Mind the gap: The role of leadership in multiteam system collective cognition

The increasing prevalence of team-based organizations places a premium on leadership that will “mind the gap” and enable smooth synchronization of activities across multiple distinct teams. Prior work shows that leaders can be trained to directly facilitate between-team coordination processes. Yet, relatively little is known about the intervening psychological mechanisms that enable between-team coordination. Here, we advance multiteam-interaction mental models—cognitive structures containing knowledge of appropriate between-team activities—as one mechanism that facilitates coordination among multiple teams. We use leader and team cognition data gathered in DeChurch and Marks' (2006) MTS study to test these ideas. Results reveal leaders' multiteam-interaction mental model accuracy “transfers” to teams through strategic communication, and leader strategic communication enables between-team coordination by promoting accuracy in followers' mental models. This study highlights the importance of leadership for developing collective cognition that allows teams to “scale up” from small stand-alone teams to larger and more complex systems.     

Values and behavior orientation in leadership studies: reflections based on findings in three German-speaking countries

The article focuses on two sets of concepts commonly used in the explanation of leadership behavior, including values in one area and behavioral intentions in the other. Most leadership researches concentrate exclusively on one or the other area and there are few integrative approaches. The literature also shows that there are often implicit assumptions of a direct and linear relationship between the two sets of concepts. We introduce a model reflecting this research dichotomy by differentiating between “far-from-action” concepts like values or leadership ideals and “close-to-action” concepts like intended behavior. In a next step, we question the assumption of a direct and linear link between the two sets of concepts and discuss two studies in order to find out whether there is empirical support for our argument. We compare empirical findings on leadership ideals (GLOBE study) and intended leadership behavior (Vroom/Yetton study) collected from managers in the German-speaking countries Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. The results show inconsistencies that suggest quite complex intrapersonal processes influenced by cultural factors. We conclude that the link between “far-from-action” and “close-to-action” concepts is worth pursuing further and expands the initial model, thus paving the way for a more holistic understanding of the intrapersonal processes on which leadership behavior is based. Finally, we discuss the consequences of these processes for the stability of leadership behavior.     

Leadership in organisations: Meta,macro and micro

The study of leadership suffers from too many definitions, not too few. Much of this confusion springs from the fact that there are two fundamentally different perspectives on leadership. From these arise three common usages of the word. This article suggests that we recognise this diversity and abandon the search for a unique definition.The first perspective views leadership as “influence on individuals” without using power or authority. This “meta” leadership relates individuals to their environment through “visioning” — a complex interaction of perception, articulation, conviction and empathy (PACE).The second perspective views leadership as the “shaking and moving” of an organisation to face the future, cope with change and achieve results. It includes both the creation of a successful organisation, through “macro” leadership, and the accomplishment of specific jobs or tasks, through “micro” leadership.These three types of leadership — meta, macro and micro — are examined from the two perspectives. It is suggested that all three should be exercised by managers at all levels - no matter how junior.     

Transforming leadership in organisations: Bringing meta “visioning” into the macro leadershop rôle

A decade ago, Burns used the term transforming leadership to describe a type of noncoercive political leadership that engaged people, was morally elevating and, in turn, sparked leadership in them. In applying this concept to organisations, there has been a tendency to broaden the meaning of transforming in a way that tends to obscure its original intent. This springs, in effect, from the unconscious intermingling of two fundamentally different perspectives on leadership. These are illustrated by examples drawn from recently published studies by Bass, Bennis and Nanus, and Tichy and Devanna.Burns viewed transforming leadership from the noncoercive influence-on-individuals perspective: people were transformed by becoming “engaged” and this, in turn, could produce a transformation in the organisation. As it happens, however, a transformation can also be produced by leadership from the opposite perspective i.e. the power-wielding shaker-and-mover. The successful autocrat can transform the fortunes of an organisation but is far from Burns' concept of a transforming leader.In this article, the author suggests this confusion can be clarified by realising that the transformation produced by the shaker-and-mover comes from success in performing the macro leadership role of path-finding and culture-building. True transforming leadership in organisations only occurs when the “visioning” of meta leadership is applied to performance of the macro leadership role. In this way, enthusiastic followers are created as people become “engaged”, doubts are removed and energy is released.     

Does shared and differentiated transformational leadership predict followers' working conditions and well-being?

Transformational leadership has been widely researched and is associated with followers' performance, attitudes, and subjective well-being at the individual level. Less research has focused on transformational leadership as a group phenomenon. In a survey study (425 followers and 56 leaders), we examined how group-level and differentiated transformational leadership shape followers' perceptions of their working conditions and individual subjective well-being. There was stronger evidence that differentiated transformational leadership's relationships with indicators of well-being was mediated by perceptions of working conditions, in that 10 out of 20 tests for mediation using differentiated transformational leadership were significant, compared to just three out of 20 for group-level transformational leadership. The results suggest that transformational leadership needs to be studied as a group phenomenon considering how group-level perceptions may impact on followers' well-being and that leaders need to realize that there is an “I” in groups and addition to a “we” in groups.     

Path to “Stardom” in Globally Distributed Hybrid Teams: An Examination of a Knowledge‐Centered Perspective using Social Network Analysis

Although distributed teams have been researched extensively in information systems and decision science disciplines, a review of the literature suggests that the dominant focus has been on understanding the factors affecting performance at the team level. There has however been an increasing recognition that specific individuals within such teams are often critical to the team's performance. Consequently, existing knowledge about such teams may be enhanced by examining the factors that affect the performance of individual team members. This study attempts to address this need by identifying individuals who emerge as “stars” in globally distributed teams involved in knowledge work such as information systems development (ISD). Specifically, the study takes a knowledge‐centered view in explaining which factors lead to “stardom” in such teams. Further, it adopts a social network approach consistent with the core principles of structural/relational analysis in developing and empirically validating the research model. Data from U.S.–Scandinavia self‐managed “hybrid” teams engaged in systems development were used to deductively test the proposed model. The overall study has several implications for group decision making: (i) the study focuses on stars within distributed teams, who play an important role in shaping group decision making, and emerge as a result of a negotiated/consensual decision making within egalitarian teams; (ii) an examination of emergent stars from the team members’ point of view reflects the collective acceptance and support dimension decision‐making contexts identified in prior literature; (iii) finally, the study suggests that the social network analysis technique using relational data can be a tool for a democratic decision‐making technique within groups.     

Leading public sector networks: An empirical examination of integrative leadership behaviors

The literature has often suggested that network leadership is different from leadership in hierarchical/single-agency structures. While this difference has been assumed, relatively little research has been conducted to determine whether such a distinction between network and hierarchical leadership actually exists. This study addresses this gap in the literature using data from 417 public sector leaders. We compared the leadership behaviors exhibited by a leader in their government agency with the behaviors exhibited by that same individual while leading his or her network. The leadership behaviors were classified into one of three categories common in the leadership literature. The results indicate that while the frequency of organization-oriented behaviors vary widely between the agency and network contexts, leaders in their networks focus more on people-oriented behaviors and less on task-oriented behaviors when compared to leading their agency.     

Followership theory: A review and research agenda

While theory and research on leaders and leadership abound, followers and followership theory have been given short shrift. It is accepted wisdom that there is no leadership without followers, yet followers are very often left out of the leadership research equation. Fortunately this problem is being addressed in recent research, with more attention being paid to the role of followership in the leadership process. The purpose of this article is to provide a systematic review of the followership literature, and from this review, introduce a broad theory of followership into leadership research. Based on our review, we identify two theoretical frameworks for the study of followership, one from a role-based approach (“reversing the lens”) and one from a constructionist approach (“the leadership process”). These frameworks are used to outline directions for future research. We conclude with a discussion of conceptual and methodological issues in the study of followership theory.     

A framework for understanding collective leadership: The selective utilization of leader and team expertise within networks

To date, the dominant approach to leadership research assumes that all aspects of the leadership role within a team are embodied by a single individual. In the real world, however, this is rarely the case. Rather, multiple individuals within the team may serve as leaders in both formal and informal capacities, and the shifting of leadership responsibilities is often rooted in which individual's expertise is most relevant to the given problem. In the present effort, we add to the rapidly growing body of work that focuses on the distribution of the leadership role among multiple individuals. We have reviewed relevant extant literature and proposed an integrated framework for understanding the collective leadership process. Also, in developing this framework we have taken an information and expertise-based approach such that we propose that collective leadership, or the distribution of the leadership role, is a function of selectively utilizing the information or specialized expertise that individuals within the network possess. In reviewing the framework, 55 propositions with regard to the collective leadership process are outlined and suggestions for future research are provided.     

Role of Leaders as Agents of Negotiation for Counterbalancing Cultural Dissonance in the Middle East and North Africa Region

This study provides a unique perspective in the field of cross-cultural management by exploring the relationship between “cultural dissonance”—the gap between cultural values and actual practice—and effective leadership attributes in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Incorporating cultural dissonance into implicit leadership theory, the study uses measurements of dissonance on nine cultural dimensions to identify particular leadership preferences in seven MENA countries. The overall findings suggest that societies prefer leaders who counterbalance cultural dissonance by allowing space for negotiations by members of society to reduce disparities between cultural values—“the way things should be”—and actual practices—“the way things are.” The greater the disparity between cultural values and practices, the greater the citizens' desire that leaders act as agents of change by creating space for negotiation.     

Reconciling identity leadership and leader identity: A dual-identity framework

Research exploring the powerful links between leadership and identity has burgeoned in recent years but cohered around two distinct approaches. Research on identity leadership, the main focus of this special issue, sees leadership as a group process that centers on leaders’ ability to represent, advance, create and embed a social identity that they share with the collectives they lead—a sense of “us as a group”. Research on leader identity sees leadership as a process that is advanced by individuals who have a well-developed personal understanding of themselves as leaders—a sense of “me as a leader”. This article explores the nature and implications of these divergent approaches, focusing on their specification of profiles, processes, pathways, products, and philosophies that have distinct implications for theory and practice. We formalize our observations in a series of propositions and also outline a dual-identity framework with the potential to integrate the two approaches.     

Trust after the Global Financial Meltdown

Over the last decade, and culminating in the 2008 global financial meltdown, there has been an erosion of trust and a concomitant rise of distrust in domestic companies, multinational enterprises, and political economies. In response to this attrition, this article presents three arguments. First, we suggest that trust is the “glue” of any viable political economy, and we propose that the stakes of violating public trust are particularly high in light of the asymmetry between trust and distrust. Second, we identify a constellation of key barriers to overcoming distrust that companies face in the current environment: (1) corporate mind‐sets that promote a preoccupation with quantification, hierarchical leadership models, and “blind trust” in authority; (2) the anonymity of core stakeholders; (3) the agency of the media as a driver of the political economy; and (4) firm‐centric models of stakeholder relationships. Third, we argue that, notwithstanding these challenges, these phenomena are not fatal and can be addressed through a holistic transformation in corporate culture. Such a transformation might include a shift to collaborative leadership models and replacing authority models with responsibility, a “names and faces” approach to stakeholders through cases and stories, more egalitarian communication exchanges with external stakeholders, and a reprioritization of the firm as a vital element among others within a system rather than the central core of a network. We conclude that the value of trust at the individual, institutional, national, and global levels cannot be overstated. Without a reinvigoration of trust in our political economies, at all levels, the future of an economically vibrant planet is indeed bleak.     

State-of-the-science review of leader-follower dyads research

Despite its importance in multilevel research, the dyad level of analysis has been known as the most poorly understood level. Suggestions have been made recently in terms of levels alignment issues and methodologies to enhance the understanding of dyadic phenomena. Given recent remedies for dyads research and that the leader-follower dyad is generally considered the key dyad in organizations, we conducted a comprehensive review of the current state of leader-follower dyads research to assess what we know and how much we know about leader-follower dyads research conducted at the dyad level. Specifically, we summarized empirical studies that focused on leader-follower dyads that used data collected on the same variables from both dyadic partners. This review involved coding studies of these “pure” leader-follower dyads based on several dyadic theories (e.g., vertical dyad linkage, individualized leadership, leader-member exchange, leader-follower congruence) and multiple analytic methods (e.g., multilevel modeling, polynomial regression, WABA) that dealt with leader-follower dyads directly. Based on the results, this review generated a nomological network of constructs for understanding leader-follower dyads and to provide suggestions for future leader-follower dyads research.     

From competency to conversation: A multi-perspective approach to collective leadership development

Collective leadership involves the participation of multiple entities in the leadership process. This body of research is informed by a variety of theoretical perspectives, including person-centered, social network, social-relational, sociomaterial, and institutional views. Despite multiple calls for leadership development to move beyond individual leadership, collective leadership development remains focused on coaching and competency development, extending rather than reconsidering the person-centered perspective. We argue that it is necessary and timely to align the practice-based literature on leadership development with theoretical and empirically-based perspectives on collective leadership. We provide a multi-perspective framework of collective leadership development by 1) introducing a wider disciplinary range of theoretical perspectives on collective leadership development; 2) integrating these perspectives with leadership development approaches for different forms of collective leadership; 3) illustrating how the multiple perspectives on collective leadership development can be applied to specific work contexts; and 4) identifying directions for future research.     

Civic capacity: Building on transformational leadership to explain successful integrative public leadership

An emerging stream of work has been investigating the leadership processes necessary to guide public multi-sector collaborations. This stream of work argues that new leadership theory about integrative public leadership is needed because the context is different from that traditionally investigated by leadership researchers. In this paper, we advance the study of integrative public leadership by arguing that transformational leadership theory does apply to multi-sector collaborations, but needs to be augmented with an additional construct called “civic capacity.” We elaborate on this construct and suggest that it consists of three components: civic drive, civic connections, and civic pragmatism.     

Economic perspectives on leadership: Concepts,causality, and context in leadership research

The fields of leadership and economics have interacted very little until now. The aim of this special issue on “economics and leadership” is to demonstrate the potential benefits of paying attention to and incorporating economic perspectives and methods into leadership research. Specifically, we argue that the field of economics can advance leadership research on three main topics: concepts, causality and context. For each topic, we summarize the state-of-the-art literature and showcase important insights, tools and findings. We also discuss possible critiques of the economic perspective on leadership. The timeliness of this issue is evident from recent discussions on the three C's within the field of leadership research, not least within The Leadership Quarterly itself. Our paper as well as the other six papers in this issue demonstrates that narrowing the gap between economics and leadership is not only beneficial and feasible, but also crucial for the progress of leadership research.     

Turf disputes within federal systems: Leadership amidst enforceable checks and balances

Organizational leadership is a complex set of interdependent processes that occur within specific contexts. This article explores the case of leadership within a federal system where the members have legally enforceable powers, they operate within a system of checks and balances, there is no single “boss,” and the goal is not solely efficiency. Federal systems provide alternative mechanisms for managing change and organizational leadership. Terms are defined to derive a model of turf disputes. This model is applied to the historical case of the “turf war” between a U.S. President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the U.S. Senate over his 1937 attempt to “pack” the U.S. Supreme Court. This leads to a more general discussion of turf disputes and their occurrence. They are manifestations of underlying, unresolved authority-task gaps which become virtual-like organizational arrangements. The LAMPE (Leadership, Authority, Management, Power, and Environments) theory of organizational leadership appears to be appropriate for analyzing organizational leadership in federal systems.     

领导与权力分界视野下威权领导本质的探索研究

深入探讨了领导与权力二者在影响员工方面的本质差异,并在此基础上分析和揭示了威权领导的本质。研究结果表明:领导是通过构建领导者和追随者的共同目标来激励追随者积极主动地为实现共同目标而努力的过程,它和运用权力的行为有着本质的区别;威权领导在本质上是充分运用正式权力影响下属的行为。因此,威权“领导”与领导的本质相背离,不应纳入领导行为的范畴。     

Insights from a Management Prophet: Mary Parker Follett on Social Entrepreneurship

Current‐day management leaders such as Peter Drucker and Rosabeth Moss Kanter have cited Mary Parker Follett as guru and prophet given her foreknowledge of systems theory, action research and leadership. She viewed business as a social institution and work itself as a community service, concepts particularly relevant in the context of understanding social entrepreneurship. Referencing two of her works, “The Individual in Society” and “Business in Society”, this paper introduces Follett, defines social entrepreneurship and presents her ideas as timely insights on the meaning of work, ethics and the role of business in society.