What It Takes and Costs To Be an Ambidextrous Manager: Linking Leadership and Cognitive Strain to Balancing Exploration and Exploitation

We contribute to the undeveloped understanding of ambidexterity at the individual level by studying how leadership is related to individual ambidexterity and how this is related to cognitive strain. Data from 179 managers indicate a positive interrelation between superiors' transformational leadership and individual ambidexterity. We also find a manager's level of ambidexterity to be positively related to cognitive strain. This relationship is positively moderated by a manager's level of conscientiousness and negatively moderated by a manager's level of openness to experience.