Leader cognition under threat: “Just the Facts”

It has been argued that leader cognition is a particularly important influence on team performance under conditions of crisis or threat. The goal of the present effort was to assess the merits of processing performance information, as opposed to processing social information, for leader performance in terms of creativity of solutions and the quality of solutions with respect to domain specific performance variables. Undergraduates were asked to assume the role of a leader in a marketing firm and provide solutions to three marketing problems. It was found that providing training in strategies for working with performance information (e.g., causes, resources, restrictions, and contingencies) resulted in higher levels of performance than providing training in strategies for working with social information (e.g., actors, affect, goals, and social systems). Moreover, training in strategies for working with performance information proved especially beneficial when more elements of the problem situation were under leader control. The implications of these findings for understanding leader cognition and leader performance are discussed.