How leader humility helps teams to be humbler,psychologically stronger,and more effective: A moderated mediation model

We hypothesize that (a) the level of humility expressed by leaders predicts team performance through, serially, team humility and team PsyCap, and (b) the strength (i.e., consensus within the team) of the leader humility, team humility and team PsyCap moderates the paths of that hypothesized model. A sample comprising 82 teams (82 leaders; 332 team members) was collected. Team members reported leader humility, team humility and team PsyCap. Leaders reported team performance. To handle the risks of common method bias, each mediating path of the hypothesized model is based on data from two different subsamples within each team. Our model's most novel theoretical contribution is the (moderated mediated) connection between leader humility, collective humility, and team PsyCap, and this was consistently supported in our data. Our inconsistent findings dealing with the relationship between team PsyCap and performance is well established in the literature and our results in both sub-samples were in the theorized direction. The study contributes to understand why, how and when humble leaders are more effective.     

The role of leadership in shared mental model convergence and team performance improvement: An agent-based computational model

Research in shared mental models has immeasurably aided our understanding of effective teamwork and taskwork. However, little research has focused on the role that leaders play, if any, in influencing, developing and/or fostering shared mental models and thereby improving team performance. We developed an agent-based computational model based on McComb's theory of three-phase mental model development, where agents repeatedly share individual opinions (orientation phase), evaluate and respond to the opinions expressed by others (differentiation phase), and modify their understanding of the team based on the responses (integration phase). Leadership and team properties are represented in three experimental parameters: social network structure, heterogeneity of agents' domains of expertise, and level of their mutual interest. Participative leadership is represented by a fully connected network, while Leader–Member eXchange (LMX) is represented by a fully connected network of in-group members and several out-group members connected only to the leader. Our simulation results show that, in general, participative leadership promotes mental model convergence better than LMX. In the meantime, the team performance improvement is achieved by participative leadership only when members have both heterogeneous domains of expertise and strong mutual interest. In all other conditions, participative leadership causes the worst degradation of team performance through team development processes, while LMX is the best to minimize such team degradation. Implications and suggestions for future research are provided.     

家长式领导对高管团队有效性的影响机制研究:以团队凝聚力为中介变量

本文通过对108家中国企业的高管团队问卷调查所获得的数据的分析,探讨了CEO的家长式领导对高管团队有效性的影响机制,结果表明:仁慈领导和德行领导对团队有效性有显著的积极影响,威权领导对团队有效性有显著的消极影响;团队凝聚力起到了部分中介的作用,威权领导通过降低团队凝聚力对团队有效性产生负面影响.     

The Formation of Group Affect and Team Effectiveness: The Moderating Role of Identification

In the current research we use the social identity perspective to enhance our understanding of group affect (i.e. a collectively shared pattern of affective states among group members). Because higher identification (i.e. the extent to which group members define themselves in terms of their group membership) is related to higher attentiveness to fellow group members, we expected that group identification would foster affective convergence, and that the effects of group affective tone on team effectiveness would be stronger for higher identifying groups. A survey of teams (n=71 teams) confirmed our expectations. A scenario experiment (n=121 participants) added to our findings by showing that identification does indeed lead group members to affectively converge to their fellow group members and that this affective convergence, in turn, explains subsequent team‐oriented attitudes. Our study testifies to the notion that team managers may want to take notice of and manage affect in work groups, because, especially in higher identifying teams, affect may spread among team members and influence the team's effectiveness.     

Leader Political Skill and Team Performance

The present study investigates the impact of the political skill of leaders on team performance. More specifically, this study examined the role of leader political skill in the performance of casework teams in a large state child welfare system. Team performance was operationalized as “permanency rate,” or the successful placement of children into legally final living arrangements (i.e., adoption, successor guardianship, or return to natural parents). After controlling for several contextually important factors (i.e., average caseload, average age of children served, average number of team placements, team member experience, leader experience, and team empowerment), leader political skill was found to explain a significant proportion of variance in team performance scores. Implications of these results, as well as directions for future research, are discussed.     

Influence of Social Identity on Negative Perceptions in Global Virtual Teams

The paper combines insights from social identity theory and organizational network theory to specify the conditions under which social capital can induce negative attitudes in global virtual teams. The structural configuration of social capital has crucial implications for the sociocognitive processes causing individuals to adopt negative attitudes to out-group members. The paper evaluates both the negative implications of structural configurations on out-group perceptions, which are important precursors to successful intergroup interaction in global virtual teams. We collected data from 160 actors across 40 global virtual teams embedded within three separate organizations. 34 social identity groups were detected and ties between and within the groups were investigated. Our analyses provide insights on the roles of social identity groupings and social capital as well as in-group brokerage and interactions on (negative) perceptions of other group members in global virtual teams.     

Motivational or dispositional? The type of inference shapes the effectiveness of leader anger expressions

Existing leadership research has presented conflicting views on the effects of leader anger expressions. The present research aims to reconcile these findings by proposing that the type of inferences followers make (i.e., motivation-focused inference or trait-focused inference) is a key factor determining the outcomes of leader anger expressions. Through one survey study (Study 1) and two experimental studies (Studies 2 and 3), the present research indicates that the effectiveness of leader anger expressions is associated with the type of inferences followers draw from the anger. In general, we found support for the negative relationship between trait-focused inferences and leader effectiveness, but were unable to properly test the positive relationship between motivation-focused inferences and leader effectiveness due to the lack of appropriate instrumental variables. We also investigated whether followers' implicit theories of personality (i.e., entity versus incremental theory) would moderate the effect of leader anger expressions on the type of inferences made by followers, which in turn shapes leader effectiveness. The results of Study 3 provide evidence of the moderating role of implicit theories of personality. Theoretical contributions and practical implications of the present research are discussed.     

A team level investigation of the relationship between Leader–Member Exchange (LMX) differentiation,and commitment and performance

Although the differential treatment of team members by their leader is at the heart of Leader–Member Exchange (LMX) theory, empirical studies exploring the role of within-team LMX differentiation in relation to team outcomes are still relatively scarce. This study among 269 Dutch secondary school teachers from 33 different teams tested the hypotheses that the relationship between LMX differentiation and team commitment, and team performance is moderated by LMX-quality median. Moreover, we hypothesized that team members' perceived dissimilarity regarding work values and orientations would be positively related to within-team LMX differentiation. Teachers completed questionnaires on LMX-quality, dissimilarity, and team commitment, whereas team performance was rated by school principals. Results indeed showed that LMX differentiation is positively related to both outcome variables in teams with a low LMX-quality median only. As expected, more perceived dissimilarity between team members was related to more within-team variability in LMX-scores. These results contribute to knowledge on hypothetical antecedents and consequences of LMX differentiation at the team level.     

How leader role identity influences the process of leader emergence: A social network analysis

Contemporary theories on leadership development emphasize the importance of having a leader identity in building leadership skills and functioning effectively as leaders. We build on this approach by unpacking the role leader identity plays in the leader emergence process. Taking the perspective that leadership is a dynamic social process between group members, we propose a social network-based process model whereby leader role identity predicts network centrality (i.e., betweenness and indegree), which then contributes to leader emergence. We test our model using a sample of 88 cadets participating in a leadership development training course. In support of our model, cadets who possess a stronger leader role identity at the beginning of the course were more likely to emerge as leaders. However this relationship was only mediated by one form of network centrality, indegree centrality, reflecting one's ability to build relationships within one's group. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Testing the generalizability of the white leadership standard in the post-Obama era

Over a decade ago, Rosette, Leonardelli, and Phillips (2008) conducted a study on race and business leader prototypes and discovered that participants held an implicit “white leadership standard”. As revealed in that study, such a standard introduces racial bias into the leadership categorization process, and places employees from racial minority groups at a disadvantage as they seek to attain leadership roles. However, in the last decade, broader trends and events in American society (e.g., the Obama presidency; the Harris Vice Presidency; an increase in minority business leader representation; changing demographics) have altered the socio-cultural context in which implicit leadership theories (ILTs) develop, hence offering the possibility that leadership models may have become amenable to change. The present study set out to retest the theoretical hypotheses of Rosette et al. (2008) in a direct/close replication study to examine the extent to which the findings generalize to a new sample within this new era. Across four experimental studies, results reveal more racially inclusive leadership perceptions than previously observed, as well as a weakened and context-dependent white leadership standard.     

When managers become leaders: The role of manager network centralities,social power,and followers' perception of leadership

We explore how formal managers' centralities in both positive and negative networks predict followers' perceptions of their leadership. By incorporating social networks and social ledger theory with implicit leadership theories (ILTs), we hypothesize that formally assigned group leaders (managers) who have more positive advice ties and fewer negative avoidance ties are more likely to be recognized as leaders by their followers. Further, we posit that managers' informal networks bring them greater social power, an important attribute differentiating leaders from non-leaders. We conducted two survey-based studies in student and field teams to test the hypotheses. Based on nested data in both studies, we found support for our hypotheses. These results remain robust across the two studies even though they used different designs (cross-sectional versus longitudinal), different samples (field versus students) across different countries (United States versus India), and a host of control variables at both the leader and follower levels. We find that managers who are central in the advice network are socially powerful and are seen as leaders by individual followers. In contrast, managers who are avoided by followers lack informal social power are not seen as leaders. We conclude by discussing the theoretical and practical implications of our findings and the ways in which our theory and results extend ILTs and social network theory.     

Leader self-projection and collective role performance: A consideration of visionary leadership

Leaders often need to project themselves into alternative situations, but there is a limited understanding of how, why, or when leader self-projection might influence their teams’ outcomes. Based on the notion that brain activity in the default mode network (DMN) underlies self-projection, such as future-oriented mental simulations, we argue that the effect of leaders’ DMN activity on team behavior such as collective role performance may be understood by considering both the leaders’ visionary behavior and their orientation towards socialized vision. Specifically, we posit that a leader’s trait-like brain activity in the leader’s DMN is associated with the leader’s visionary behavior. Furthermore, we argue that visionary leader behavior, when accompanied by socialized vision orientation, facilitates collective role performance of the team. As such, we examine the moderating role of a socialized orientation toward serving the interests of a wide range of stakeholders in reinforcing the positive effect of visionary leader behavior on collective role performance of team members, as well as the indirect effect of leader DMN activity on collective role performance via visionary leader behavior. We found support for our hypotheses using diverse research methodologies, including quantitative electroencephalogram (qEEG), multi-source multi-wave surveys, and interview coding.     

Mitigating the Impact of Functional Dominance in Cross‐Functional Process Improvement Teams

Manufacturing process improvement teams often draw upon cross‐functional expertise. However, teams dominated by a single or few functions often do not achieve the desired interdisciplinary learning and cooperation, which in turn could negatively affect the performance of that cross‐functional team. Through an empirical analysis of 149 manufacturing process improvement teams in six SIC industrial categories, we show that even after controlling for several factors such as team size, number of functions, gender diversity, ethnicity, number of management levels, and geographic dispersion of team members, psychological safety of work environment fully mediates the relationship between functional dominance and team performance. We also confirm that a team leader possessing high interpersonal justice mitigates the deficiency of dominated teams and improves team performance by fostering a psychologically safe work environment. Our recommendation therefore is that when a dominated team is unavoidable due to the needed skill sets or other organizational considerations, to ensure success it is imperative that the firm chooses a team leader who can promote psychological safety by being just, and who can effectively encourage input from all functional team members and give them objective feedback.     

Leader distance: a review and a proposed theory

The concept of leader distance has been subsumed in a number of leadership theories; however, with few exceptions, leadership scholars have not expressly defined nor discussed leader distance, how distance is implicated in the legitimization of a leader, and how distance affects leader outcomes. We review available literature and demonstrate that integral to untangling the dynamics of the leadership influencing process is an understanding of leader–follower distance. We present distance in terms of three independent dimensions: leader–follower physical distance, perceived social distance, and perceived task interaction frequency. We discuss possible antecedents of leader–follower distance, including organizational and task characteristics, national culture, and leader/follower implicit motives. Finally, we use configural theory to present eight typologies (i.e., coexistence of a cluster or constellation of independent factors serving as a unit of analysis) of leader distance and propose an integrated cross-level model of leader distance, linking the distance typologies to leader outcomes at the individual and group levels of analysis.     

Perceptions of and reactions to leader toxicity: Do leader–follower relationships and identification with victim matter?

This experimental study examined the influence of leader–follower relationships (i.e., LMX) and target salience on perceptions of leader toxicity and intentions to challenge the leader. There are no studies that evaluate the effect of leader–follower relationships on these two variables. Participants (n = 298) with work experience viewed a video of a leader acting in a destructive manner toward a target. As predicted, LMX out-group participants perceived the leader to be toxic to a greater extent than participants with favored status, and indicated greater intent to challenge the leader. With regard to target salience, the results also showed that observers perceived the leader to be toxic to a greater extent when the leader was targeting someone in their LMX grouping, but there were no significant differences in challenging intentions based on the target's LMX status. Implications for leaders, followers, and organizations are discussed.     

Building Bridges in Global Virtual Teams: The Role of Multicultural Brokers in Overcoming the Negative Effects of Identity Threats on Knowledge Sharing Across Subgroups

Global virtual teams experience difficulties in knowledge sharing, often related to identity threats that emerge across subgroups. In this conceptual paper we adopt the integrative model of subgroup relations to explore the role of multicultural brokers, i.e. team members or leaders who transcend different cultural boundaries and help to bridge differences among colleagues in different subgroups, in positively influencing the relationship between identity threats and knowledge sharing. We propose that identity threats across subgroups of global virtual teams have a negative impact on knowledge sharing quality and quantity. We contend that the presence of multicultural brokers help alleviate the negative effects of identity threats over knowledge sharing through a curvilinear moderating effect. We further propose that role (leader versus member), type of appointment (formal versus emergent), situated coworker familiarity with different subgroup members, and level of cultural intelligence of the multicultural broker play unique moderating roles on the relationship between identity threats and knowledge sharing quality and quantity. Our research offers theoretical contribution to the literature on subgroup relationships and knowledge sharing in global virtual teams and practical implications for managers and MNEs, helping guide management efforts.     

Inclusive leadership and team innovation: The role of team voice and performance pressure

In today's complex and rapidly changing business environment, team innovation is increasingly critical to the survival and success of organizations. Although the relevant literature highlights the importance of leadership in team innovation, previous studies have mainly focused on transformational leadership and have yielded inconsistent results. To address this void, this study integrates the goal-setting theory into the input-process-output framework and proposes a moderated mediation model to examine the relationship between inclusive leadership and team innovation. The results of hierarchical regression analysis from two survey-based field studies in China demonstrated that team voice mediated the relationship between inclusive leadership and team innovation and performance pressure moderated the direct relationship between inclusive leadership and team voice as well as the indirect relationship between inclusive leadership and team innovation via team voice such that the relationships were stronger when performance pressure was high.     

Leader-member exchange and organizational citizenship behaviors: Contextual effects of leader power distance and group task interdependence

In this paper we explore the context of the relationship between leader-member exchange and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB). We maintain that workgroup leader's power distance and the extent of task interdependence in the group exert cross-level effects on the LMX-OCB relationship. We assert that leader power distance attenuates the relationship between LMX and OCB, and this effect is stronger in workgroups with high degree of task interdependence. Results of hierarchical linear modeling analysis of data gathered from 245 employees nested in 54 workgroups supported our hypotheses. LMX-OCB relationship was weaker in workgroups led by high power distance leaders. Further, the three-way cross-level interaction between LMX, leader power distance and group task interdependence demonstrated that the tendency for LMX to have a stronger positive effect on OCB when leader power distance was low rather than high was more pronounced in high task interdependence teams.     

When feelings obscure reason: The impact of leaders' explicit and emotional knowledge transfer on shareholder reactions

Emotions are an area of research commanding increasing scholarly attention in the field of leadership; yet, a focus on the cognitive processing of leaders has potentially obscured the impact that their emotions can have on shareholder reactions. Accordingly, this study contributes to extant theory by introducing the concept of emotional knowledge transfer, i.e., the emotional signals used for transmission and receipt of knowledge. Testable hypotheses are derived that explore the relationship between leader emotional and explicit knowledge transfer and shareholder reactions. A short-term event study is conducted across a sample of recorded CEO interviews and analyzed using random-effects regressions. Findings indicate that leaders' explicit and emotional knowledge transfer impact shareholder reactions negatively, and that leaders try to align emotional knowledge transfer with the explicit message they intend to convey.