How does leadership manage network-level tensions in a turbulent environment? A case study on the Antwerp Fire Service Network Leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic

A crucial topic is how network leadership recognizes and responds to network-level tensions. However, when we focus on how leadership manages these tensions, we favor a one-sided view by focusing predominantly on how leadership manages tensions within the network, implicitly adopting a closed system assumption. In this article, we propose that why a specific network-level behavior is enacted can (partially) be explained by how network leadership is embedded within an organizational field and how environmental and population dynamics shape network tensions. The Social Network Analysis showed that the Antwerp Fire Service crisis response network developed from a core-periphery network to a smaller, denser network. Based on the thematic analysis, we provide insights into network leadership practices to recognize and respond to network tensions that arose during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic due to internal network characteristics and the organizational field's environmental and population dynamics.MAD statementThis article aims to Make a Difference (MAD) by positioning the notion of network tensions and network leadership at the core of leadership theory and practice. This is done by introducing network tensions before suggesting that network leadership needs to respond to and manage network tensions shaped and constrained by an organizational field's environmental and population dynamics. The contributions show how leadership dealt with network tensions, and as a result, the article may help inform leadership practice and scholarship on how to deal with multiple network memberships, overlapping network involvement, and broader network-environment relationships that characterize collective goods.