Understanding Effective Shared Leadership from a Task Interdependence Network Perspective

Abstract

Extant research has recognized the moderating effect of task interdependence on the applicability of shared leadership. Much of such work, however, has implicitly assumed that work resources and constraints within a team are distributed in an undifferentiated manner among members while it is not always the case. In reality, members of the same team are likely to experience varying degrees of interdependence by design, making the interplay between task interdependence and shared leadership potentially more complex than it has been theorized. Drawing from a resource-based approach and the social network literature, I view task interdependence as a network and utilize it to address questions regarding how leadership responsibilities should be shared and how shared leadership as a whole should be structured. Specifically, I first propose that an individual’s position in the team workflow determines the extent to which they are well-positioned to become leaders. I then discuss the implications of different task interdependence configurations for shared leadership. While examining these research questions, I emphasize the need to treat shared leadership as a multidimensional construct and illustrate the nonuniform implications of task interdependence for the dimensions.