Non-intervention as a Strategy : How laissez-faire leadership shapes dynamic capabilities

Abstract

Laissez-faire leadership has long been treated as the least effective form within the Full-Range Leadership Theory framework, synonymous with absence and dysfunction. Yet a smaller body of research finds that deliberate leader restraint can support autonomy and self-directed learning when enabling conditions are in place. This thesis reconceptualises laissez-faire leadership as strategic non-intervention and examines how and under what conditions such restraint can enable the development of dynamic capabilities. A systematic literature review following PRISMA standards was conducted on 70 peer-reviewed studies (2004–2026), coded in NVivo 15 through a hybrid deductive–inductive strategy. The thesis advances four interconnected theoretical contributions. Laissez-faire leadership aggregates at least three psychologically distinct forms of non-intervention: dysfunctional withdrawal, relationally induced disengagement, and strategic non-intervention. Follower attribution operates as the pivot mechanism routing the same restraint into enabling, suppressing, or null pathways. A structurally asymmetric dual-pathway architecture emerges, with the enabling pathway operating through multiple distinct channels and the suppressing pathway through a single cascading chain. Boundary conditions at the follower, dyadic, and organisational–environmental levels operate multiplicatively, activating the enabling pathway only when favourable conditions are present simultaneously across all three levels. Together, these findings reposition laissez-faire leadership from the bottom of the leadership range to a context-sensitive instrument within the leader's adaptive repertoire.