A motivated information processing perspective on the antecedents of empowering leadership

Empowering leadership is an important influence on team effectiveness. This makes the question of what the antecedents of team empowering leadership are an important issue to consider. To address this question, we propose a motivated information processing perspective that holds that engaging in empowering leadership is based on social information processing, and that there are individual differences in how elaborate that information processing is. We argue that a key consideration in shifting control from the leader to the team is the extent to which empowering leadership is driven by leaders’ consideration of their trust in the team (i.e., an instance of social information processing), and that leader need for closure (a trait capturing the disposition to carefully consider decisions and actions) moderates the relationship between leader trust in team and empowering leadership. A survey of N = 156 work teams supported these hypotheses.     

Informal Hierarchy and Team Creativity: The Moderating Role of Empowering Leadership

Although there is growing evidence that strong informal influence hierarchies can enhance teams' core task performance, recent theorising suggests that such informal hierarchies may, at the same time, stifle team creativity. The current study draws from the Motivated Information Processing in Groups (MIP-G) model to empirically examine this latter notion. Moreover, we build on functional leadership theories to propose that the link between informal hierarchy strength and team creativity hinges on a formal team leader's empowering leadership. Using a sample of 56 organisational work teams comprising 304 individuals from a wide range of industries, we found that stronger informal influence hierarchies related negatively with team creativity when the formal leader exhibited little empowering behaviour. When the formal leader acted in more empowering ways, by contrast, this negative relationship was dampened. These findings provide new knowledge on the role of informal influence hierarchies for team creativity and advance our understanding of how informal hierarchical relations and formal leadership processes can jointly shape important team outcomes.     

The external leadership of self-managing teams: intervening in the context of novel and disruptive events

Relatively little empirical research has been conducted on external leaders of self-managing teams. The integration of functional leadership theory with research on team routines suggests that leaders can intervene in teams in several different ways, and the effectiveness of this intervention depends on the nature of the events the team encounters. External team leaders from 3 organizations first described a series of events (N=117), and leaders and team members then completed surveys to quantitatively describe the events. Results indicated that leader preparation and supportive coaching were positively related to team perceptions of leader effectiveness, with preparation becoming more strongly related to effectiveness as event novelty increased. More active leader intervention activities (active coaching and sense making) were negatively related to satisfaction with leadership yet were positively related to effectiveness as events became more disruptive.     

LEADERSHIP EMERGENCE IN AUTONOMOUS WORK TEAMS: ANTECEDENTS AND OUTCOMES

The aim of this study was to investigate (a) personality attributes and cognitive ability ( g ) as determinants of leadership emergence in teams, and (b) the impact of leadership that can emerge from the team leader (operationalized as the team member with the highest leadership score) and other team members (staff) on team performance. Autonomous work team members who had been working together for 13 weeks were studied. Participants were 480 undergraduates in 94 initially leaderless teams of 5 or 6. We found that leadership emergence was associated most strongly with g , followed by conscientiousness, extraversion, and emotional stability. Teams performed best when both the team leader and staff were high in leadership. Furthermore, an effective team leader does not ameliorate the negative affects of a staff low in leadership.     

Leader Network Centrality and Team Performance: Team Size as Moderator and Collaboration as Mediator

The social network perspective provides a valuable lens to understand the effectiveness of team leaders. In understanding leadership impact in team networks, an important question concerns the structural influence of leader centrality in advice-giving networks on team performance. Taking the inconsistent evidence for the positive relationship of network centrality and leadership effectiveness as a starting point, we suggest that the positive impact of leader centrality in advice-giving networks is contingent on team needs for leadership to meet communication and coordination challenges, which we argue are larger in larger teams. Developing our analysis, we examine the mediating role of member collaboration in the relationship of leader network centrality and team performance as moderated by team size. Based on a multi-source dataset of 542 employees and 71 team leaders, we found that leader centrality in advice-giving networks related positively to team performance in larger teams but negatively in smaller teams. Results supported the mediated moderation model via member collaboration in smaller teams, but not in larger teams.

     

Empowering Leadership and Effective Collaboration in Geographically Dispersed Teams

Our research integrates theoretical perspectives related to distributed leadership in geographically dispersed teams with empowering leadership theory to build a multilevel model of virtual collaboration and performance in dispersed teams. We test the model with procurement teams in a major multinational corporation. Our results show a significant cross‐level effect of empowering team leadership, such that under conditions of high empowering team leadership, a team member's virtual teamwork situational judgment (VT‐SJ) is positively and significantly associated with his or her virtual collaboration behaviors and also indirectly with his or her individual performance in the team. At the team level, our findings also suggest that the impact of empowering leadership on team members’ aggregate virtual collaboration, and indirectly on team performance, increases at higher levels of team dispersion. These findings shed important light on the role of team leadership in fostering effective collaboration and performance of geographically dispersed virtual teams.     

A HIERARCHICAL CONSTRUCT OF SELF-MANAGEMENT LEADERSHIP AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO QUALITY OF WORK LIFE AND PERCEIVED WORK GROUP EFFECTIVENESS

This study validates the self-management leadership theory as operationalized by the Self-Management Leadership Questionnaire (Manz & Sims, 1987) in a large telephone company. The sample for this study is 390 self-managing and 412 traditionally managed employees and 94 external leaders from 58 self-managing and 60 traditionally managed teams. Results support Manz and Sims' 6-factor pattern at the first-order level, and in addition, identify a common second-order factor. The hierarchical factor structure is invariant in employee and leader samples drawn from both self-managing and traditionally managed work teams, suggesting that the construct of self-managing leadership is similar for members and leaders of both types of teams. Respondents perceive slightly more self-management leadership behaviors in the self-managing than the traditional work teams. Respondents evaluate self-managing work teams as more effective than traditional work teams, and this difference is moderate in size. Self-managing leadership behaviors are positively associated with QWL (mainly employee satisfaction) and self-rated effectiveness for both self-managing and traditional teams. In general, self-managing work teams are not that different from traditionally managed groups in the relationship of self-managing leadership to outcomes. We conclude that self-management leadership is a hierarchical concept, constituted of specific strategies as well as a general orientation toward empowering employees. These leadership behaviors are applicable to managing both traditional and self-managing work teams.     

Age differences between leader and followers as a moderator of the relationship between transformational leadership and team performance

In a field study of 49 R&D teams in the pharmaceutical industry, the age difference between the team leader and the team members was examined as a moderator of the relationship between transformational leadership and team supervisors' longitudinal ratings of team performance. Data collected from 285 team members and 21 team supervisors showed that this relationship was positive when the leader was older than the other team members, but non‐significant when the leader's age was closer to the mean age of the team members. This finding broadens the still fragmentary knowledge of the conditions under which transformational leadership is likely to have more or less positive effects on team performance.     

A MULTILEVEL INVESTIGATION OF LEADER– MEMBER EXCHANGE,INFORMAL LEADER EMERGENCE,AND INDIVIDUAL AND TEAM PERFORMANCE

This study examines the antecedents and outcomes of informal leader emergence in work teams. Drawing upon research in vertical and shared leadership, we hypothesized that the relationship between leader‐‐member exchange (LMX) quality and employees’ emergence as informal leaders is moderated by team shared vision such that there is a positive (negative) LMX—leader emergence relationship for teams with high (low) shared vision. Informal leader emergence, in turn, was expected to relate to higher individual and team performance. Results based on multisource and multimethod data collected at 3 points in time (361 followers in 74 work teams) provided support for these hypotheses. The findings highlight the role played by formal leaders and team shared vision in jointly promoting or inhibiting informal leader emergence and thereby impacting individual performance and team effectiveness.     

When does gender diversity enhance team performance? The dual need for visionary leadership and team tenure

Teams in organizations are becoming more gender diverse as women continue to participate more in the workforce than ever before. Prior theory and research indicate that the characteristics of the team influence whether gender diversity in a team is an asset or a detriment. As such, this research explores a contingency model of the relation between gender diversity and team performance and looks to understand conditions that make this relation positive or negative. Specifically, we examine how leader vision communication (i.e., visionary leadership) affects the relation between gender diversity and team performance. Results from a sample of 595 full-time employees across 106 teams in China indicate that leader vision communication moderates the relation between gender diversity and team performance such that when leader vision communication is low gender diversity decreases team performance and when leader vision communication is high gender diversity has no significant relation with team performance. We also test whether team tenure changes this relationship. Our results suggest that gender diversity improves team performance when both leader vision communication and team tenure are high. The findings in our sample demonstrate that gender diversity can help teams enhance performance, but only when the conditions are right for gender-diverse teams to flourish.     

Shared Leadership and Innovation: The Role of Vertical Leadership and Employee Integrity

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between shared leadership, as a collective within-team leadership, and innovative behavior, as well as antecedents of shared leadership in terms of team composition and vertical transformational and empowering leadership.

Design/Methodology/Approach

Data were obtained from a field sample of 43 work teams, comprising 184 team members and their team leaders from two different companies. Team leaders rated the teams’ innovative behavior and their own leadership; team members provided information on their personality and their teams’ shared leadership.

Findings

Shared and vertical leadership, but not team composition, was positively associated with the teams’ level of innovative behavior. Vertical transformational and empowering leadership and team composition in terms of integrity were positively related to shared leadership.

Implications

Understanding how organizations can enhance their own innovation is crucial for the organizations’ competitiveness and survival. Furthermore, the increasing prevalence of teams, as work arrangements in organizations, raises the question of how to successfully manage teams. This study suggests that organizations should facilitate shared leadership which has a positive association with innovation.

Originality/Value

This is one of the first studies to provide evidence of the relationship between shared leadership and innovative behavior, an important organizational outcome. In addition, the study explores two important predictors of shared leadership, transformational and empowering leadership, and the team composition in respect to integrity. While researchers and practitioners agree that shared leadership is important, knowledge on its antecedents is still in its infancy.     

Shared leadership and team effectiveness: The examination of LMX differentiation and servant leadership on the emergence and consequences of shared leadership

This study examined the effects of leader–member exchange (LMX) differentiation on team-shared leadership and team effectiveness. Drawing on the group engagement model, we suggested that LMX differentiation negatively affects team-shared leadership and team effectiveness (i.e., team performance and team organizational citizenship behavior [OCB]). Servant leadership weakens the negative effects of LMX differentiation on shared leadership. We tested our predictions using data from a sample of 336 salespersons nested in 110 sales teams in China. We found that shared leadership mediated the relationships between LMX differentiation with both team performance and team OCB. In addition, servant leadership moderated the relationship between LMX differentiation and shared leadership and the indirect relationship between LMX differentiation with both team performance and team OCB.     

LEADERSHIP IN ACTION TEAMS: TEAM LEADER AND MEMBERS’ AUTHENTICITY,AUTHENTICITY STRENGTH,AND TEAM OUTCOMES

A field study was conducted with 47 Army action teams spanning 9 weeks to assess the influence of team leader authenticity on team authenticity and team outcomes. Results showed that team leader authenticity at Time 1 predicted teamwork behavior and team productivity at Time 3, with these relationships mediated by team authenticity at Time 2. We further explored the moderating role of authenticity strength in the team authenticity–teamwork behavior relationship. Team authenticity interacted with authenticity strength such that the team authenticity–teamwork behavior relationship was stronger when authenticity strength was higher rather than lower. Implications of these findings for theories of shared leadership, team leadership, and authentic leadership are discussed.     

Cognition-based and affect-based trust as mediators of leader behavior influences on team performance

We develop a model in which cognitive and affective trust in the leader mediate the relationship between leader behavior and team psychological states that, in turn, drive team performance. The model is tested on a sample of 191 financial services teams in Hong Kong and the U.S. Servant leadership influenced team performance through affect-based trust and team psychological safety. Transformational leadership influenced team performance indirectly through cognition-based trust. Cognition-based trust directly influenced team potency and indirectly (through affect-based trust) influenced team psychological safety. The effects of leader behavior on team performance were fully mediated through the trust in leader variables and the team psychological states. Servant leadership explained an additional 10% of the variance in team performance beyond the effect of transformational leadership. We discuss implications of these results for research on the relationship between leader behavior and team performance, and for efforts to enhance leader development by combining knowledge from different leadership theories.     

Beyond the Big Five: Leader Goal Orientation as a Predictor of Leadership Effectiveness

This study examined proximal traits as mediators of the relationships between distal traits and leadership effectiveness. Specifically, we examined goal orientation, leadership self-efficacy, and motivation to lead (MTL) as antecedents of leadership effectiveness, after controlling for the Big Five personality traits. We tested our hypotheses with a sample of 100 leaders of four-person teams performing a manufacturing task in a laboratory setting. Consistent with expectation, leadership self-efficacy partially mediated the relationships between learning goal orientation and Affective-Identity MTL as well as Social-Normative MTL, after controlling for the Big Five. Noncalculative MTL related significantly to averaged team member ratings of leadership effectiveness, after controlling for both the leader's and the team member's personality. These results help aid in our understanding of why leader traits relate to leadership effectiveness.     

From Autocracy to Empowerment: Teams with Shared Leadership Perceive their Coaches to be Better Leaders

Sports coaches often fear that empowering the players in their team would undermine their own leadership status. To investigate the legitimacy of this perception, we mapped the leadership structure within 64 sports teams (N = 840). The results highlight that the perceived leadership quality of the coaches is positively related to the density of their team's leadership networks (i.e., the average leadership qualities of all players). This finding held for task, motivational, social, and external leadership. The best coaches are thus the ones who adopt a shared leadership approach and who strengthen the leadership quality of their players.

Lay Summary

Sports coaches often feel that empowering the players in their teams undermines their own leadership status. This study investigates the legitimacy of this perception within 64 sports teams. Our findings provide evidence for the opposite view; by creating and developing leaders in their teams, coaches are perceived as better leaders themselves.     

员工授权期望的效应及其理论机制

以往对领导授权行为的研究大都以领导为中心, 探讨领导授权行为的有效性。随着追随理论的兴起, 越来越多的研究强调从员工视角探讨领导有效性。期望在组织管理中扮演重要角色, 员工授权期望是指员工形成的有关组织中的领导在权力授予方面应尽职责与义务的规范性认知。在系统梳理员工授权期望概念与测量的基础上, 分别从角色设定理论、领导分类理论、期望落差理论梳理了员工授权期望的作用效果与研究结论, 最后从基于内隐领导理论的变量测量、相关理论的机制探讨、追随理论的模型扩展、期望管理的前因探索等方面提出了未来研究的展望。     

The role of decision influence and team performance in member self-efficacy, withdrawal, satisfaction with the leader, and willingness to return

This study examines team performance as a moderator of the relationship between decision influence and outcomes relevant to team effectiveness in hierarchical teams with distributed ex pertise. In this type of team staff members have unique roles and make recommendations to the team leader, who ultimately makes the team's final decisions. It is suggested that the positive rela tionship between decision influence and favorable outcomes (e.g., satisfaction) consistently described in the literature is dependent on team performance in this type of team. Specifically, team effec tiveness outcomes are proposed to be consistently more favorable in higher performing than in lower performing teams. Decision influence is proposed to relate positively to member satisfaction with the leader, willingness to return, and self-efficacy and to relate negatively to withdrawal in higher performing teams. The opposite pattern of relationships is expected in lower performing teams. A laboratory study was conducted with 228 undergradu ates performing a computer task as subordinates in 76 four-person teams with a confederate leader. The results generally support the hypotheses and illustrate a dilemma for leaders attempting to manage team effectiveness.     

Trust in leadership and team performance: evidence from NCAA basketball

This study empirically examined the relationship between trust, leadership, and team performance with 2 objectives. The 1st objective was to empirically examine an assumption found in several literatures--that a team's trust in its leader has a significant effect on the team's performance. The 2nd objective was to explore a more complex and dynamic relationship between trust and team performance whereby trust in leadership mediates the relationship between past team performance and future team performance. This relationship is derived by combining theories of trust with an attributional theory of leadership. Survey and archival data from a sample of men's college basketball teams provides support for both hypotheses, indicating that trust in leadership is both a product and a determinant of team performance.     

授权型领导对员工反馈寻求行为的影响机制：领导差异化授权两阶段的调节作用

从员工直接感知的角度编制领导差异化授权问卷,并通过构建两阶段有调节的中介模型探讨了授权型领导对反馈寻求行为的影响机制与领导差异化授权在其中的调节作用。对388份问卷数据分析后发现：（1）授权型领导正向预测员工的领导认同与反馈寻求行为;（2）领导认同在授权型领导与反馈寻求行为中起中介作用;（3）领导差异化授权调节授权型领导通过领导认同对反馈寻求行为的中介作用,即调节了中介过程的第一段（授权型领导−领导认同）与第二段（领导认同−反馈寻求行为）。研究结果揭示了授权型领导影响反馈寻求行为的中介与调节效应,可为管理实践中促进反馈寻求行为提供科学参考。