The role of shared leadership in enhancing the quantity and quality of team performance: The influence of perceived task complexity

Abstract

PurposeThis paper aims to examine the influence of shared leadership on team performance in terms of quantity and quality and in addition the moderating effect of task complexity on this relationship.Design/methodology/approachData was gathered from 26 teams of students from a major university in Germany who completed a laboratory team decision-making exercise.FindingsThe results suggest that teams sharing leadership showed better team performance and made fewer errors. They achieved higher levels of quality of performance. In addition, if the team members viewed the task as highly complex then the quality of their performance was increased.Practical implicationsTherefore for organizations to optimize team performance shared leadership should be promoted, the SNA should be used to develop interventions and training and influencing perceptions of task complexity should be considered as an important strategy to stimulate shared leadership in teams.Originality/valueThis paper has an original approach by testing for the first time how perceived task complexity moderates the relationship between shared leadership and team performance and by developing an original team task to investigate shared leadership.