2021; Pradies et al., 2021; Villasana-Arreguín & Pastor Pérez, 2023) . Over decades, studies have analyzed the causes of change and transformation initiatives’ successes and failures (Cleary, 1911; Ginzberg & Reilley, 1957; McClintock, 1937) , characteristically observing high failure rates (Parker, 1980; Pasmore, 1976; Waters, Salipante Jr., & Notz, 1978) . Yet, over the years, the risk of failure from a motivational and emotional standpoint remains high (De Keyser, Guiette, & Vandenbempt, 2021; Hughes, 2011, 2022) .
Leadership in a complex multi-crisis context (Hannah et al., 2009a, 2009b) plays a crucial role in determining the success or failure of change (Abbas & Asghar, 2010; Bligh, Kohles, & Yan, 2018; Hughes, 2023; Xenikou, 2022) . Complexity leadership proposes that specific psychological and social resources of leaders as well as organizational resources can attenuate crisis, while the environment, the time and the interrelation and dependency of all elements can intensify crisis (Hannah et al., 2009a, 2009b) . Understanding the leader’s motivational and emotional experiences of change and the role of basic psychological needs can give new insight into the fundamental factors that lead to either success or failure (Heckmann et al., 2016; Potosky & Azan, 2023; Stensaker & Meyer, 2012) .
Understanding the components of motivation, leaders can use intrinsic motivation such as curiosity, intrinsic needs, and enjoyment developed by the quality of feedback, the sense of autonomy, and the sense of competence with the aim to foster positive psychological change that could lead to successful change efforts (Achtziger & Gollwitzer, 2009; Heckhausen & Heckhausen, 2006) . Identifying the aspects of amotivation such as a lack of perceived control, a lack of perceived competence (Achtziger & Gollwitzer, 2009) , or resignation (Scheier et al., 1986) , leaders would be able to minimize its occurrence and reduce the failure of organizational change. In relation to this assumption, the self-determination theory proposes that leaders who have satisfied basic psychological needs to be competent, autonomous, and related to others, show high-quality motivation (Deci & Ryan, 2014) .
Emotional-based aspects of failure factors of organizational change could be, for example, the emotional deficit as a perspective of resistance that can lead to feelings of helplessness, sadness, hopelessness and even fear taking over when one believes their actions are futile (Scheier et al., 1986; Barysch, 2016; Seligman, Petermann, & Rockstroh, 1979) . Hence, emotions also depend on the basic psychological needs of the leaders within the organizational change context (Stets & Turner, 2008) . The satisfaction of psychological autonomy, competence, and relatedness affects the emotional well-being of leaders. With the aim to foster the emotional well-being of leaders, it is important to understand how best to support the fulfillment of these needs in the workplace within organizational change (Fotiadis et al., 2019; Reis et al., 2000; Vansteenkiste et al., 2020) .
In conclusion, organizational change often fails due to the lack of motivation and the presence of emotional deficits. Understanding the components of motivation, such as intrinsic motivation and amotivation, is essential to increase success. Emotional-based aspects of failure factors of organizational change can be diminished with the assistance of understanding and satisfying the basic psychological needs of leaders, such as autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Leaders who can satisfy their needs are more likely to have increased motivation and the emotional well-being necessary to initiate and support successful organizational change.
2. Aims of the Study
This research examines the personal motivational and emotional experiences of leaders and the role of basic psychological needs influencing the success and failure during an organizational change process in a multi-crisis context. The aim is to identify the motivational and emotional states and uncover the underlying role of basic psychological needs of leaders that will facilitate them to handle organizational change in a multi-crisis context.
To reach this aim, three research questions are proposed:
· What are the motivators and demotivators experienced by leaders in organizational change in a multi-crisis context?
· What are the positive and negative emotional experiences of leaders before, during, and after organizational change in a multi-crisis context?
· What role plays the basic psychological needs regarding facilitating leader’s emotional and motivational experiences in organizational change in a multi-crisis context?
Answering these questions will provide valuable insights into how leaders may better manage the motivational and emotional aspects of organizational change in a multi-crisis context and increase their chances for success.
The selected research methodology was based on a qualitative research approach (Bryman, 2004; Lanka et al., 2020) to focus on the three research questions, employing semi-structured interviews and open-ended questionnaires (Adeoye-Olatunde & Olenik, 2021; Bearman, 2019) to gather data based on a theoretical framework (Varpio et al., 2020) . A snowball sampling technique (Handcock & Gile, 2011; Naderifar, Goli, & Ghaljaie, 2017) was used to select at least 30 leaders from a range of backgrounds and experiences. Qualitative content analysis (Mayring, 2019; Schilling, 2017) was employed to assess the data, uncovering patterns of motivation and emotions and relationships to identify underlying role of basic psychological needs.
3. Review of the Literature
This literature review offers a thorough analysis of leaders motivational and emotional experiences in the context of organizational change, with particular attention to leaders’ basic psychological needs and its role in organizational change that may lead to failure, as well as those that can lead to success. To reach this aim, the review explores a context-relevant framework of leadership, organizational change, and leader’s experience, a sociological perspective of human emotions and the related concept of motivation and basic psychological need theory based on self-determination theory.
3.1. Leadership, Organizational Change, and Leader’s Experience
Complexity leadership theory offers a framework to understand leadership in the context of multi-crisis environments, where geo-political and pandemic issues, disruptive technologies, digitalization, and globalization are prevalent (Hannah et al., 2009a; Lawrence, 2013) . The increasing complexity of these environments fundamentally affects traditional leadership approaches (Hazy, 2013; Ropo, 2019) . In response to those changes, new leadership understandings have emerged. These include shared or distributed leadership, which challenges the notion of formal leaders (Ropo, 2019) , self-organization, and emergence (Castillo & Trinh, 2018) . In multi-crisis contexts, complexity leadership theory suggests that certain psychological, social, and organizational resources can attenuate crisis, while time and complexity can intensify crisis (Hannah et al., 2009a, 2009b) . The strain or stress experienced by leaders in such contexts can be positive (eustress, stimulation, motivation) or negative (distress, fatigue, monotony, saturation) (Rudow, 2005, 2014) . Complexity leadership theory aims to explain the structures, dynamics, mechanisms, and effects of interactions in specific conditions of agents and organizations (Hazy & Backström, 2014; Lichtenstein et al., 2006) . It defines organizations as complex adaptive systems (CASs) that consist of dynamic interactions between interconnected hierarchies, structures, and processes united by common purposes (Dixon & Weeks, 2017; Dixon, 1993; Homer-Dixon, 2011) . Organizations are capable of learning through creative problem-solving to enable fast adaptation (Homer-Dixon, 2011; Uhl-Bien & Arena, 2017; Uhl-Bien & Marion, 2009; Uhl-Bien et al., 2007) .
Leadership in extreme contexts can be described as a multi-crisis environment as the adaptive and administrative processes of influencing others to understand and agree on what needs to be done and how to do it, while facilitating individual and collective efforts to achieve shared objectives and purpose (Hannah et al., 2009b) . These processes occur within close physical, social, cultural, or psychological proximity to organization members and may involve extensive and intolerable consequences. The administrative leadership function involves tasks related to managerial activities in hierarchical organizations, such as planning, coordination, goal-setting, strategy development, resource allocation, and crisis management (Uhl-Bien et al., 2007) . On the other hand, the adaptive leadership function focuses on changing the status quo by utilizing learning to facilitate organizational adaptation to new conditions and contexts (Hannah & Lester, 2009; Heifetz, 1994; Schein, 2010) . Tensions between these two functions often arise, and the authors suggest the enabling function as a mediator to foster an effective relationship (Hazy, 2013) . The enabling function supports and balances the administrative and adaptive functions through communication, networking, social interactions, and creating a healthy work environment (Bright, 2011) . It is based on fostering belonging, building shared identity, and generating outcomes such as trust, follower engagement, motivation, and citizenship behavior (Hazy, 2013) . Additionally, the enabling function promotes shared ethics and beliefs, collective identity, and a common understanding of acceptable social rules to reduce uncertainty and synchronize decision-making and behavior (Hazy, 2012) .
Leaders’ primary role, in this context, is not just to guide but to create an enabling environment where the collective can self-co-ordinate, innovate, and adapt to navigate the crisis effectively (Krauter, 2018, 2020b) . The handling of the COVID-19 pandemic is an exemplary instance of this approach where various sectors quickly adapted to the crisis. Such crisis can force change as an inevitable and continuous process that allows organizations to adapt to both internal and external demands (Anyieni, Ondari, Mayianda, & Damaris, 2016; Burnes & Hughes, 2023; Krüger & Petry, 2005) .
Change can be understood as a concept that defines the transformation or transition of organizations from one state to another over time. From an organizational perspective, change refers to alterations in the operational functions, leadership, structure, or resource allocation of an organization (Weick & Quinn, 1999) . In the realm of organizational change, it is more than just the shifting of states or conditions. It involves a range of values, strategies, and techniques, all aimed at improving the organization’s performance through change. This improvement is achieved by encouraging leaders and employees within the organization and altering their professional behaviors to serve organizational goals more effectively. Organizational Change in a multi-crisis context means handling the impacts of crisis, disruptive external events, new business methodologies, advanced technologies, fluctuating economic conditions, or shifts in an organization’s structure and culture. Recent studies on organizational change highlight an increasing focus on the pace of change, which is perceived as the typical speed, rhythm or pattern of operations (Cameron & Green, 2019; Hughes, 2023; Jabri & Jabri, 2022) . Episodic change, characterized by the sequence of unfreezing, transitioning, and refreezing, is compared to continuous change, which follows the sequence of freezing, rebalancing, and unfreezing (Lewin, 1947; Weick & Quinn, 1999) .
Studies have closely looked at leaders’ past experiences with organizational changes and how it influences their response to future changes. Frequent exposure to change initiatives can both spark cynicism and fatigue, or conversely, enhance their change capabilities (Stensaker & Meyer, 2012) . Additionally, Heckmann et al. (2016) concluded that positive prior change experiences contribute to an organization’s receptiveness to change. Experience is a multifaceted interplay between leaders and their environment, it involves sensing, perceiving, meaning-making, form, and process (Elkjaer, 2009; Paulsen, 2020) . Jarvis (2006) further examined the concept of experience into four components: sensation, awareness and disjuncture, interest and perception, and interpretation and meaning. It’s through this multifaceted interaction with their environment, both the real and personal inner world, that leaders process and perceive change (Jarvis, 2006) .
3.2. Motivation—A Self-Determination Theoretical Perspective
Motivation is an energetic force that comes from both within an individual and from external sources, which influences the initiation, direction, intensity, and duration of change actions (Kanfer & Chen, 2016) . Similar, others proposed that motivation is a psychological process which drives a leader to act towards a desired goal (Paumier & Chanal, 2022) . Studies examine the role of motivation in driving organizational change. It found that the change agents’ intrinsic motivation and motivation to benefit others both had an indirect effect on project-related perceived task performance. Evidence indicated that the most difficult task for leaders when implementing an organizational change is to motivate themselves and their employees to adopt a positive attitude toward the change (Islam, 2023; Minh & Thanh, 2023) . These findings highlight the importance of motivation in change agent effectiveness exploring motivational processes in the context of organizational change (Gilley et al., 2009; Specht et al., 2018; Wegge et al., 2011) . Moreover, other studies examined the role of motivation in the promotion of well-being. Using self-determination theory as its framework, a systematic review and meta-analysis of the literature was conducted to identify how need satisfaction and different types of motivation: autonomous motivation, and controlled motivation (Paumier & Chanal, 2022) :
Autonomous motivation is based on a leader’s own will and initiative, working towards a goal or end goal that is self-determined and based on his/her complete free will. Autonomous motivation is further divided into four different types, namely intrinsic motivation, identified regulation, introjected regulation, and external regulation (Paumier & Chanal, 2022) :
· Intrinsic motivation, on the other hand, occurs when a leader is motivated and driven solely from within. This kind of motivation is often elicited in leaders doing activities with an inherent enjoyment.
· Identified regulation, is activated whilst a leader is internally driven and willing to work in a self-determined manner to achieve a desired goal, out of leader’s own interests.
· Introjected regulation occurs, while a leader is influenced by internal or external pressure and works to fulfil those expectations to seek rewards or avoid punishment.
· External regulation occurs in the case a leader must do certain activities to meet the expectations of external society or to avoid the consequences of not meeting them.
Controlled motivation is based on internal and external factors that affect a leader’s decision making and is determined by external and internal pressures, which may or may not be in line with the person’s own wishes, wants or desires. Controlled motivation is divided into two different types, namely extrinsically motivated behaviour and amotivation (Paumier & Chanal, 2022) :
· Extrinsically motivated behaviour refers to a leader being driven to cooperate or do something because of external incentives or punishment.
· Amotivation refers to a lack of motivation in a leader due to a lack of perceived capacity to do or achieve something. Amotivation is defined as the complete absence of motivation to engage in an activity. It occurs while a leader feels a lack of control and/or a lack of understanding concerning a situation or task, and consequently finds the task either meaningless or too difficult, leading to a lack of effort or a feeling of helplessness. Amotivation can be caused by factors such as boredom, a lack of self-efficacy, and a lack of interest in the task (Ratelle et al., 2007) .
Antecedents of motivation are the conditions that lead to a particular behavior, such autonomy-supportive climate and self-concept (Paumier & Chanal, 2022) :
· Autonomy-supportive climate refers to the environment that an organization create in to encourage leaders to take an active role in their learning and change process and to connect with, explore and draw their own meaning from the change situation. This type of atmosphere assumes that leaders can exert their power of choice and act according to their own values, beliefs, and interests. Autonomy-supportive climates encourage leaders to take control of their learning, as well as to take ownership of their opinions, decisions, and actions.
· Self-concept is how a leader perceives her-/himself. It is an important factor when it comes to motivation, as it has a direct effect on how one feels and how one behaves. Self-concept encompasses various aspects of a person, such as appearance, intelligence, abilities, personal and social relationships, and achievement. Studies have shown that while people have positive self-concepts, they are more likely to be interested in and perform well. Similar, other findings indicate that leader’s self-efficacy plays a crucial role in the emergence of team-based leadership. It is associated with personal power, cooperation, teamwork mechanisms, and team task accomplishment (Krauter, 2022) .
The occurrence of autonomous motivation tends to be associated with higher levels of positive effect and lower levels of negative effect, because they find the tasks, they are undertaking to be enjoyable and worth investing in. In the context of this study, we found that autonomous motivation types were significantly related to higher positive effect, such as enjoyment, interest and pride and had a negative relationship with negative effect, such as fear, boredom, and anxiety (Paumier & Chanal, 2022) . In sum, studies results showed that need satisfaction and autonomous motivation were associated with positive indicators of well-being such as life satisfaction, meaning in life and self-esteem. Conversely, controlled motivation and need dissatisfaction were associated with negative indicators such as depression and apathy. Thus, this study highlighted the importance of both need satisfaction and autonomous motivation in promoting and maintaining positive well-being (Ntoumanis et al., 2021; Tang et al., 2020; Teixeira et al., 2020) in particular in the context of organizational change and transformation (Butkus & Green, 1999; Gilley et al., 2009; Marks, 2000; Specht et al., 2018) .
3.3. Emotion—A Sociological Perspective
Sociologists analyze emotions beginning with the idea that humans’ behavior and interaction are shaped by cultural and social structures. Leader’s emotional responses are constrained by the influence of culture and social structure as well as their own cognitive appraisals of themselves, others, and their situation. The four essential elements of a sociological analysis of emotions are culture, emotion vocabularies, feeling and display rules, and social structure. Culture is identified as systems of symbols that humans use to regulate their behavior and communication. Emotional experiences that form emotional vocabularies and feeling and display rules are learned over time. Social structure is conceptualized as networks of status positions where resources are distributed unequally, and cognitive appraisals involve self-recognition, other-awareness, awareness of one’s place in the social structure, and knowledge of relevant cultural guidelines (Parkinson, Fischer, & Manstead, 2005) . Emotional arousal is thought to move along a positive-negative polarity, shaped by self and others, cognitive appraisal, and cultural structuring. Interaction, meanwhile, is the process by which behaviors of individuals influence one another, and occurs through role playing, talk, props, and expressive gestures (Turner & Stets, 2005) .
Turner proposes that social situations and interactions between actors often carry expectations from the self, others, and the situation itself (Turner, 2007; Von Scheve, 2013) . Confirming these expectations it can lead to positive emotions, while their disappointment leads to negative emotions. To understand these emotions, we must consider the socio-cultural and cultural expectations of the actors, as well as the sanctions they face in social interaction. For example, clarifying demands and expectations are crucial to prevent resource loss, as overburdened leaders are prone to resorting to negative types of power-related behavior. The findings highlight the need to enhance comprehension of the leadership role, which in today’s rapidly changing business environment demands flexibility, agility, and versatility. But at the same time, it acknowledges the human constraints of individuals occupying senior positions. The context and circumstances in which leaders operate significantly influence their handling of power, indicating that it’s not solely a challenge for the leaders themselves (Krauter, 2020a) . Socio-cultural expectations refer to the roles, status, and ecological and demographic context of the interaction, while cultural expectations refer to values, norms, beliefs, ideologies, and communication styles. Sanctions, both positive and negative, are also significant forces that result from these expectations, and can lead to positive and negative emotions (Turner, 2007; Von Scheve, 2013) . As Turner explains: “When individuals see others as supporting their actions, they will perceive that they are being sanctioned positively and will, as a result, generally feel positive emotions. Conversely, when they believe that others are not supporting their actions, they will see this lack of support as a negative sanction and, as a consequence, experience one or some combination of negative emotions” (Turner, 2007: p. 87) . To understand emotions arising from social interactions, we must consider the socio-cultural and cultural expectations and sanctions that surround them. Emotions are shaped by individual needs, which can be thought of as “universal need states”. According to Turner, these can be grouped into five transactional needs: affirmation of the self (role identities), material and symbolic reward (success), group inclusion, trust, and a unified perception and evaluation of reality. These emotionally connoted needs play a major role in the creation, reproduction, or change of social structures as they create patterns and structures through expectations, experiences, roles, and satisfaction of needs. All of this contributes to the emergence and maintenance of social order.
Positive emotions are associated with a sense of pleasure and overall well-being. From a psychological perspective, positive emotions have been shown to facilitate a variety of cognitive processes, such as creative problem solving, learning, and the ability to regulate emotions in general. Specifically, positive emotions act to broaden our cognitive and social resources, often by increasing our attention to alternative courses of action in any given situation. Research has also suggested that frequent experiences of positive emotions may lead to improved psychological outcomes, such as higher levels of self-esteem, better coping strategies, and a stronger sense of purpose and meaning in life. Examples of positive emotions before, during and after change are joy, gratitude, serenity, interest, hope, pride, fun, inspiration, admiration, love (Fredrickson, 2013; Fredrickson & Cohn, 2008; Nezlek & Kuppens, 2008) .
Negative emotions are unpleasant and often debilitating responses to negative stimuli or perceived threat. From a psychological perspective, they generally serve as a warning sign of a potential threat and can incentivize us to act to current the distress associated with the emotion. In this way, they can be highly adaptive and may be beneficial for our survival. Cognitively, negative emotions can cause suffering, as they can impair our ability to make sound decisions, problem-solve, and think clearly. From a social point of view, although emotions can be contagious and may elicit the same or other negative emotions in those around us, they also provide us with a way of communicating our distress which can ultimately help us to connect with others and may motivate us to act to achieve greater wellbeing. Negative emotions can lead to a decrease in motivation as well as impair an individual’s ability to think rationally and objectively. For example, a person feeling sad or angry may be less likely to react to difficult situations in a constructive manner due to the influence of the emotion. Additionally, such emotional states can increase stress levels, leading to further deterioration of one’s cognitive and physical health. As a result, negative emotions can have profound negative consequences in an individual’s cognition and behavior. Examples of negative emotions before, during and after change are disappointment, hopelessness, fear, shame, rejection, frustration, loneliness, grief, and anger (Graham et al., 2008; Tugade & Fredrickson, 2004) .
The description of the extent of emotions from neutral to extreme was used as a yardstick. Examples of neutral are: “ambivalent, neither positive nor negative” and for extreme: “very stressed, in poor health, extremely irritable, felt depressed and lost”. The feeling of neutral emotion does not reflect either a high or low state of emotion. If a leader has good experiences as well as a sense of well-being during a change, it is a neutral emotion as the leader feels good without too much display of emotion. Moreover, whilst a situation has stabilized and the feeling is no different than it was before the change, this is also a neutral emotion as there is no strong emotion associated with it. Extreme emotions expressed by the leaders demonstrate that they are feeling very overwhelmed by for example workload and responsibilities (Graham et al., 2008; Tugade & Fredrickson, 2004) .
3.4. Basic Psychological Needs Theory—A Self-Determination Theoretical Perspective
Self-determination theory is a widely accepted macro-theory of human motivation that focuses on satisfaction of the psychological needs of competence, autonomy, and relatedness. Its associated basic psychological needs theory (BPNT) suggests that when these psychological needs are met, leaders and employees are more likely to accept change in organizational contexts. Research has demonstrated this to be true, with a study in a Canadian telecommunications company revealing that providing a rationale, choice on how to accomplish tasks and acknowledging feelings increased acceptance of change. The results of this research both long- and short-term, indicated substantial influence of attitude on change and participation in change. Therefore, leaders and employees need to have their psychological needs supported if any organizational change initiatives are to be successful (Deci et al., 2017; Gagne, Koestner, & Zuckerman, 2000; Huang, 2022; Rahi & Ahmad, 2020) .
A meta-analysis study is exploring the effects of the three basic psychological needs (need-based experience) of competence, autonomy, and relatedness according to self-determination theory, supported the hypothesis that these needs are positively related to psychological growth, internalization, and psychological well-being theory (Howard, Gagné, Morin, & Van den Broeck, 2016; Van den Broeck, Ferris, Chang, & Rosen, 2016) . Moreover, the review highlighted that the satisfaction of these needs decrease role stressors, work-family conflict, and job insecurity and increases intrinsic motivation and workplace outcomes, such as effort, deviance behavior, absenteeism, and task performance (Deci et al., 2017; Mirza et al., 2023; Nylén, 2020; Rahi & Ahmad, 2020; Ryan & Deci, 2022) . Therefore, BPNT argues that a lack of satisfaction of basic psychological needs within the working environment might have negative consequences for leadership and organizational change (Van Tuin et al., 2020) . This concept further justifies leadership approaches such as self-leadership, shared leadership, collaborative leadership, and other decentralized, less hierarchical organizations, because these styles offer contexts in which leader’s basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness can be fulfilled (Van Tuin et al., 2020) .
Supporting leader’s basic psychological needs is essential to their well-being. By providing leaders with interventions aimed at facilitating autonomy, relatedness, and competence, they will be in a better position to engage in change activities that are meaningful and beneficial to themselves and others. Autonomy support is critical in helping leaders to take charge of their own behaviors, feelings, and goals. This can be done by providing meaningful rationales, acknowledging negative feelings, using non-controlling language, offering choices, and nurturing inner motivational resources. Similarly, relatedness support can be fostered in nursing home residents by incorporating activities such as social team activities, sports, outdoor activities, culture, common values, and rituals. Lastly, competence can be supported by providing experience, feedback, feedforward, and trial and error opportunities. In conclusion, interventions supporting autonomy, relatedness, and competence provide individuals with the tools needed to be able to engage in activities that benefit them in the long run (Ryan & Patrick, 2009; Su & Reeve, 2011; Visser, 2010; Werner, 2020) . Studies outlined a strong correlation between the satisfaction of leader’s basic psychological needs and the relative presence of autonomous and controlled motivation (Deci & Ryan, 2014; Holzer et al., 2021) . Similar, another study investigated the relationship between managerial need support, basic psychological need satisfaction at work, and work motivation (Olafsen, Deci, & Halvari, 2018) . It is, therefore, essential for leaders to take on the employee’s perspectives, show active listening and ask open questions, offer opportunities for choice and exploration, encourage self-initiation, provide a meaningful rationale, and engage in interpersonal involving such as investing time and resources to provide social support and a feeling of belonging (Deci, Eghrari, Patrick, & Leone, 1994) .
Referring to studies in the field of education it can be suggested for leaders within organizational context that need-based support is made up of three different dimensions: autonomy support, structure, and involvement (Chen et al., 2021) :
· Autonomy support is about recognizing and respecting the leader’s need for autonomy by giving them the freedom to make choices. This could involve allowing them to let them express their opinion within reasonable limits or encouraging them to come up with their own solutions to problems.
· Structure is about creating an environment of consistency and clear expectations. This could involve having explicit rules and consequences, providing a structured environment, and ensuring there are routines and traditions for leaders to follow.
· Involvement refers to the importance of establishing relationships between the organization and the leaders. This could involve activities that promote shared experiences, providing opportunities for the leaders to collaborate, setting up a “buddy system”, or simply talking to the leaders and listening to them.
These three components of need-based support are thought to interact and influence each other. For example, autonomy support and structure ideally work in tandem to provide leaders with both choice and security. Supporting leaders’ need for autonomy in a structured environment provides leaders with a sense of safety and security while also respecting their need to make their own choices. Involvement is also thought to be essential for providing the sense of authentic relatedness and connection that leaders need to be emotionally successful (Chen et al., 2021) .
Other studies outlined need-based support interventions (see Table 1) in which the description of the basic psychological need, the derived need-based experience and the need-support is displayed (Fotiadis et al., 2019; Krauter, 2023; Reis et al., 2000; Vansteenkiste et al., 2020) .
For leaders to achieve emotional well-being in their social environment, the knowledge of three important basic psychological needs is imperative: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. The fulfillment of these basic psychological (need-based experience) needs is supported by understanding how they can be best aided and experienced in the workplace (need-based support) and organizational change context (Fotiadis et al., 2019; Reis et al., 2000; Vansteenkiste et al., 2020) . Another study demonstrates the potential for need-supportive interventions with reflective practice analysis of coaching in intensive training centers to improve elite athletes’ emotional and motivational outcomes. It indicated effects of the intervention on basic psychological need satisfaction and thwarting (frustration), autonomous motivation, and positive and negative emotions and it provide further support for the use of self-determination theory. The analyses
showed decreasing frustration levels measuring increasing autonomy and competence and increasing satisfaction for autonomy. In addition, emotional outcomes, including anxiety, anger, excitement, and happiness, also improved (Cece, Guillet-Descas, Tessier, & Martinent, 2022) .
3.5. Relation between Basic Psychological Needs, Motivation, and Emotion
There has been an increasing research focus on the relation between basic psychological needs and motivation and emotion in recent years (Holzer et al., 2021; Vansteenkiste et al., 2020) . Basic psychological needs theory and it’s aspects of need satisfaction is associated with intrinsic motivation, internalization of emotion regulation, and the cultivation of autonomous motivational orientations which contributes to an overall increased sense of wellness, vitality, and healthier functioning of leaders (Ryan & Deci, 2022) . Leaders can only react emotionally if an event is of significance to their personal aims, needs and motivations (Bak, 2019; Brandstätter et al., 2018; Rothermund et al., 2011) . This statement suggests that motivation is vital for leaders to experience any emotion. Conversely, what motivates leaders to act is a desire to feel something positive and avoid any negative emotions. Thus, motivation and emotion are interconnected; without one, the other is diminished (Brandstätter et al., 2018; Lazarus, 1991; Reeve, 2018) . Leaders could benefit from interventions that prioritize their basic psychological needs as well as adequate emotion regulation. It has been found that emotion regulation, an approach that encourages actively engaging with one’s emotions and using them as information to drive change behaviour, is correlated with reduced anxiety and stress in change situations (Vermote et al., 2022) . Similar, motivation and emotion have been recognized as two distinct aspects of the same process in which emotion involves the “readout” of motivational potential in a motivational/emotional systems (Buck, 1985) and expectancy and affective states determine behaviour in the motivation process (Weiner, 1985) . Others argued that emotions could be the most important motivation system that human beings have (MacIntyre, Ross, & Clément, 2019) or that motivation and emotions are interrelated coordination systems of leader’s behaviour (Del Giudice, 2023) .
3.6. Summarization
Motivation, from the perspective of self-determination theory, is a crucial factor in influencing the initiation, direction, intensity, and persistence of change actions. This force stems from both within an individual and from external sources. Autonomous motivation, the result of one’s own will and initiative, is paramount in driving leaders towards self-determined goals. Types of autonomous motivation include intrinsic motivation, identified regulation, introjected regulation, and external regulation. On the other hand, controlled motivation arises from internal and external pressures, falling under extrinsically motivated behavior and amotivation. Motivation, therefore, plays a significant role within a context of organizational change.
Moreover, the basic psychological needs of competence, autonomy, and relatedness, which underpin self-determination theory, are crucial in providing a positive organizational environment. Meeting these needs in a workplace context fosters a greater acceptance of change, directly influencing both long-term and short-term attitudes towards organizational transformation. This is achieved through need-supportive interventions that support autonomy, competence, relatedness, and provide a structured environment involving shared experiences, clear expectations, and routines.
Furthermore, emotions can play a critical role in influencing leadership and organization change. From a sociological perspective, emotional responses are shaped by cultural, social structures, and individual cognitive appraisals. Positive emotions, such as joy, interest, hope, and pride, can enhance creativity, learning, and emotional regulation, providing a sense of purpose and meaning in life. Conversely, negative emotions, including disappointment, fear, shame, frustration, and anger, could hinder rational decision-making, problem-solving skills, and increase stress levels, leading to potential health deterioration. Therefore, understanding the linkage between socio-cultural, cultural expectations, sanctions, and emotional states of leaders is pertinent during times of organizational change.
Lastly, the correlation between basic psychological needs and motivation substantiates that basic psychological need satisfaction is pivotal for intrinsic motivation, internalization of emotion regulation, and fostering autonomous motivational orientations in leaders. Furthermore, the interconnection of motivation with emotion infers that desire to experience positive emotions while avoiding negative ones is a profound factor in motivating leaders. Therefore, employing need-based supportive interventions that prioritize leaders’ basic psychological needs and emotion regulation could significantly enhance their coping mechanisms and proactiveness, which are essential during organizational change processes.
4. Theoretical Framework
This theoretical framework provides a basis for understanding the motivational and emotional experiences of leaders and is developed from existing theories to explain why these experiences can be perceived and it is used to guide research of the study and to provide a structure for interpreting and analyzing data (Varpio et al., 2020) .
This study presents a theoretical framework that integrates a self-determination theoretical perspective of motivation, a sociological perspective of emotions and a self-determination theoretical perspective of basic psychological needs theory to understand the role of basic psychological needs of leader’s influencing motivators (autonomous motivation) or demotivators (controlled motivation) as well as positive and negative emotions before, during and after change affecting the leader’s experiences of organizational change in a multi-crisis context. The basic psychological needs theory (BPNT) considers that satisfaction of three psychological needs (autonomy, competence and relatedness) influence leader’s autonomous motivational and positive emotional experiences and frustration can lead to controlled motivational state such as amotivation and negative emotional experiences with the impact on leader’s success or failure dealing with organizational change (Fotiadis et al., 2019; Reis et al., 2000; Ryan & Deci, 2022; Vansteenkiste et al., 2020) . Figure 1 shows the theoretical framework for the investigation of this study.
There has been an increased emphasis on the link between basic psychological needs and motivation, emotion, and their role in promoting successful change (Holzer et al., 2021; Vansteenkiste et al., 2020; Ryan & Deci, 2022) . Generally, motivation is seen as a driving factor for any emotion a leader may experience, as emotions only arise if an event is relevant to their goals, needs or motivations (Bak, 2019; Brandstätter et al., 2018; Rothermund et al., 2011) . To promote change competence of leaders, it is thought important to address both motivation and emotion, as they are inextricably linked and mutually influential (Brandstätter et al., 2018; Lazarus, 1991; Reeve, 2018) . Therefore, interventions that focus on the basic psychological needs of a leader as well as adequate emotion regulation can be beneficial to their emotional and mental well-being (Vermote et al., 2022) . Understanding motivation and emotion is, therefore, fundamental for successful leaders in organizational change, particularly as contemporary research suggests that they are part of the same cognitive process (Buck, 1985; Weiner, 1985; MacIntyre, Ross, & Clément, 2019; Del Giudice, 2023) . Autonomous motivation, derived from a leader’s own will and initiative towards a self-defined goal, has been divided into four categories—intrinsic motivation, identified regulation, introjected regulation, and external regulation (Paumier & Chanal, 2022) . Conversely, controlled motivation is based on external and internal influences, which may or may not be in accordance with the person’s own desires, and is divided into two categories, namely extrinsically motivated behaviour and amotivation (Paumier & Chanal, 2022) . Both positive
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Figure 1. Theoretical framework for the investigation of this study.
and negative emotions, generated from situational or psychological cues, can play a role in a leader’s motivation and behaviour (Turner, 2007; Von Scheve, 2013) . Positive emotions, such as pleasure and well-being, are associated with confirming social and cultural expectations, and provide cognitive benefits such as enhanced problem-solving skills while organizational change (Turner, 2007; Von Scheve, 2013) . Negative emotions, on the other hand, can inform leaders towards potential danger and thereby incentivize avoidance actions (Turner, 2007; Von Scheve, 2013) . Motivation is essential for leaders to experience emotions and emotions can, in turn, shape the decisions and actions driven by motivation (Erez & Isen, 2002) . Therefore, interventions that address both motivation and emotion can be beneficial to leader’s positive experiences dealing with change (Vermote et al., 2022) , this is especially true in times of organizational change, which often cause anxiety and stress. In such cases, interventions that focus on satisficing basic psychological needs are known to help reduce anxiety and stress (Vermote et al., 2022) . Similarly, interventions that encourage emotional regulation can help in developing cognitive benefits (Turner, 2007; Von Scheve, 2013) . It is thus suggested that through adequate and appropriate need-based support interventions, leaders can successfully deal with organizational change in a multi-crisis context.
5. Methodology
5.1. Qualitative Research Methodology in Leadership Research
Qualitative research has emerged as an essential tool when exploring leadership and organizational change (Bryman, 2017; Conger, 1998) . This type of research is better equipped to offer more comprehensive and nuanced analyses of the complexities of leadership experiences (Lanka et al., 2020; Merriam & Grenier, 2019) . Qualitative research has been used to examine both expected and surprising phenomena such as organizational change (Insch et al., 1997) . It can also capture individualistic nuances of leader’s behavior and decisions made during change (Bryman, 2004) . Furthermore, the use of qualitative research allows for a wider range of contextual variables to be introduced (external influences on change) (Bryman, Bresnen, Beardsworth, & Keil, 1988) , whilst providing a more grounded perspective, as it is based on leader’s experiences and is more accessible to researchers (Klenke, 2008) . Additionally, through examining the process of change events over time (Bryman, Stephens, & à Campo, 1996) , qualitative research can offer valuable insight and understanding of failure or success, as well as the role of basic psychological needs. In light of the above, qualitative research was selected for this study due to its potential to provide a more comprehensive and better understanding of leader’s failure or success in organizational change within a multi-crisis context.
5.2. Sample
This study has examined the characteristics of 92 leaders and selected 46 participants for data gathering, since they completed the entire questionnaire. The basis of the study data derived from a former qualitative research study which focused on “New Insights in the Basic Psychological Needs of Leaders Not to Fail Organizational Change: Post-Pandemic View on Leader’s Experience—A Qualitative Content Analysis” (Krauter, 2023) . The used data in this study was not analyzed before in the previous study. The study collected socio-demographic information from the sample regarding sex, age, educational level, and four role-specific characteristics. These were length of experience, hierarchical leadership level, area of responsibility, and manager-to-employee ratio, as seen in Table 2.
The patterns that are visible from the sample are that many of the participants have been male (63%), aged between 31 and 40 (34.8%) and have mainly been active in a German-speaking cultural circle (60.9%). Additionally, 58.7% of the participants have a bachelor’s or master’s degree. In terms of managerial experience, 56.5% have had a period of between 1 to 3 years of managerial responsibility, with 63% having team responsibility. Most participants (57.6%) reported having led fewer than 10 employees and the living background of the sample is diverse.
5.3. Data Collection Methods
This research used an online survey constructed from a semi-structured interview questionnaire (Burgess, 2001; Kasunic, 2005) , provided through the website https://www.umfrageonline.com/ (Lumsden & Morgan, 2005) . Participants were made aware that they could take a break or refuse to answer at any point.
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Table 2. Socio-demographic and role-specific characteristics of the study sample.
The survey was divided into two sections. The first section contained an introduction, demographic information such as gender, age, educational background, date of leadership experiences, hierarchical level, areas of responsibility and manager to employee ratio. Additionally, two open-ended questions were included in order to reduce bias from pre-set answer options (Reja, Manfreda, Hlebec, & Vehovar, 2003) .
The open-ended questions concerned participants’ motivational and emotional experiences of organizational change, specifying certain aspects of the theoretical framework:
· What motivated or demotivated you during the change?
· How did you personally feel (health, well-being, emotions, and thoughts)?
o Before the change.
o During the change.
o After the change.
5.4. Data Analysis Methods
Qualitative content analysis is an empirical, methodological controlled approach of analyzing texts within its context (Mayring, 2004) . The process of qualitative content analysis begins with formulating theoretical aspects of analysis that will be brought in connection with the text.
For this study, it relies partly on deductive category application for the emotional perspective, in which a passage of text can be assigned to a pre-defined category based on a theoretical framework from literature review and selecting appropriate theories for the topic of the study (Fenzl & Mayring, 2017; Insch et al., 1997) . To ensure accuracy, explicit definitions, and examples, can be provided for each deductive category. These definitions are compiled into a coding agenda (Roller, 2019) . A derived coding schema contains the category names, descriptions, and examples (Mayring, 2015, 2021) .
Inductive coding was used to classify the motivational aspects of the data. Inductive coding is an exploratory process that seeks out themes or general patterns related to motivation in the data. It involves collecting data, analyzing it qualitatively to identify patterns and meanings, and then categorizing it into meaningful groups. This process allows researchers to analyze data to build an understanding of relationships, and infer general conclusions from the data, as opposed to verifying or disproving an initial hypothesis.
Combining deductive and inductive approaches to data analysis is suggested to reduce the risk of researcher bias (Insch et al., 1997) . This method enables the researcher to code and interpret the data with an awareness of context while evaluate the coded data against existing theoretical assumptions derived from utilized change models (Insch et al., 1997) .
Data analysis involves breaking down data into smaller units and assigning them with codes to understand its content. This process can be broken down into four key stages: decontextualization, recontextualization, categorization and compilation (Bengtsson, 2016; Insch et al., 1997) :
· Decontextualization involves becoming familiar with the data and reducing it into smaller units, labeling them with codes. This can be achieved through literature and frameworks or with a computer program like QCAmap.
· Recontextualization entails examining the original text while looking at the unit list to guarantee that all elements of the content are connected to the research.
· Categorization involves condensing the units and determining themes and categories with the given coding scheme. This is a process that requires making numerous trips between the categories to find the right groupings.
· Compilation is the step of composing the analysis and reaching conclusions. It involves analyzing the data in-depth to discover underlying meanings and mechanisms. The researcher summarizes the themes, categories and sub-categories into a table and then verifies the study with a panel of experts.
5.5. Criteria for Evaluating the Trustworthiness and Validity of Qualitative Research
Credibility, dependability, confirmability, transferability, and reflexivity are key criteria used to evaluate the trustworthiness of qualitative research (Kitto et al., 2008; Mays & Pope, 2020; Stenfors et al., 2020) .
To ensure the validity of this study, a comprehensive research technique is employed: a narrative literature review and a theoretical framework to evaluate the occurrence of leader’s motivational and emotional experience in organizational change. Snowball sampling was used to collect data from 46 participants with a wide range of leadership backgrounds and interpretations of their personal experience in a multi-crisis organizational change context.
The research questions are presented clearly, and the theoretical framework is designed to be flexible for different directions. The data collection instrument was constructed carefully to avoid being overwhelmed by the volume of data obtained. Semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions were conducted and then coded and verified by two other leadership experts (Kitto et al., 2008; Mays & Pope, 2020; Stenfors et al., 2020) .
The data was analyzed using qualitative content analysis to detect underlying basic psychological needs and reconstruct the motivational and emotional experience of the leaders. The results were then placed into change context and supported by related literature and theoretical triangulation (Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Merriam, 2002) .
5.6. Generalizability in Qualitative Research
This study applies the concept of “qualitative generalization” (Levitt, 2021) . This concept deviates from the conventional focus on generalizing findings to larger populations, common in quantitative studies. Instead, it emphasizes generalizing insights to the phenomena under investigation (Levitt, 2021) . Qualitative research, deeply rooted in its humanistic approach and interpretative nature, provides profound insights into specific phenomena. However, it faces skepticism over its core potential for generalization. To address this critique, the concept proposed employs inferential processes to create a map of variation within the data. These variations mirror the complexities of the phenomena studied rather than the population. This transformative approach can improve the research outcomes and enhance substantive explanations, emphasizing the leader’s motivational and emotional experiences inherent in the phenomena and allowing for a deeper understanding and transferability of findings (Katz, 2015; Myers, 2000) .
5.7. Summarization
This study, scrutinized 92 leaders’ attributes, selecting 46 of these leaders for data collection as they had fully completed the surveying instrument. The collected data covered a broad spectrum of different leaders’ experiences in the phenomena under study and socio-demographic and role-specific information, encompassing attributes such as sex, age, educational attainment, tenure, the hierarchical level of leadership, area of oversight, and the ratio of managers to staff.
The study integrates the collection of self-reported data, which despite its susceptibility to errors and biases, has been recognized as a valuable tool for gathering data from a sizeable cohort. Studies have underscored the accuracy of self-reported data when participants have a clear understanding of posed questions, coupled with an assurance of anonymity and zero fear of negative consequences (Stone, Bachrach, Jobe, Kurtzman, & Cain, 1999; Truijens, De Smet, Vandevoorde, Desmet, & Meganck, 2023) .
This research applied a rigorous scientific process ensuring the data’s validity, which involved cross-verification of the data with existing theoretical frameworks. Furthermore, an additional step has been taken by having the data verified by two leadership experts. The expert reviewers brought a wealth of experience in leadership and change management to the table. They rigorously reviewed semi-structured, open-ended interviews that were conducted as part of this study, further increasing the reliability and validity of the data.
The qualitative methodology employed in the study focus primarily on uncovering meanings associated with different facets of leaders’ experience, dissecting their interpretation of personal and others’ beliefs and behaviors.
6. Findings
The gathered data have been investigated to provide answers to the three designed research questions and achieve the aim of the study. Answering the first two research questions will provide valuable insights into how leaders may better manage the motivational and emotional aspects of organizational change in a multi-crisis context and increase their chances for success. The answer to the third research question will be examined in discussion section based on the findings from the first and second research questions.
The findings to the question: “What are the motivators and demotivators experienced by leaders in organizational change in a multi-crisis context?” have been presented.
6.1. Research Question 1: What Are the Motivators and Demotivators Experienced by Leaders in Organizational Change in a Multi-Crisis Context?
Kurt Lewin’s field theory model suggests that to effectively lead organizational change in a multi-crisis context, the personal and the environmental motivational factors must be considered, because deriving forces can either motivate or demotivate the leaders to do this. Therefore, it is important to analyze and identify the leader’s motivators and demotivators to best address the unique challenge of leading paradigm shifts and transformations within a multi-crisis context. Leaders can use this knowledge to better understand their own and others motivational state, allowing them to surpass their limits and become inspired to turn change into success. The inductive coding process analyzing the question: “What motivated or demotivated you during the change?” was applied by identifying motivational and demotivational examples of leader’s experience and find appropriate categories. Further on, the identified motivator factors standing for autonomous motivation aspects and the demotivator factors containing the controlled motivation factors have been differentiated in personal (need-based experiences) and situational factors (need-supported experiences).
Motivator factors representing the autonomous motivation is an internal need driven by a leader’s determination and willpower to reach their own chosen goal. It is composed of four distinct types: intrinsic motivation, identified regulation, introjected regulation, and external regulation. Intrinsic motivation is internal and leads to satisfaction, while identified and introjected regulations are externally triggered by pressure and expectations. External regulation is mainly prompted by fear of punishments. Table 3 shows the identified motivator factors and examples of the leader’s experience derived from the gathered data.
The next Table 4 outlines the identified demotivation factors and the appropriate examples of leader’s experience. Demotivator factors represents the controlled motivation as based on both external and internal factors that influence a leader’s decision-making and is divided into two distinct categories. Extrinsically motivated behaviour occurs while a leader is driven to cooperate or do something due to external incentives or punishment. On the other hand, amotivation emerge whilst a leader is complete devoid of motivation to perform a task due to lacking the perceived capacity to do it, understanding the task, or possibly feeling that it is meaningless or too difficult. Amotivation can be caused by a variety of factors such as boredom, lack of self-efficacy, and disinterest in the activity (Ratelle et al., 2007) .
After identifying the motivator (autonomous motivation) and demotivator (controlled motivation) factors they have been classified into personal aspects representing the need-based experiences of a leader and the situational aspects standing for the need-based support of leaders (see Table 5).
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Table 3. Identified motivator factors and examples of the leader’s experience derived from the gathered data.
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Table 4. Identified demotivation factors and the appropriate examples of leader’s experience.
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Table 5. Classification of motivators and demotivators into personal (need-based experiences) and situational (need-based support) aspects.
Need-based experiences (personal aspects) are experiences that promote leader’s feelings of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Autonomy involves having a sense of volition and control over one’s own environment; competence involves feeling capable and being able to perform effectively in one’s environment; and relatedness involves feeling connected with and supported by others. These needs provide the essential foundation for psychological health, motivation, and well-being of leaders.
Need-based support (situational aspects) involves creating a workplace environment that promotes a sense of autonomy by allowing employees to make meaningful decisions about their work. It also includes fostering competence by providing positive feedback and praise to encourage employees to continually strive for excellence. Moreover, need-based support requires providing support to build meaningful relationships and encouraging social interactions among both colleagues and customers. Finally, need-based support should also include providing employees with the freedom to make their own decisions about how to engage with professional networks.
Establishing autonomous motivation is important to ensure that leaders are interested in the activity and have the ambition to complete it. Motivators such as acknowledgement, autonomy, curiosity, and willingness to learn can encourage leaders to participate in a change project. Furthermore, leaders should be able to draw a connection between the need and their own values, offering their own sense of purpose and hope for progress.
A negative personal need-based experience, often referred to as demotivation representing controlled motivation, is a feeling of strong inhibition that often takes hold while a leader is faced with emotional, cognitive, or affective challenges. This phenomenon can be typically prompted by one’s own expectations of oneself and of their capabilities, as well as by feelings of helplessness, the suffering of others, and anxiety about the future. Although it may appear to be an insurmountable obstacle, leaders often find that the only way to overcome this sense of being restrained is to push through it and act despite their fear or coercion.
Situational need-based support is a resource that can be used to increase the occurrence of need-based experiences by leaders. It is based on the idea that leaders are more likely to be successful if they are supported with resources and environmental conditions that meet their own basic psychological needs. Different types of needs-based support can include pleasant work, success, family, career, standard of living, and participation. Pleasant work can refer to the physical environment or conditions in which a leader works, as well as the tasks and responsibilities they have been given. Success can also be an important need-based support motivator. While a leader feels successful in within organizational change, they are more likely to want to strive for even higher levels of success. The same can be said for family and career, which can provide an extra incentive for hard work and dedication. Additionally, standard of living and participation can be very important need-based support motivators for leaders, as they both can provide a sense of belonging and worth.
Situational need-based support is critical for any leader to achieve her/his goals in organizational change. Motivation is essential for success, and so demotivators—or controlled motivation, as they are sometimes referred to—can be particularly damaging. These demotivators include, but are not limited to, setbacks, non-participation, and generally unfavorable conditions of the environment, such as the event, workplace, and administrative burden. Such demotivators can have a direct impact on the motivation level of leaders within the change event and, if not handled properly, can completely derail the success of an endeavor. It is, therefore, essential to understand how to manage these variables as a part of any successful endeavor, to ensure an optimal change outcome.
6.2. Research Question 2: What Are the Positive and Negative Emotional Experiences of Leaders before, during, after Organizational Change in a Multi-Crisis Context?
The deductive coding process investigating the question: “How did you personally feel (health, well-being, emotions, thoughts) before, during the change, and after the change?” was used by identifying positive and negative emotional examples of leader’s experience within the different time span (before, during, after) and the expression of extreme or neural emotional state during change.
Positive emotions are associated with greater self-esteem, better coping strategies, and a stronger sense of purpose and meaning in life. Experiences of positive emotions like joy, gratitude, hope, pride, fun, inspiration, admiration, and love can help broaden cognitive and social resources, increasing attention to alternative courses of action.
Social situations and interactions between actors often carry expectations from the self, others, and the situation itself (Turner, 2007; Von Scheve, 2013) . Confirming these expectations it can lead to positive emotions, while their disappointment leads to negative emotions.
Negative emotions can have serious impacts on an individual’s cognitive and behavioral functioning. Examples of negative emotions associated with change include disappointment, hopelessness, fear, shame, rejection, frustration, loneliness, grief, and anger. Negative emotions can cause suffering and impair our ability to think clearly, problem-solve, and make sound decisions. They can also increase stress levels and lead to further deterioration of one’s physical and cognitive health. Although negative emotions can be contagious and elicit similar negative emotions in those around us, they can also provide us with a way of communicating our distress which may ultimately help us to connect with others and achieve better wellbeing. Tables 6-8 show the categorized positive and negative emotions and examples of the leader’s experience before, during and after the organizational change derived from the gathered data. At the stage before an organizational change process happens, the leaders often perceive the first signals of its occurrence, but do not know all aspects of what happens and may be not prepared for the change efforts. It’s the phenomena of what Lewin calls the “unfreeze” phase (Lewin, 1947) . Before changing old behaviors and adopting new ones, the old equilibrium needs to be disrupted or “unfrozen”. Unfreezing requires generating awareness of the need for change and initiating a sense of urgency phase (Lewin, 1947) .
During change (see Table 7), leaders are un-freezing and acting in response to a change. It can be a difficult time because of feelings of fear and uncertainty, but it is also a chance for leaders to discover and learn more about themselves. It is the time of leaders to rightly process and understand the changes they are facing.
After the change (see Table 8), or the refreezing phase, is the final stage, where the new changes are accepted and become the norm. Permanent reinforcement of the new levels is key to ensure that the desired change is sustained into the future. Change is now moveable, dynamic, and often chaotic—meaning extreme flexibility is essential.
An investigation into emotions reveals that they can range from extreme to neutral (see Table 9). Examples of neutral emotions include “ambivalent, neither positive nor negative” whereas examples of extreme emotions include “very stressed, in poor health, extremely irritable, felt depressed and lost”. Sanctions, both positive and negative, are forces that result from these expectations and can lead to either positive or negative emotions. Positive sanctioning will lead to generally positive emotions, whereas negative sanctioning will lead to one or some combination of negative emotions.
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Table 6. Identified positive and negative emotions and examples of the leader’s experience of it before the change situation.
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Table 7. Identified positive and negative emotions and examples of the leader’s experience of it during the change situation.
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Table 8. Identified positive and negative emotions and examples of the leader’s experience of it after the change situation.
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Table 9. Identified extreme and neutral emotions and examples of the leader’s experience of it during the change situation.
After the representation of the examples of leader’s positive and negative emotional experiences before, during and after the change, and their neutral and extreme emotional experiences during the change the examples have been categorized by emotional descriptions (words) to better understand their meaning and for better comparison (see Table 10).
The positive emotions before the change were mainly optimistic and focused on the present. There was an emphasis on hopefulness, happiness, enthusiasm, and good health. The energy felt was eager to work and confident. During the change, the emotions shifted to more active and challenging ones such as determination, willingness, excitement, openness, and learning intensity. After the change, the emotions were focused on the successes achieved. There was a sense of pride, satisfaction, and accomplishment. Additionally, there was relief, strength, reassurance, and calmness. Overall, the emotions before and after the change were mostly positive, show the emotions shifted from focusing on the present to focusing on the future during the process of change.
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Table 10. Summary of positive and negative emotions before, during and after the change situation.
The negative emotions before the change were mostly centered around fear and insecurity, such as stress, anxiety, nerves, and worried. During the change, there were more feelings of uncertainty and apprehension, like frustration, reluctance, nervousness, and coldness. After the change, there was an increase in negative feelings like sadness, guilt, and lack of motivation. Despite the similarities throughout the three phases of change, there was a clear shift from fear and insecurity to feelings of resignation.
The summarization of the neutral and extreme emotional experiences is outlined in Table 11.
The feeling of mediocrity is a neutral emotion as it does not reflect either a high or low state of emotion. When the feeling of good health and high well-being during change is experienced, it is also a neutral emotion as the leaders feels positively well and without too great of a display of feeling. Lastly, when a situation has settled and one feels no difference than before the change, this too is a neutral emotion as there is no excess of feeling, but simply a realization that the situation has subsided.
The extreme emotions expressed by the leaders demonstrate that they are feeling very overwhelmed by their workload and responsibilities. Boredom is a common emotion when a leader is performing a repetitive or meaningless task, as it can lead to feelings of frustration and apathy towards the activity. Burn-out has a wide range of effects on a leader’s mental and physical wellbeing, it is often manifested through feelings of despair that can lead to a general lack of motivation. Confusion and helplessness are common side effects of burn-out, further exacerbating the pressure and stress associated with a heavy workload. The leaders also express feelings of stress, poor health, and irritability, all of which should be acknowledged and addressed to help to alleviate their situation. Depression and a loss of purpose are also noted, this could be related to the general lack of
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Table 11. Summary of neutral and extreme emotions during the change situation.
motivation that the leaders are experiencing, or due to their inability to achieve goals in-line with their original expectations. Anxiety and self-doubt can also come hand in hand with the pressure of a heavy workload, creating a feeling of paralysis and decreased productivity. Overall, the leader is feeling an extremely high level of psychological stress.
7. Discussion
The purpose of this research examines the personal motivational and emotional experiences of leaders and to uncover the role of basic psychological needs influencing the success and failure during an organizational change process in a multi-crisis context. This study attempts to provide organizations and leaders with valuable insights to help them improve their success rates in organizational changes during times of multi-crisis. The interview data provides a comprehensive analysis of leader’s motivators and demotivators concerning the effects of organizational change during and after the pandemic years. At different stages of change development (before, during, after), leaders convey both positive and negative emotional experiences of undergoing change in a multi-crisis context. Post-pandemic perspectives are also considered within this comprehensive qualitative data set. The discussion of the results follows the logic of research questions. The answers to the research questions are interdependent, as the results of the first and second question provide data to answer the third research question:
1) What are the motivators and demotivators experienced by leaders in organizational change in a multi-crisis context?
2) What are the positive and negative emotional experiences of leaders before, during, after organizational change in a multi-crisis context?
3) What role plays the basic psychological needs regarding facilitating leader’s emotional and motivational experiences in organizational change in a multi-crisis context?
7.1. Research Question 1: What Are the Motivators and Demotivators Experienced by Leaders in Organizational Change in a Multi-Crisis Context?
The findings of this study reflect the assumptions of self-determination theory, supporting the idea that leaders’ motivation in an organizational change context is influenced by both intrinsic and extrinsic factors. The findings highlight the power of autonomous motivation, emphasizing the value of intrinsic drivers such as acknowledgment, autonomy, curiosity, and the willingness to learn aligning with theorists who assert that such motivation stems from one’s own values and interests (Paumier & Chanal, 2022) . The results shows that these motivators play a significant role in cultivating leaders’ interests and ambitions in change initiatives, reinforcing the theoretical assertion that such factors promote self-efficacy and increase the likelihood of initiative-taking, perseverance, and higher performance (Gilley et al., 2009; Specht et al., 2018; Wegge et al., 2011) . This suggests that organizations should foster an environment that supports these intrinsic motivators to support leaders during transformation processes. The study findings highlight the negative role expressed by demotivators, in line with the concept of controlled motivation. Feelings of helplessness, anxiety about the future, and one’s own expectations can act as demotivators. Similar to scholarly perspectives on amotivation, leaders can experience a lack of effort or a sense of helplessness in the face of these obstacles (Ratelle et al., 2007) . To overcome these inhibitors, leaders need to act despite fear and coercion, suggesting the importance of resilience and grit in leading change. The study results show the power of situational need-based support in fulfilling leaders’ basic psychological needs. This aligns with the theoretical assumption that such supportive interventions directly influence both long-term and short-term attitudes towards organizational transformation (Kanfer & Chen, 2016) . Necessities such as pleasant work, success, family, career, standard of living, and participation can foster greater acceptance of organizational changes. In contrast, situational demotivators such as setbacks, non-participation, and unfavorable environmental conditions can be detrimental for leaders. This reinforces scholarly findings suggesting these demotivating factors can derail the success of initiatives (Butkus & Green, 1999; Gilley et al., 2009; Marks, 2000; Specht et al., 2018) .
7.2. Research Question 2: What Are the Positive and Negative Emotional Experiences of Leaders before, during, after Organizational Change in a Multi-Crisis Context?
The present research underscores an inevitable role of positive emotions in shaping the perceptions, decisions, and actions of leaders (Turner, 2007; Von Scheve, 2013) .
In the pre-change phase, positive emotions such as hope, happiness, anticipation, and confidence fuel the energy behind initiating change (Fredrickson, 2013; Fredrickson & Cohn, 2008) . These emotions align with Turner’s (2007) affirmation of role identities and the desire for material or symbolic rewards, motivating leaders towards the first steps of change. For instance, heightened enthusiasm and energy not only affirm the leader’s role as change agents but also stimulus the leader towards the rewards of successful. Leaders might introduce hope and confidence by communicating clearly about the reasons for change, potential benefits, and their belief in the team’s ability to navigate the transition successfully. This positive emotional climate can foster a collective sense of curiosity and enthusiasm towards work, set the stage for a healthier, more energized workforce, and hence, more adaptive responses to change.
Transitioning to the change phase, emotions such as determination, excitement, and pride develop paramount. Turner’s (2007) notion of group inclusion seems to underpin these emotional experiences. Leaders who feel determination and excitement are likely to foster stronger group unity and encourage a shared responsibility to navigate the change. A leader who fosters an atmosphere of openness and challenge during the transition phase can effectively mitigate resistance. However, as Turner (2007) submits, experiencing and overcoming challenges can offer material and symbolic rewards, eliciting a sense of achievement, satisfaction, and pride. This might also involve dealing with stress and refining one’s outlook, thereby laying the groundwork for growth and success in the face of change.
Post-change phase sees a wave of emotions like relief, calmness, satisfaction, and pride. These align with a sense of success and achievement, resonating the transactional needs of trust and a unified perception of reality (Turner, 2007) . For example, a leader who feels proud and satisfied after successful change execution experiences confirmation of their actions, reinforcing their trust in their decision-making skills. The positive aftermath of change seemed to inspire a sense of liberation, excitement, and a “better” and “great” state of being.
This discussion highlights the spectrum of negative emotions experienced before, during, and after organizational change. Prevailing psychological and sociological theories assert that these negative emotions can interact with a leader’s behavior, motivation, and decision-making capabilities, critically influencing the process and outcome of organizational change. The role of emotions in shaping social structures help to better understand how negative emotions come into play before, during and after stages of organizational change.
In the pre-change phase, emotions such as anxiety, insecurity, worry, and stress tend to dominate. Individuals may feel ambivalent or annoyed due to the anticipation of upheavals and the uncertainty of the outcomes (Turner, 2007) . These negative emotions are closely tied with the theoretical framework of socio-cultural expectations. For instance, the stress and anxiety could stem from the fear of not meeting role expectations as a leader in the new setup, unsure about their ability to adapt to the new changes, while feelings of isolation and unhappiness might be the result of perceived negative sanctions or lack of positivity from stakeholders.
During the change, the intensity of negative emotions often escalates. Leaders reported experiences of sleep disturbances, increased tension, and apprehension, further undermining their ability to adapt to new roles or routines, making decision-making difficult, and affecting problem-solving skills (Von Scheve, 2013) . Leaders felt reluctant to adopt the change, signifying a clash with entrenched norms and values, highlighting an ideological inconsistency, which is a key element of cultural expectations (Von Scheve, 2013) . During the actual implementation of a change, emotions like frustration, and nervousness could stem from the discomfort of learning new systems. Here, Turner’s (2007) concept of sanctions could be applicable. Lack of support or positive reinforcement during the transition phase can create an atmosphere of tension and reluctance amongst the leaders.
Post-change, the persistence of negative emotions such as guilt, sadness, and a lack of motivation indicate the failure of meeting expected role transformations. The feeling of resignation or aging symbolizes a perceived inability to align with the new roles or environment. The residual stress underscores continued difficulty in acculturating to new norms and values while bad feelings might suggest persistent negative sanctions creating an undesirable work environment (Turner, 2007; Turner & Stets, 2005) . This could be linked to Turner’s concept of transactional needs. If a leader fails to affirm the new roles or does not acknowledge efforts made by others during the transition, it could lead to feelings of frustration and demotivation (Stets & Turner, 2008; Turner, 2004, 2007, 2012; Turner & Stets, 2005; Von Scheve, 2013) . The findings showed that leaders do experience extreme negative emotions like boredom, burn-out, despair, and depression. These emotions can be symptoms of high-stress levels, possibly due to high workload and responsibilities, and could seriously impact leaders’ psychological health (Graham et al., 2008; Tugade & Fredrickson, 2004) .
In contrast, negative emotions can serve as catalysts for beneficial change. For instance, consistent stress could prompt leaders to implement better coping strategies or support frameworks (Von Scheve, 2013) . The emotional turmoil during change can be seen as a critical issue that requires effective leadership strategies, including clear communication, provision of psychological support, and positive reinforcement. Using Turner’s model offers a theoretical foundation to understand these complex dynamics during organizational change. By considering the socio-cultural and cultural expectations, implementing positive sanctions, and satisfying transactional needs, leaders could reduce the impact of negative emotions and facilitate smoother organizational change.
Overall, emotion plays a significant role in shaping decisions and actions of leaders within different change phases. Positive emotions such as hope, confidence, anticipation, and happiness in the pre-change phase can fuel the energy needed to initiate change in the organization. Enthusiasm and energy affirm leaders’ roles as change agents, stimulating them towards the rewards of success. This forms the basis for creating positive emotional climates that foster collective curiosity and enthusiasm. During the change process, emotions evolve into determination, excitement, and pride. Leaders feeling determination and excitement can foster stronger group unity and encourage a shared responsibility to manage the transition effectively. Positive emotions like satisfaction, relief, achievement, and pride following successful change execution can affirm a leader’s decision-making skills, reinforcing their trust in themselves and their team. Negative emotional experiences such as anxiety, worry, stress, and insecurity prior to change implementation can result from the anticipation of upheavals and the uncertainty of outcomes. During the change process, negative emotions tend to escalate causing sleep disturbances, tension, and apprehension, thus undermining leaders’ abilities to adapt to new roles and making decision-making difficult. Persistent negative emotions after the change process, like guilt, sadness, and a lack of motivation, indicate failure in meeting expected role transformations.
In sum, the emotional state of leaders during a multi-crisis organizational change context can be influenced by various factors:
1) Basic Psychological Needs: According to the basic psychological needs theory (BPNT), the satisfaction or frustration of these needs directly influences the emotional experiences of leaders. Factors such as the leaders’ sense of autonomy, competence, and relatedness play a pivotal role. Leaders who feel they are autonomous, competent and have strong interpersonal relationships experience more positive emotions, and vice versa.
2) Motivation: The type of motivation—autonomous or controlled, substantially impacts leaders’ emotional state. Intrinsic or autonomous motivation, aligned with leaders’ personal values and interests, leads to positive emotional states. In contrast, extrinsic or controlled motivation can induce negative emotional states, often related to feelings of coercion or fear of failure.
3) Supportive Work Environment: A supportive work environment that fulfills the basic psychological needs of pleasant work, success, family, career, standard of living, and participation encourages positive emotions. Oppositely, unsupportive environments, marked by setbacks, non-participation, and unfavorability, may trigger negative emotional experiences.
4) Stage of Change Process: The emotional state also shifts significantly depending on the phase of the change process—before, during or after. Before change, leaders often experience anticipation which could lead to either enthusiasm or anxiety. During the change, leaders’ emotions are dominated by assertiveness and determination. After the change, the emotional focus turns to evaluation of results, influencing feelings of success (pride, satisfaction) or failure (disappointment, frustration).
5) Ability to Handle Stress: Leaders’ ability to manage stress can also influence their emotional state. High-stress levels can lead to negative emotions such as anxiety and frustration, while effective coping mechanisms can help maintain a positive emotional balance.
6) Success or Failure: The outcome of the change process (success or failure) significantly impacts the emotional state. Successful changes lead to feelings of pride and accomplishment, whereas unsuccessful changes can result in disappointment, guilt, or even despair.
Overall, handling organizational changes in a multi-crisis context is challenging and can provoke a range of emotional experiences among leaders. Understanding and addressing these influencing factors can help foster more positive emotions, ultimately leading to improved leadership performance and more successful organizational changes.
7.3. Research Question 3: What Role Plays the Basic Psychological Needs Regarding in Facilitating Leader’s Emotional and Motivational Experiences in Organizational Change in a Multi-Crisis Context?
In examining the role of basic psychological needs in relation to the motivational and emotional experiences of leaders during organizational change within a multi-crisis context, the utilization of the basic psychological needs theory (BPNT) provided a comprehensive framework. Through analyzing the obtained data, our findings have reinforced the pivotal role that the satisfaction and frustration of these basic psychological needs play (Ryan & Deci, 2022) .
Leadership, particularly within the turbulent context of multi-crisis organizational change, relies on motivation. Through the theoretical lens of BPNT, the study results indicate the significant presence of autonomous motivation among leaders to be successful (Paumier & Chanal, 2022) . This intrinsic source of motivation, characterized by a willingness to engage in the organizational change process driven by genuine interest and personal values, aligns inherently with the basic psychological need of autonomy central to BPNT. It suggests that leaders who can correlate the changes happening within their organization with their personal values and goals, were more likely to experience autonomous motivation and engage actively in the change process (Butkus & Green, 1999; Gilley et al., 2009; Marks, 2000; Paumier & Chanal, 2022; Specht et al., 2018) . A different facet of motivation came to light while leaders experienced failure or anticipated scenarios of failure. Leaders experienced a strong sense of inhibition, influenced by their own expectations of their capabilities and the unfavorable possibilities that the future might hold—a phenomenon indicative of controlled motivation. This aligns with the core tenet of competence in BPNT, suggesting the significant influence that perceived competence can have on motivation levels. Leaders doubting their skills and abilities can experience a severe decline in motivation, potentially obstructing the change management process (Deci & Ryan, 2014; Holzer et al., 2021) .
Emotional state, another crucial factor within our investigation, underwent significant shifts during the different phases of the change process, relating with changes in the leaders’ psychological needs satisfaction. Positive emotions experienced post-change, such as pride and accomplishment, signify the fulfillment of the basic psychological need for competence. These experiences of success imply that leaders felt competent handling the change process, satisfying this critical basic psychological need (Fredrickson, 2013; Fredrickson & Cohn, 2008; Nezlek & Kuppens, 2008) . On the contrary, the emergence of negative emotional states commonly associated with fear, anxiety, frustration, and resignation, often signified an impediment of the leader’s basic psychological needs (Paumier & Chanal, 2022) . The concurrence of fear and anxiety surfaced as issues of competence, with leaders questioning their own abilities and the potential outcomes. Resignation, a rather definitive emotion, relates to autonomy, as it echoes leaders feeling distressed and helpless, perceiving their actions as inconsequential in the grander scheme of the organizational change. This demonstrates how the satisfaction or frustration of the basic psychological needs directly could influence the emotional experiences of leaders (Holzer et al., 2021; Vansteenkiste et al., 2020; Bak, 2019; Brandstätter et al., 2018; Rothermund et al., 2011) .
The links between the basic psychological needs and emotional states additionally became pronounced by analyzing emotions that prevailed in three different phases of change—before, during, and after. Considerably optimistic and enthusiastic emotions marked the “before change” phase, fueled by the leaders’ anticipation for what is to come. During this period, the leaders generally felt a sense of hope and excitement, optimistic about the change and their role within it. This emotional state might reflect the satisfaction of the need for autonomy, where leaders could align personal interests and values with the forthcoming change. During the change process, emotional states underwent a shift, adopting a more assertive and determined demeanor. These active and challenging emotions, such as determination and learning intensity, indicate leaders striving hard to handle the change process, signifying their satisfaction of the needs for competence. As the change ended, data indicated that leaders’ emotions took another turn, focusing on the successes or failures as an act of evaluating the results. The shift towards a sense of pride, accomplishment, satisfaction, and relief points specifically to the leaders’ realized basic psychological need for competence—a successful navigation through the change period could made them feel competent, leading to a sense of accomplishment, satisfaction, and self-worth (Ntoumanis et al., 2021; Tang et al., 2020; Teixeira et al., 2020) .
Situational need-based support becomes crucial in meeting these relation-oriented needs, which, in turn, significantly influences the leaders’ motivation. As observed, resources and environmental conditions that cater to the basic needs of leaders—pleasant work, successful experiences, familial support, career aspiration fulfillment, satisfaction with living standards, and active participation—represent essential forms of situational need-based support. When leaders’ relatedness needs are satisfied, they are likely to approach their tasks with more interest and dedication (Chen et al., 2021) . Moreover, it is intriguing to note how such need-based support also translates into leaders being more resilient amidst negative experiences or emotions. Having environmental resources and conditions that encapsulate their basic psychological needs (autonomy, competence, and relatedness) indeed bolsters the leaders’ psychological well-being and ability to cope with challenges better. Consequently, well-nurtured basic psychological needs eventually contribute to better motivation and more positive emotional states in leaders, even in demanding scenarios such as a multi-crisis organizational change (Chen et al., 2021) . Potential impediments to such need-satisfaction highlight contrary effects—leading to demotivated states in leaders and negative emotional experiences. Factors such as setbacks, non-participation, and unfavorable environmental aspects reflect adverse situations that infringe upon the leaders’ basic psychological needs. Such situations can become detrimental demotivators, compelling leaders to grapple with controlled motivation, significantly impeding the change process. Recognizing and actively addressing these impediments are thus necessary for facilitating effective leadership in organizational change (Fotiadis et al., 2019; Krauter, 2023; Reis et al., 2000; Vansteenkiste et al., 2020) .
Implications for practice emanating from this study decidedly recommend organizations focus on effectual need-based support strategies that ensure the satisfaction of leaders’ basic psychological needs. By fostering conditions and opportunities encouraging autonomy, bolstering competence, and nurturing relatedness, organizations can enhance their leaders’ motivation, emotional resilience, and overall success during change. These qualitative insights contribute substantially to understanding the role of basic psychological needs in leaders’ emotional and motivational experiences within a multi-crisis change context, certain limitations need acknowledgment.
8. Limitation and Future Research
The limitations of the current study primarily revolve around its methodological and contextual considerations. First, the qualitative design of the study has implications for the generalizability of the findings. The snowball sampling method and qualitative content analysis provide a deep, context-bound understanding of the research questions but limit the ability to generalize these insights to a broader population. Second, the cross-sectional nature of the research does not allow for a temporally dynamic examination of how basic psychological needs change over time during crisis conditions and how these movements interplay with leaders’ emotional and motivational states. Third, the research’s focus was restricted to leaders’ perspectives only. While leaders’ insights provide a profound understanding of their experiences, other stakeholders associated with the change process, such as team members or subordinates, could provide alternate perspectives enriching the understanding of the change process dynamics. Fourth, the data collection relied solely on self-reported measures, which may be susceptible to social desirability bias and introspective limitations. Leaders might have been inclined to highlight aspects that cast them in a positive light or downplay negative factors. Lastly, the study was conducted within a specific organizational and cultural context, bringing its considerations into the findings. Doing similar studies in different organizational and cultural contexts would help generalize or contrast these results. Future research could aim to broaden and diversify the sample base, enabling more solid generalizations in the sense of quantitative research. Contrarily, this study applied the concept of “qualitative generalization” and provided profound insights into the specific phenomena under study. This transformative approach has enhanced substantive explanations, emphasizing the leader’s positive and negative experiences allowing for a richer understanding and transferability of the findings. Longitudinal studies could provide insights into how motivations and emotions fluctuate during varying stages of the change process. Additionally, examining this phenomenon from multiple stakeholders’ perspectives would help provide a more holistic analysis. Incorporating other methods such as direct observations or third-party evaluations could offset the limitations of self-reported measures.