Chapter 9: Between Lewin and Vygotsky: Understanding Leader-Follower Interactions Through a Cultural Psychological Lens

The concept of the zone of free movement (ZFM) serves as a foundational Lewinian approach to structuring and delineating the life-space of both employees and leaders, focusing on how needs and goals are met. Within the ZFM, there exists the Zone of Promoted Action (ZPA), which involves actions encouraged to meet job demands. However, these zones alone are insufficient to explain how job mastery and its demands are successfully achieved. To address this, Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) is introduced, emphasizing the development of knowledge, skills, and tools necessary for an employee to learn and perform the job effectively. Drawing on an autoethnography, the negative and destructive effects of the interactions between ZFM, ZPA, and ZPD are highlighted, particularly when the ZFM and ZPA lack a structured ZPD. Without clear guidance on how to execute promoted actions, successful job mastery cannot be attained. It is argued that leaders must recognize which actions to promote and how these actions should incorporate the transmission of skills, enabling employees to fully appropriate their jobs.