The Pattern of Executive Professionals’ Thinking Styles in Relation to cognitive Styles and Metacognition Skills

Abstract

In this era of globalization, thinking styles of the professionals hold significant prominence in the leadership development. Cognitive aspects of professionals including thinking, attitudes, and motivation are great concerns of managerial psychology, which escalate organizational productivity as, different occupations reinforce different thinking, cognitive and metacognitive styles. This paper proposes to conduct the research gap of studying the effect of cognitive styles and metacognition styles on thinking styles in order to find out the preference of different thinking styles in professionals at executive positions. Smart PLS 3.3.2 software has been used to execute partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) for the research framework on a sample of 453 top-executive professionals working in different public and private firms in northern India. Six hypotheses were framed in the study. PLS-SEM supported five out of six hypotheses as per their respective models. Results indicate that professionals’ cognitive and metacognition skills influence their thinking styles. This study encourages the task-oriented workplace deployment as a solution of evolving organizational productivity. When practiced in organizations, it boosts the workplace expectations and organizational requirements giving birth to greater creativity. Implications, limitations, and suggestions for future research are also added.