Shared Leadership and Improvisation: Dual Perspective of Cognition-Affection

The purpose of this paper is to explore the influencing mechanism of shared leadership (SL) on taking charge behavior (TCB) based on cognitive–affective system theory. Specifically, the current study intends to build a model of perceived insider status and emotional intelligence that mediate the relationship between SL and TCB from a dual cognitive–affective perspective. Further, given the nature of SL that develops through social interactions, we propose and examine the moderating role of social media use in the relationship between SL and TCB. We used multilevel and multi-sourced data to test the theoretical model and used a social network approach to measure SL in teams. Our findings provide a significant contribution to the literature in that this paper shows perceived insider status and emotional intelligence as a crucial dual mediating mechanism through which SL influences TCB and affords fresh thoughts for IT-related contextual conditions.

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).

In the past two decades, scholars have increasingly studied the concepts of social identity leadership and shared leadership, but there is very little research combining these approaches. Given the potential that shared leadership could strengthen identity leadership, this study aimed to explore how organisational identity might be collectively actualised in a self-managing organisation, where decision-making authority was radically decentralised. The multisource data included five interviews with vertical leaders and HR, three focus groups with employees, four recordings of monthly company review meetings, and a culture booklet, analysed applying theory-informed thematic analysis. The findings suggest that vertical leaders’ identity leadership is critical in facilitating successful shared identity leadership. Additionally, the results provide new evidence of peer-leader roles that are important particularly in fostering employee identification. Peer-leaders’ identity entrepreneurship and advancement during socialisation created an opportunity to form an authentic and better aligned team. Additionally, their shared impresarioship with vertical leaders integrated the identity into organisational practices and policies. The results indicate that shared identity leadership may critically strengthen its effectiveness. Future research should explore whether the results apply more widely. The findings suggest that team leaders should work with employees to integrate organisational identity across their practices, and policies. MAD Statement Our study explored how more effective social identity leadership might be achieved if vertical leaders collaborated with employees in identity actualisation. Our results suggest that shared identity leadership has a great potential to enhance the achievement of identity-reflecting outcomes such as in this case, organisational growth and innovation, and also employee identification. The first two seemed to result particularly from the vertical leaders’ active identity leadership, which created an organisational environment fostering shared decision-making and supportive of employee-led innovations. Instead, the peer-leaders’ identity leadership was instrumental in promoting identification and setting shared expectations for work; thus, promoting productive collaboration.

Shared leadership, team members collectively leading the team, has developed from a new perspective on team leadership to an established area of research. As the evidence of the effectiveness of shared leadership accumulates, it comes increasingly into focus that we lack theory about the dynamic interplay of shared leadership and vertical leadership – the leadership by the individual formally assigned to lead the team. The absence of such theory is problematic because vertical leadership is a continuing presence in the shared leadership process and, to be effective, vertical leadership should arguably both influence and be influenced by shared leadership. Linear models in which vertical leadership is treated as a predictor of shared leadership without taking this dynamic into account fall short of capturing how vertical and shared leadership work in conjunction. We propose theory to address this, outlining how vertical leadership can develop, maintain, and complement shared leadership in a process in which shared and vertical leadership coevolve as they influence each other. We identify an internal role for vertical leadership in stimulating the development and maintenance of team cognition for shared leadership, guiding the team in shared leadership, and engendering team reflexivity to learn from the experience with shared leadership, and an external role in complementing shared leadership through boundary spanning to connect the team to its external environment. As shared leadership develops over time, it influences these vertical leadership behaviors, such that vertical leadership evolves as shared leadership evolves. Plain Language Summary Title Shared leadership in teams: the role of the formal team leader.

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.

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.

Although scholars have increasingly recognized that leadership can arise from a number of sources in team settings, relatively little research has explored different leadership sources and the implications of such leadership for team effectiveness. We address this gap by examining vertical and shared leadership in an independent field study. We validated a measure of vertical and shared transformational and transactional leadership, participative goal setting, individual and team empowerment, and aversive leadership and consequently, we tested the relationships between shared and vertical leadership behaviors and team effectiveness. We find that both vertical and shared leadership are associated with team effectiveness and that the vertical leadership and team effectiveness relationship is mediated, in part, through shared leadership. We discuss the implications of these results for team leadership theory and practice.

Until now, leadership has mostly been considered a unidirectional process centered on leaders influencing their followers. However, more recent theoretical developments indicate that leadership is a dynamic team process, valuing the contributions of leaders and followers alike. In this pre-registered study, we investigate the reciprocal interplay between shared leadership and formal team leadership (i.e., empowering leadership). We assume that leaders generally interpret their team’s shared leadership as an investment to reach for common goals. Accordingly, their team’s effort should improve leader trust in the team, which in turn should increase empowering leadership behavior of the leader. Further, we propose that this indirect relationship is first-stage moderated by leader self-efficacy. We invited 721 team members and their leaders nested in 169 teams to join a three-wave longitudinal study. Results from Bayesian cross-lagged panel modeling support our predicted mediation effect while also showing the established reverse effect of empowering leadership on shared leadership. The moderation effect was not supported. This study provides insights into the dynamic and reciprocal interplay between shared and formal leadership. Our findings underline that formal leaders do not perceive shared leadership as a threat but instead value the team’s effort reflected in higher trust and decision latitude.

Leadership has mostly been considered as an unidirectional process centered on leaders influencing their followers. However, recent theoretical developments indicate that followers may also have an impact on their formal leader. In this pre-registered study, we investigate the interplay between shared leadership and formal team leadership (i.e., empowering leadership). We predict that leaders interpret their team’s shared leadership as an investment to reach for common goals. Accordingly, their team’s effort should improve the social exchange relationship with their team, reflected in higher trust which in turn should increase empowering leadership behavior of the leader. Further, we assume that this indirect relation is first-stage moderated by leader self-efficacy. We tested our assumptions in a longitudinal study with 721 team members and their leaders nested in 169 teams. Results from Bayesian cross-lagged panel modeling support our assumed mediation effect, while also pointing to a reverse effect of empowering leadership on shared leadership. The moderation effect was not supported. This study provides insights about the dynamic and reciprocal interplay between shared and formal leadership. Our findings underline that formal leaders do not perceive shared leadership as a threat, but rather value the team effort reflected in higher trust and decision latitude.

Until now, leadership has mostly been considered a unidirectional process centered on leaders influencing their followers. However, more recent theoretical developments indicate that leadership is a dynamic team process, valuing the contributions of leaders and followers alike. In this pre-registered study, we investigate the reciprocal interplay between shared leadership and formal team leadership (i.e., empowering leadership). We assume that leaders generally interpret their team’s shared leadership as an investment to reach for common goals. Accordingly, their team’s effort should improve leader trust in the team, which in turn should increase empowering leadership behavior of the leader. Further, we propose that this indirect relationship is first-stage moderated by leader self-efficacy. We invited 721 team members and their leaders nested in 169 teams to join a three-wave longitudinal study. Results from Bayesian cross-lagged panel modeling support our predicted mediation effect while also showing the established reverse effect of empowering leadership on shared leadership. The moderation effect was not supported. This study provides insights into the dynamic and reciprocal interplay between shared and formal leadership. Our findings underline that formal leaders do not perceive shared leadership as a threat but instead value the team’s effort reflected in higher trust and decision latitude.

Until now, leadership has mostly been considered a unidirectional process centered on leaders influencing their followers. However, more recent theoretical developments indicate that leadership is a dynamic team process, valuing the contributions of leaders and followers alike. In this pre-registered study, we investigate the reciprocal interplay between shared leadership and formal team leadership (i.e., empowering leadership). We assume that leaders generally interpret their team’s shared leadership as an investment to reach for common goals. Accordingly, their team’s effort should improve leader trust in the team, which in turn should increase empowering leadership behavior of the leader. Furthermore, we propose that this indirect relationship is first-stage moderated by leader self-efficacy. We invited 721 team members and their leaders nested in 169 teams to join a three-wave longitudinal study. Results from Bayesian cross-lagged panel modeling support our predicted mediation effect while also showing the established reverse effect of empowering leadership on shared leadership. The moderation effect was not supported. This study provides insights into the dynamic and reciprocal interplay between shared and formal leadership. Our findings underline that formal leaders do not perceive shared leadership as a threat but instead value the team’s effort reflected in higher trust and decision latitude.

Although prior research has investigated a number of conditions under which shared leadership in teams may improve team performance, team composition variables have been left unexplored. Using a sample of 144 teams in a technology incubator in China, this study explored the moderating effects of personality diversity on the relationship between shared leadership and entrepreneurial team performance. Results indicate that shared leadership improves entrepreneurial team performance; the strength of the relationship, however, depends on the level of team personality diversity. More specifically, when relationship- oriented personality diversity is high, the shared leadership – team performance relationship is stronger. These findings advance research in entrepreneurship, groups and teams, and shared leadership, and provide practical implications as well.

Given the recent focus on team process and outcome improvements, shared leadership is a promising avenue of research for Global Virtual Teams (GVTs) in terms of its potentially mitigating effects on performance decrements often associated with virtual teamwork. However, effective shared team leadership can be difficult to achieve in global and virtual environments because the geographic distribution of members reduces the ability of individuals to exhibit such influence. Therefore, understanding the factors that may improve the likelihood of successful shared team leadership in these environments is critical. Thus, the purpose of this chapter is to discuss how shared leadership in GVTs can improve team performance. In doing so, the authors define GVTs, discuss how shared leadership can be implemented in a GVT setting, address specific challenges GVTs might encounter in the implementation of shared leadership, and present recommendations for practice drawing on team cognition models and trust research.

Given the recent focus on team process and outcome improvements, shared leadership is a promising avenue of research for Global Virtual Teams (GVTs) in terms of its potentially mitigating effects on performance decrements often associated with virtual teamwork. However, effective shared team leadership can be difficult to achieve in global and virtual environments because the geographic distribution of members reduces the ability of individuals to exhibit such influence. Therefore, understanding the factors that may improve the likelihood of successful shared team leadership in these environments is critical. Thus, the purpose of this chapter is to discuss how shared leadership in GVTs can improve team performance. In doing so, the authors define GVTs, discuss how shared leadership can be implemented in a GVT setting, address specific challenges GVTs might encounter in the implementation of shared leadership, and present recommendations for practice drawing on team cognition models and trust research.

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.