A Creative Pursuit to COVID-19 Intensive Care Team Performance: Role of Shared Leadership and Leader Creativity Expectation

Abstract

Research has consistently demonstrated that shared leadership produces a wide range of positive outcomes. These studies, however, generally are about teams working in normal circumstances, and it is not clear whether and how shared leadership may bring benefits to the teams working in Covid19-ICU. This study draw from team motivation theory and self-fulfilling prophecy at work model to suggest that shared leadership enhances team performance through team motivational processes (i.e. team creativity goal generation and team creativity goal striving). Findings of the empirical analysis of time-lagged data collected from 75 doctors teams working in Covid19-ICU support most of the hypotheses. Findings suggest that shared leadership is indirectly related to team performance through team creativity goal generation and team creativity goal striving. Furthermore, Leader creativity expectations moderations the relationship between shared leadership, team creativity goals generation and team performance. Theoretical contributions and implications for management are discussed in the later sections.