Contextual Factors That Enable Positive Deviance to Occur in Leaders

December 3, 2025

Contextual Factors That Enable Positive Deviance to Occur in Leaders

Joshua Friedeman | 2024

Abstract

Spreitzer and Sonenshein (2003, 2004) developed a strong conceptual foundation for positive deviance (PD) research. Lavine (2012) continued this development and called for further research to operationalize the concept of PD at an organizational level. One of his direct calls was to explore the contextual factors that would enable PD. Spreitzer and Sonenshein’s (2003) construct included five psychological factors that facilitate PD: sense of meaning, other focus, self-determination, personal efficacy, and courage. They identified transformational leadership and contexts of crisis as two additional contextual factors that may enable PD. Using a multiple bounded case study approach, this project answers three research questions: How does context influence the psychological factors that facilitate positive deviance in organizational leaders? How does the contextual factor of transformational leadership influence positive deviance in organizational leaders? How do contexts of crisis influence positive deviance in organizational leaders? This project is the first attempt to answer Lavine’s direct call to understand the important contextual antecedents to PD actions or behaviors in organizational leaders.

Keywords: Crisis management, Executive leadership, Leadership, Positive deviance, Servant leadership, Transformational Leadership

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