Abstract
Orientation: Transformational team leadership is an important variable that influences team members’ perception of the team as psychologically safe enough to engage in learning behaviours.Research purpose: The study was aimed at investigating the relationship between psychological safety and learning behaviour in teams, as well as the moderating role of transformational team leadership in this relationship.Motivation for the study: For a team to be effective, adaptive and innovative and engage in learning behaviours, the transformational team leader must set the right climate in the team, where he or she welcomes the team members’ opinions, questions and feedback at no risk to their image. An understanding of this will be important in team leader selection and training.Research design, approach and method: Using a cross-sectional survey design, 57 work teams comprising 456 respondents in teams of 7–9 members were purposively sampled from five financial institutions in Accra, Ghana. Hierarchical regression and moderation analyses were run on the data at the team level.Main findings: Results indicated a positive relationship between team psychological safety and team learning behaviour, with transformational team leadership moderating this relationship.Practical/managerial implication: Transformational team leadership is important in creating a climate of psychological safety that will enable team members to engage in learning behaviours.Contribution/value-add: The study provided theoretical and empirical evidence that, in organisational contexts, transformational team leadership is an important variable that can facilitate psychological safety and learning behaviour in teams.
Highlights
There has been a significant increase in the use of teamwork in organisations over approximately the past three decades, as a means to simultaneously improve productivity and employee quality of work life (Bosch-Sijtsema, Fruchter, Vartiainen & Ruohomaki, 2011)
Hypothesis 1, which stated that team psychological safety will be positively related to team learning behaviour, was supported (r = 0.679, p < 0.01)
These show that transformational team leadership (TTL) moderated the relationship between team psychological safety (TPS) and team learning behaviour (TLB), as the interaction between TPS and TTL (TPS×TTL) was statistically significant (β = 0.203, p < 0.05, ∆R2 = 0.040), supporting Hypothesis 2
Summary
There has been a significant increase in the use of teamwork in organisations over approximately the past three decades, as a means to simultaneously improve productivity and employee quality of work life (Bosch-Sijtsema, Fruchter, Vartiainen & Ruohomaki, 2011). Organisations are increasingly moving from traditionally, vertical and functionalised structures to team-based structures to contend with the growing complexity of the environment in which their employees operate (Edmondson & Nembhard, 2009; Parker, 2003; Salas, Burke & Sims, 2005). The personality of team members, social loafing and groupthink are likely to lead to conformity and isolation of members with conflicting views, which, in turn, are likely to inhibit team performance and effectiveness (Dwivedi, 2001). When team members are unable to freely express their views and ideas, creativity, innovativeness and learning, which are essential for team performance and effectiveness, are likely to be stifled (Edmondson, 2002). The creation of an environment that is conducive to enabling team members to feel psychologically safe and express their ideas will depend on team http://www.sajip.co.za doi:10.4102/sajip.v39i1.1036
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