Motivation to Lead and Shared Leadership in Teams

Dispersed innovation teams rely upon team members who share leadership responsibilities to attain high levels of team performance. Although this concept of team shared leadership is receiving increasing attention, this dissertation shows that especially research on team-level antecedents of shared leadership has major deficits regarding a basic framework for analyzing antecedents, depth of theory, context-specific arguments, and empirical validation. This dissertation tries to fill these research gaps, thus shedding light on the question: How can we foster the important process of shared leadership in dispersed innovation teams? This dissertation introduces a theoretical framework into shared leadership literature to structure the antecedents of shared leadership according to their mode of functioning. As such, this dissertation argues for the first time that to establish high levels of team shared leadership the basic dimensions of motivation, opportunity, and ability for shared leadership should be addressed (motivation-opportunity-ability framework or MOA framework). Based on this notion team-level antecedents providing motivation, opportunity, and ability for shared leadership are operationalized and hypothesized as antecedents of shared leadership in dispersed innovation teams using acknowledged theories. Moreover, all discussed hypotheses are verified in a sample of 96 dispersed real work teams with innovative software tasks. Thereby, empirical results are drawn from 96 team leader responses (used to assess team-level antecedents of team shared leadership) and 337 team member responses (used to assess team shared leadership). Motivation for Team Shared Leadership. Based on the perspective of shared leadership as a risk-taking behavior for team members in dispersed innovation teams, trustworthiness is argued as a facilitator of the willingness, thus motivation to engage in risky shared leadership actions with others. This argumentation based on trust theory was supported by empirical results showing that team member trustworthiness in terms of benevolence and integrity was positively related to team shared leadership. Surprisingly, the proposed positive relationship between ability-based trustworthiness and shared leadership could not be confirmed, thus ability-based trustworthiness could not be validated as a facilitator of shared leadership in dispersed innovation teams. Opportunity for Team Shared Leadership. Opportunity for team shared leadership is addressed by discussing team reflexivity as an antecedent of shared leadership in dispersed innovation teams. Team reflexivity is argued as opportunity providing antecedent of shared leadership as it gives team members a clear information basis in the complex and constantly changing environment of dispersed innovation teams, thus making leadership needs identifiable. In support of this argumentation based on goal setting theory and shared mental model theory team reflexivity was positively related to team shared leadership. Thereby, the relationship between team reflexivity and shared leadership could be shown as even stronger under conditions of high team role breadth self-efficacy and high team empowerment. Ability for Team Shared Leadership. Ability for shared leadership is addressed in terms of social and project management skills. These two skills are argued as basic and complementary skills needed for shared leadership in dispersed innovation teams based on socio-technical systems theory. Underscoring the importance of interpersonal competence the empirical analysis showed that social skills were strongly positively related to team shared leadership. Contrary to the hypothesis of this study project management skills were not related to team shared leadership. Structural Team Properties and Team Shared Leadership. Moreover, several structural team properties are discussed as team-level antecedents of shared leadership, namely female ratio, mean age, age diversity, and national diversity. Thereby, structural team properties are argued as potentially affecting team shared leadership through several MOA dimensions. In the empirical analyses female ratio was positively related to shared leadership in dispersed innovation teams, while mean age was negatively related. Age diversity showed no significant relationship and national diversity was marginally positively related to shared leadership in dispersed innovation teams. Based on these findings, important implications for practice, related to the three stages of a project team (establishment, forming, and performing stage), are provided. As such, team leaders of dispersed innovation teams is given a check-list of how to foster shared leadership in dispersed innovation teams based on the results of this dissertation. Future research is especially suggested regarding the “non-findings” of this dissertation, interaction effects, additional team-level antecedents, the vertical team leader’s role within shared leadership evolvement, antecedents of shared leadership in other contexts, and other levels of antecedents (e.g., organizational-level antecedents).

I adopt a leadership as a networks approach to propose ethical leadership can emerge and be shared among team members. Therefore, I introduce the construct of shared ethical leadership and I begin to build the construct's nomological network by first examining ethical leadership training and shared leadership training as factors which, when additively combined, promote the density of shared ethical leadership in teams. Further, I examine these antecedents by predicting their effects will be optimized when power differentials between team members and their nominal leader are minimized. Moving to the consequences of shared ethical leadership, I propose a four-path model of social learning and social-exchange effects on proximal and distal team outcomes. First, I suggest that shared ethical leadership promotes the emergence of the team moral potency needed to make ethical choices when confronted with opportunities to ethically transgress. I then predict that the team's moral potency mediates the positive relationship between shared ethical leadership and team ethical behavior. Additionally, I argue that shared ethical leadership promotes goal concessions among team members and those goal concessions mediate the positive relationship between shared ethical leadership and team performance. I then suggest that shared ethical leadership promotes team information elaboration, which in turn mediates positive relationships with the team's ethical behavior and performance. I examine the hypotheses in a 2x2x2, between-subjects experiment using a simulated team activity with a sample of 56, 5-person teams (n=280). While the findings indicate a lack of support for most of my hypothesized relationships, the density of team's shared ethical leadership network was found to be positively related to team ethical behaviors. In addition, team information elaboration was positively related to team performance. Based on my findings, the theoretical and practical implications of this research are discussed.

Over the past three decades, research on shared leadership has flourished across a myriad of academic disciplines. In this time, researchers have offered clarity into the antecedents, consequences, and moderators of shared leadership—while also considering measurement and conceptualization questions that are foundational to this discipline. Shared leadership has suffered from the proliferation of definitions, construct labeling, and measurement approaches. Despite this proliferation, meta-analyses have tended to define shared leadership as a dynamic and emergent phenomenon whereby leadership responsibilities are distributed across team members. Scholars have commonly used two different approaches to measuring shared leadership—the aggregate and social network approaches—both of which have garnered criticisms. Research on the nomological network of shared leadership has outlined antecedents, consequences, and moderators. Scholars have demonstrated that the composition of team members (e.g., team diversity and team personality), the properties of the team (e.g., psychological safety and intrateam trust), and the properties of the formal leader (e.g., leader humility and empowering leadership) can each impact the propensity of teams to share leadership. Shared leadership has been found to impact several proximal (e.g., team satisfaction, team resilience, team confidence, team conflict) and distal factors (e.g., team learning, team performance, team creativity, team proactive behavior). Lastly, temporal considerations, methodological factors, and characteristics of the team or task have each been found to moderate the nomological network of shared leadership. Several future areas of research inquiry include the downsides of shared leadership, cross-cultural implications, multilevel considerations, and technological advancements.

The present study was designed to produce novel theoretical insight regarding how leader humility and team member characteristics foster the conditions that promote shared leadership and when shared leadership relates to team effectiveness. Drawing on social information processing theory and adaptive leadership theory, we propose that leader humility facilitates shared leadership by promoting leadership-claiming and leadership-granting interactions among team members. We also apply dominance complementary theory to propose that team proactive personality strengthens the impact of leader humility on shared leadership. Finally, we predict that shared leadership will be most strongly related to team performance when team members have high levels of task-related competence. Using a sample composed of 62 Taiwanese professional work teams, we find support for our proposed hypothesized model. The theoretical and practical implications of these results for team leadership, humility, team composition, and shared leadership are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record

Our study identifies an important potential downside of the need for leaders to reach opposing objectives, as identified by paradox theory: communicating competing goals can contribute to team member perceptions of low behavioral integrity for leadership sharing.Behavioral integrity for leadership sharing is associated with team performance through the mediating effects of shared leadership and team efficacy. Team leaders have important roles in establishing well-functioning leadership collectives through helping team members develop their own leader identities. This process is disrupted when leaders are perceived to have low behavioral integrity for leadership sharing. We extend adaptive leadership theory by highlighting the disproportionate influence a team leader has in establishing shared leadership in a team.

SummaryShared leadership in teams is believed to be beneficial for team effectiveness. Yet recent empirical evidence shows that it may not always bring positive effects. On the one hand, the team leadership literature suggests that shared leadership allows for frequent interactions among members, improving intrateam harmony and reducing conflicts. On the other hand, the team power literature suggests that frequent influence interactions among multiple leaders can form an arena in which members fight over their power turfs, thereby triggering conflict. Drawing on dominance complementarity theory, we suggest that team power base diversity—the variety in power bases among team members from which they derive their informal influence—is an important contingency that moderates the impact of shared leadership on relationship conflict to influence team performance. In a sample of 70 project‐based teams, we find support for the proposition that at high levels of team power base diversity, shared leadership has a positive downstream effect on team performance through reduced team relationship conflict. We discuss the contributions to knowledge about shared leadership and highlight practical implications for temporary teams with no formally designated leaders.

PurposeThis paper aims to examine the effect of shared leadership on student project team processes and outcomes. The authors focused on shared leadership and its association with team processes (coordination, goal commitment and knowledge sharing) and team performance.Design/methodology/approachTo examine the shared leadership, team processes and performance model, the authors conducted two separate surveys of 158 graduate and undergraduate students working in project teams at a large southwestern university.FindingsResults showed that shared leadership positively affected coordination activities, goal commitment and knowledge sharing, which in turn positively affect team performance. Each team process factor had a mediation effect, although shared leadership had no direct effect on team performance.Research limitations/implicationsThis research adds to the knowledge of important team process factors through which shared leadership indirectly affects team performance.Practical implicationsBased on the findings, the authors provided implications for students and instructors that shared leadership can facilitate team performance by enabling team members to coordinate activities, commit to goals and share knowledge effectively.Originality/valueThis study presents an initial understanding of the shared leadership-team performance relationship by introducing influential variables, such as coordination activities, goal commitment and knowledge sharing in a team.

Virtual teams work together over geographical distances to achieve interdependent organizational goals. The use of virtual teams has increased rapidly, due to factors such as globalization, organizations’ need for rapid product development and innovation, distributive expertise of employees, and improved networking and collaboration technologies that support e-collaboration (Kozlowski & Bell, 2003; Mathieu, Maynard, Rapp, & Gilson, 2008). With the proliferation of the use of virtual teams, the question has arisen regarding how to best manage virtual teams. In spite of advantages of virtual teams, scholars have argued that team management and leadership is more difficult in virtual teams than in co-located teams. Geographic dispersion in virtual teams results in lower co-presence of leaders and team members and virtual team leaders having less ability to monitor their teams, less influence and information about the team’s situation and team processes and team dynamics, thus hindering the management of the team in general. Because of these challenges, researchers have suggested that leadership in virtual teams should be distributed among team members and performed through shared leadership. Currently, however, little knowledge exists regarding what important antecedents, mediators and moderators and outcomes of shared leadership in virtual teams are. In drawing from a contingency framework approach, the papers in this symposium discuss critical predictors, moderators and processes that can positively influence the emergence of shared leadership, and ultimately impact virtual team effectiveness and performance. The papers provide both unique and important extensions to existing research knowledge and theory as well as needed guidance to managers regarding the development of shared leadership in virtual teams Team Member Personality Composition as Antecedents of Shared Leadership in Virtual Teams Presenter: Julia E. Hoch; California State U., Northridge Shared Leadership: Investigating the Contingency Factors Influencing Virtual Team Effectiveness Presenter: Julia Eisenberg; Pace U. Presenter: Jennifer Gibbs; Rutgers U. Presenter: Niclas Erhardt; U. of Maine

Fulola is a technology-based startup in childhood education that provides interactive learning media about environment. The CEO applies shared leadership to build a hand-in-hand working environment. Besides the role of a leader, commitment from team members is also necessary to achieve maximum team performance. However, shared leadership applied was ineffective and commitment of members decreased which leads to poor team performance. This study aims to explore the influences of shared leadership on organizational commitment and team performance, as well as the influences of organizational commitment on team performance in Fulola. This study uses a qualitative case study approach. Data collection was carried out using semi-structured interviews and triangulation by Focus Group Discussion with 3 chief levels in Fulola. The results were analyzed using coding analysis. This study shows several factors in shared leadership that influence in enhancing organizational commitment and team performance, including Shared Purpose (vision understanding and monitoring), Shared Emotional Support (team support, good relation, and appreciation), and Voice (open communication and decision making right). Some issues in shared leadership influence organizational commitment and team performance including lengthy decision-making processes, and less accountability. Regarding organizational commitment, several factors contribute to enhancing team performance such as Affective Commitment (passion, comfort, desire to learn, and kinship), Continuous Commitment (material benefit and employment alternatives), and Normative Commitment (responsible to other parties and guilt). Issues related to organizational commitment influence team performance include unprofessionalism, intention to leave, and formality pressure. These findings are useful for improving organizational commitment and team performance for Fulola.

When teams share leadership they can draw on their members’ expertise and skills more effectively to improve team performance. But global virtual team (GVT) members work across time zones in highly challenging multilingual and multicultural settings. In this study we examine whether shared leadership will lead to better team outcomes in GVTs. We differentiate between shared leadership tasks and shared leadership processes and examine the relationships between these and GVT satisfaction, performance and output. Using a sample of 55 global virtual teams with members from 28 countries, we find that the task component of shared leadership tasks is related to team satisfaction, and the process component of shared leadership is significantly related to team satisfaction and perceived team performance. Additionally, the extent to which a team shares leadership processes is significantly related to externally evaluated team outcomes, suggesting a need to take a closer look shared leadership from a process perspective. Implications for theory and practice are addressed.

Many virtual project teams perform better when leadership is shared (rather than centralized with the formal team leader); however, team leaders are often neither prepared to identify shared leadership potential nor to actually share leadership responsibility. Based on a study of 96 globally dispersed software development teams we show that team leaders tend to underestimate the team members’ capacity to lead themselves. As a consequence, these leaders monopolize decision-making authority and provide insufficient levels of autonomy for team members to tackle their tasks. Preventing the team members from unfolding their true potential, these leaders unconsciously jeopardize virtual team performance. Paradoxically, it is thus team leaders themselves hindering leadership effectiveness in virtual teams.

The aims of this review were to consolidate the reported literature describing shared leadership in healthcare action teams (HCATs) and to review the reported outcomes related to leadership sharing in healthcare emergencies. A systematic search of the English language literature before November 2017 was performed using PsycINFO, MEDLINE, PubMed, CINAHL, and EMBASE. Articles describing sharing of leadership functions in HCATs were included. Healthcare teams performing routine work were excluded. Studies were reviewed for type of leadership sharing and sharing-related outcomes. Thirty-three articles met the inclusion criteria. A variety of shared leadership models were described across the following three categories: spontaneous collaboration, intuitive working relations, and institutionalized practices. While leadership sharing has the potential for both positive and negative influences on team performance, only six articles reported outcomes potentially attributable to shared leadership. Despite strong evidence for a positive relationship between shared leadership and team performance in other domains, there is limited literature describing shared leadership models in HCATs. The association between shared leadership and team performance in HCATs is a rich area for further investigation.

PurposeAs team members temporarily assume the role of leader, a system of shared leadership emerges. This study had three purposes: (a) to test the underlying three dimensions of shared leadership behaviors, (b) to examine the relationship between shared leadership behaviors and team performance, and (c) to examine the mediating effect of trust between team members’ perceptions of shared leadership and performance.Design/methodology/approachWe used the sub-dimensions of shared leadership: relation-oriented shared leadership (ROSL), task-oriented shared leadership (TOSL), and creativity-oriented shared leadership (COSL). We collected survey data from college student teams at two different time points.FindingsThis study’s factor analysis results supported a second-order factor model that explains shared leadership with TOSL, ROSL, and a new COSL construct. Additionally, we discovered that shared leadership behaviors predicted team performance both directly and indirectly through team trust.Originality/valueThis study confirms the role of the new sub-dimension of COSL originally discovered by video analysis of project teams (Leight et al., 2018), thereby adding value to shared leadership research. This quantitative study supports the COSL with TOSL and ROSL in a second-order model where each component contributes unique input into the team dynamics. Our findings underscore the significance of shared leadership in elevating team trust, ultimately resulting in improved team performance. This insight holds particular relevance for educational management and leadership, offering a framework for understanding how shared leadership practices can positively influence team dynamics within academic contexts.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to investigate the mechanism of shared leadership on team members’ innovative behavior.Design/methodology/approachPaired questionnaires were collected from 89 scientific research teams in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region of China at two-time points with a time lag of 4 months. Then multilevel structural equation model method was applied to analyze the multiple mediating effects.FindingsThis study finds that: the form of shared leadership in scientific research teams of universities; shared leadership has a positive impact on team members’ innovative behavior; there are multiple mediations in the relationship including synchronization and sequence of creative self-efficacy and achievement motivation.Originality/valueAccording to the “stimulus-organism-response” model, this paper has constructed a multi-level theoretical model that shared leadership influences individual innovation behavior and reveals the “black box” from the perspective of psychological mechanism. It not only verifies that “can-do” shapes “willing to do” but also makes up for the gap of an empirical test of the effectiveness of shared leadership in scientific research teams of universities. Besides, the formal scale of shared leadership in the Chinese situation is revised, which can provide a reference for future empirical research on shared leadership. The research conclusions provide new ideas for improving the management of scientific research teams in universities.

PurposeThis paper aims to examine the effect of shared leadership on both quantity and quality of team performance, predicting that shared leadership enhances performance by affecting quantity (level of performance) as well as quality (team errors). In addition, this paper also investigates the role of perceived task complexity in moderating the effect of sharing leadership on team performance.Design/methodology/approachIn total, 26 teams (N = 78) were asked to work on an interdependent team-task, where they engaged in a laboratory team decision-making exercise.FindingsResults revealed that teams sharing leadership made fewer errors. They achieved higher levels of quality of performance. As predicted, this effect was stronger when team members perceived the task as highly complex, even though objective task difficulty was constant.Research limitations/implicationsThis study extends current literature on shared leadership by documenting that sharing the lead in teams can also improve the quality of team performance and that perceived complexity of tasks is an important moderator of this effect.Practical implicationsBased on the findings, influencing perceptions of task complexity can be considered as an important strategy to stimulate shared leadership in teams.Originality/valueUsing social network approach, the authors showed that shared leadership is an important tool for preventing team errors and offer a new explanation for inconsistent findings from recent meta-analyses by showing that perceived task complexity moderates the effects of shared leadership. Additionally, this study offers an original team task for investigating shared leadership in teams.