Week 6 - TIO.docx

Chapter 9 Teamwork and Leadership Leadership can be defined as a process of social influence in which one person is able to enlist the aid ad support of others in the accomplishment of a common task. Initiating structure consists of leader behaviors that ensure that followers perform their jobs, suc...

Chapter 9 Teamwork and Leadership Leadership can be defined as a process of social influence in which one person is able to enlist the aid ad support of others in the accomplishment of a common task. Initiating structure consists of leader behaviors that ensure that followers perform their jobs, such as assign tasks, set goals, plan ahead and make decisions about how work should be done. Consideration refers to behaviors that indicate respect and trust and communicates that leaders value good relationships with followers. Fiedler’s contingency theory of leadership suggests that the behavioral style of the leader should match the situation. Leaders with good leader-member relations will more easily influence their members. Leaders can more easily direct their followers in tasks that are structured than in unstructured tasks. When leaders have more position power, because they have official authority and can reward or punish their members, they can more easily influence them. When the task is structured but the leader is disliked, the leader should be diplomatic. For structured tasks directive leadership is better, while for unstructured tasks participative leadership is better. In contract to the theory, leaders can adapt to the situation, and might sometimes use consideration and sometimes initiate structure. Transactional leadership focuses on reward contingencies and exchange relations: leaders influence their followers by rewarding high performance and reprimanding mistakes and substandard performance. Transformational leadership refers to leader behaviors that aim to stimulate followers to move beyond immediate self-interest and strive towards higher collective purpose, mission, or vision. This is often associated with charisma. It is thought that successful leaders use both styles, and that transformational leadership works best when it builds upon the foundations of transactional leadership. Transactional leadership should ensure that followers do their work and transformational leadership would motivate them to move beyond expectations and work towards collective goals. The effects of transactional and transformational leadership on team performance are not very strong. This might be due to the fact that these types of leadership only work under specific circumstances. It was found that transformational leadership had strong effects on team performance when teams were high in power distance and collectivism. The performance expectations of other group members can determine whether a person is influential. Intelligence was found to be the best predictor of emergent leadership. Neuroticism was found to be negatively related to leader emergence, while extraversion, openness to experience, and conscientiousness are positively elated to leader emergence. Group members exhibit less leadership when their gender is incongruent with the gender orientation of the task. The social identity theory suggests that group membership contributes to our identity. A woman in a female-dominated team working on a feminine task is more prototypical than a man. Emergent leaders would be expected to facilitate team processes, and thus stimulate higher levels of performance. Emergent leadership and shared leadership, an emergent team property that results from the distribution of leadership influence across multiple team members, contributes to task performance. Carson, Tesluk, & Marrone: Shared leadership in teams: An investigation of antecedent conditions and performance. Most research until now has focused on formal leadership, while it is also important to look at informal or emerged team leadership. This is because 1) the complexity and ambiguity that teams often experience make it unlikely that a single leader can successfully perform all necessary leadership functions. 2) current forms of teamwork emphasize knowledge-based work rely on employees who have high experience and seek autonomy in how they apply their knowledge and skills (thus desire to participate in leadership functions themselves). 3) flatter organizational structures and the presence of self-managing teams become more common. Although some research has established a link between shared leadership and team performance, a gap still remains. The first purpose of this study was to theoretically identify and test conditions that support shared leadership in work teams. A second purpose is to provide an improved conceptualization and operationalization of the shared leadership construct. A third purpose was to predict performance outcomes. Shared leadership defined Until now, shared leadership has been defined as an emergent team property that results from the distribution of leadership influence across multiple team members. In teams with low shared leadership levels, the team is directed by a single individual, whereas in teams with high shared leadership levels, (almost) all team members express leadership behaviours or leadership may be rotated over time. Shared leadership creates reciprocal influence that further develop and reinforce existing relationships among team members, according to social network theory. This pattern of emerging mutual influence can be seen as an increase in the density of the teams’ internal leadership networks. A leadership network is the pattern of individuals who rely on others for leadership within a team. The density is the mean number of relationships (per team member) involving leadership influence. Relationship with similar constructs First of all, shared leadership is related to team empowerment, which can be bi-directional. On the one hand, team empowerment may facilitate the development of shared leadership by motivating team members to exercised influence. On the other hand, shared leadership may also lead to greater team empowerment by enhancing members’ sense of meaningfulness, autonomy, impact, or potency. Note: team empowerment can still be high when a team has a strong external leader. Secondly, shared leadership is related to cooperation and helping. Third, it is also related to transactive memory systems (TMS) and team mental models (TMM). Fourth, shared leadership is different from emergent leadership. Emergent leadership mostly focuses on individual characteristics that determine whether someone steps forward as a leader, while shared leadership focuses more on the distribution of leadership among all (or most) team members. Antecedent conditions: internal and external For shared leadership to emerge, two things must happen: 1) the members of a team must offer leadership and seek to influence the direction, motivation, and support of the group, and 2) the team as whole must be willing to rely on leadership by multiple team members. There are two key factors that facilitate the abovementioned conditions: - An internal team environment that supports the development of shared leadership over time: an internal team environment consists of three dimensions. *Shared purpose: when team members have similar understandings of their team’s primary objectives and take steps to ensure a focus on collective goals, which enhances willingness to share leadership responsibilities with other members. *Social support: team members’ efforts to provide emotional and psychological strength to one another. This helps to let others feel their input is valued and important. *Voice: the degree to which team members have input into how the team should reach its purpose. This leads to participation in decision-making and showing leadership behaviours. The level of supportive coaching provided by an external leader: an external team leaders direct interaction with a team intended to help team members make coordinated and task-appropriate us of their collective resources. First of all, external coaching enhances self-management by team members. Secondly, it helps build a shared commitment that reduces free riding and increases personal initiative. Third, it provides clarity on how to best manage their work and processes. This study has some important implications for practice: Organizations should help develop strong internal leadership patterns within their teams to enhance effectiveness. This can be done by setting expectations and encourage members to view themselves and other team members as leaders. Managers should ensure that each team has a clear and shared sense of direction and purpose, promote and establish norms of participation, and seek to create a positive environment where members encourage each other and recognize each other’s contributions. This is to enhance the three dimensions of internal team environment. Managers should engage in supportive coaching to facilitate the development of shared leadership. Homan, Gündemir, Buengeler, & van Kleef: Leading diversity: Towards a theory of functional leadership in diverse teams. Research on the interplay between leadership and team diversity has been very inconsistent. Therefore, the purpose of the current study is to provide a review of the literature on the intersection of team diversity and team leadership and to provide an integrative theoretical model, integrating knowledge on two core leadership functions with insights on team diversity in shaping team processes and outcomes. This Leading Diversity (LeaD) model provides a guiding framework for leaders to help them manage diverse teams more effectively. This model was built under certain propositions: 1) team diversity can create highly different situations for leaders to operate in, depending on the predominant processes in team diversity (subgroup categorization or information elaboration), 2) leaders must possess diversity-related competencies which help them to predict the team’s needs and perform functional leadership behaviours, and 3) leaders must be able to exhibit functional leadership behaviours and to flexibly adopt those behaviours to address different diversity-related processes. Definitions and scope of the current model Some important notes at the start of this research is that they focus on smaller teams (rather than large teams), they assume that leaders are motivated to understand the team’s needs and manage team diversity, and they focus on complex and interdependent tasks, since diversity benefits the most from those. Diversity effects: two overarching processes Diversity can lead to both positive effects (through information elaboration) as well as negative effects (through subgroup categorization and intergroup bias) and there are several moderators that determine which effects a certain diversity type can have (for more info on this, see summaries week 4 and 5). Review of research on the interplay between diversity and leadership Research overall did not find a direct relationship with diversity and processes or outcomes. There is general consensus that diversity effects are moderated. The moderating effects of leadership styles (with transformational leadership as most studied) are inconsistent. It is observed that leadership styles / behaviours and leader characteristics / abilities are often studied in isolation. Until now, leadership factors have generally been examined as moderators between diversity variables and processes and has not yet examined the moderation of leadership in the processoutcome relationship. Therefore, the current study will differentiate between proactive diversity leadership (moderation between diversity types and processes) and reactive diversity leadership (moderation between processes and diversity outcomes). Leading team diversity: introducing LeaD To determine which type of leadership is effective, the researchers draw on functional leadership perspective, which means that effective leadership is a function of the interaction between the leader and the situation in which the leader operates. Leader behaviours: person- and task-focused leadership For the sake of this model (and further research), leadership styles / behaviours are divided into taskfocused leadership and person-focused leadership. Task-focused leadership is mainly directed at initiating structure, operating procedures, understanding task requirements, task assignment, etc. Person-focused leadership is mainly aimed at consideration, establishing trust, effective teamwork, conflict management, etc. Note: these two types of leadership are not two ends of a continuum and leaders can express both (however not at the same time). Logically following, person-focused leadership matches the needs of teams that experience subgroup categorization, while task-focused leadership matches the needs of teams that experience information / decision-making processes. Furthermore, proactive diversity leadership can set the stage by preventing subgroup categorization and inviting information elaboration. However, leaders may not always be able to proactively shape how diversity affects team processes and may encounter situational factors out of their control. In these cases, reactive diversity leadership is required to reduce subgroup categorization and increase information elaboration. In order to engage in this proactive and reactive behaviour, leaders require three diversity- related competencies: 1) cognitive understanding, 2) social perceptiveness, and 3) behavioural flexibility. Predicting diverse team needs: the role of leader cognitive understanding When a leader can predict which diversity-related process is going to be dominant in a team, they can fit their proactive leadership behaviour on to this prediction. This is associated with the cognitive understanding of a leader, defined as the possession of complex knowledge structures related to diversity. Cues that may help leaders predict the process are potential faultlines or the reward structure of a team. Antecedents of whether a leader has cognitive understanding can be multicultural experience and cultural intelligence. Diagnosing diverse team needs: the role of leader social perceptiveness Next to predicting, it is also important to be able to diagnose the dominant process after it has already emerged, so they can fit their reactive leadership behaviour on to this diagnosis. This is associated with social perceptiveness, which can be defined as the interpretation of social information regarding teams’ diversity-related needs. Cues that may help leaders diagnose the dominant process are the way team members communicate verbally and nonverbally, the presence of questions for clarification, or task-related conflicts. Antecedents of whether a leader has social perceptiveness can be multicultural experience, emotional intelligence, and openness to experience. Functional matching of leadership behaviours and team needs: the role of leader behavioural flexibility Once the dominant process has been predicted or diagnosed, leaders must show behaviours that meet their team’s needs. This functional matching of behaviours requires behavioural flexibility. Antecedents of whether a leader has behavioural flexibility can be multicultural experience, interpersonal flexibility, and openness to experience. Temporal dynamics Based on the findings and suggestions of this study, several propositions are mentioned: Leaders who have a better cognitive understanding of how diversity may influence teams will be better able to predict their team’s future dominant diversity-related process. Leaders who have higher levels of social perceptiveness will be better able to diagnose their team’s current dominant diversity-related process. Leaders who have higher levels of behavioural flexibility will be better able to functionally match their leadership behaviours to their team’s future or current dominant diversity-related process. Diverse teams that are characterized by greater intergroup bias will perform better to the degree that the leader exhibits relatively more person-focused leadership behaviours. Diverse teams that are characterized by greater information elaboration will perform better to the degree that the leader exhibits relatively more task-focused leadership behaviours. A) In case of anticipated events, leaders’ ability to predict their team’s dominant diversityrelated process as a result of these events stimulates the proactive shifting of their leadership behaviours. B) In case of unanticipated events, leaders’ ability to diagnose their team’s dominant diversity-related process as a result of these events stimulates the reactive shifting of their leadership behaviours. Morgeson, DeRue, and Karam – Leadership in teams: A functional approach to understanding leadership structures and processes At the moment, there are three main reasons why the research on leadership is not yet sufficient: 1) past research has focused on a very narrow set of leadership activities. This leads to an incomplete account of the range of ways leaders can help their team succeed. 2) past studies used traditional models of leadership, that don’t make the distinction between leader- follower interactions and leader-team interactions. 3) past research has mainly focused on formal leadership forms, while leadership is often distributed within a team (informal or shared). Therefore, the purpose of this study is to provide a framework that integrates existing team leadership research, which will enable us to identify how much progress has been made in understanding team leadership, to identify gaps in our understanding, and to point to promising areas for future research. The nature of team performance and leadership in teams In terms of team performance, teams undergo cycles with two phases: 1) the transition phase (evaluation or planning activities to accomplish goals), and 2) the action phase (actually executing those plans and perform work activities that directly contribute to goals). During those cycles, certain phase-specific challenges can arise that create team needs. Next to these phase-specific challenges, also interpersonal challenges arise, that create interpersonal needs. Predictably, these needs can be satisfied through leadership. So, whoever feels responsibility for satisfying a team’s needs can be viewed as a leader. This is in line with the functional leadership theory. It is important to note that the sources of leadership can be divided into four dimensions: locus of leadership (either internal or external) and formality of leadership (either formal or informal), which leads to the following possibilities: Note: it is likely that there are multiple sources of leadership in one team, and these sources are dynamic and change over time. So it is important to explain how the sources might interact and evolve depending on the challenges teams are facing and the needs a team has. Transition phase leadership functions The transition phase is not about direct task work, but rather on activities that establish structures and processes important for future effectiveness. Therefore, the following leadership functions are important during this phase: Compose team: this is a very important determinant of team processes and performance. For example, compositional elements as demographic diversity, team-level personality traits, and abilities have been linked to coordination, communication, helping behaviour, and cohesion. This function can best be performed by formal external leaders because external leaders also have a status outside the team and have the ability to align the team’s composition with the external environment. Define mission: this involves communicating the organization’s performance expectations in a clear and understandable way. This also provides the foundation on which a common identity and cohesive relationships can develop among team members. It is not clear yet which source of leadership is best suited for this function. Establish expectations and goals: this involves setting team goals that are realistic but challenging. This is found to be one of the most important leadership functions to enhance team performance. Structure and plan: this involves developing a shared understanding among team members of how best to coordinate their actions to accomplish team goals. This includes determining how the work will be done, who will do what, and when it will be done. It is suggested that internal sources of leadership are most suited for this function because they can effectively adjust their actions in a dynamic way, since they are actively involved in the team’s day-to-day operations. Train and develop team: this involves training the team through instruction or demonstration, followed by ongoing coaching. Furthermore, it involves encouraging team members to use the resources that the organization provides them. Important to note here is that this leadership functions is divided into two subfunctions: 1) ensuring that each team member has the knowledge and skills required to effectively perform the task, and 2) training the team regarding the interpersonal processes associated with effective teamwork. Sensemaking: this involves creating an understanding of the meaning of outside events and the impact it has on team functioning, thus managing how the team thinks about internal or external events / experiences. This helps the team cope well with these events. This leadership function fits best with external leaders. Provide feedback: this enables teams to effectively assess its past and current performance and adapt its actions according to the feedback to achieve future success. All leadership sources can perform this function, but they all do it differently. Informal internal leaders can give ongoing task-related feedback, informal external leaders can provide feedback that helps the team adapt to changing environmental conditions, and the formal sources of leadership can help teams review against the established goals. Action phase leadership functions Next to the transition phase, there are also certain leadership functions specific for the action phase: Monitor team: this involves examining the team’s processes, performance, and the external team context. This function is linked to increased team cohesion and higher ratings of leader effectiveness. Here, it’s also the case that different sources of leadership can best monitor different aspects of the team. Manage team boundaries: this involves managing the relationships between the team and the larger organizational context by communicating with key figures outside the team. This function can best be performed by formal external leaders because they reside at the boundary between the team and the broader environment. Challenge team: this involves challenging the team regarding task performance and also encourage them to constantly look at their process and look for a better way of doing it. Also here, formal external leadership is most appropriate for this function. Perform team task: this is important because the leader should have the ability to “get things done”. Logically, informal internal leadership would be the best source for this function, since these leaders are already within the team. Especially in times of disruptive events and high workload intensity, it’s important that the leader participates in the team’s task. Solve problems: it is critical that a leader can diagnose and solve problems that keep teams from realizing their potential. It can be said that internal leaders are closest to emerging problems, but research did not yet find that those leaders are actually best in solving those problems. Provide resources: this includes obtaining and providing informational, financial, material, and personnel resources for the team. These resources should also be preserved, monitored and replenished throughout the performance cycles. For this function, formal external leaders would be the best fit. Encourage team self-management: this is important because by encouraging team members to resolve task- and teamwork-related problems themselves, and by relying on their own resources, the team becomes more adaptable and resilient. Support social climate: this involves addressing interpersonal issues within the team that may interfere with the team’s performance. This function is related to many positive outcomes, such as team performance, better social relationships, etc. Purvanova, R. K., & Bono, J. E. (2009). Transformational leadership in context: Face-to- face and virtual teams. Virtual teams become more and more important. Virtual teams are characterized by temporary membership, spatial dispersion, and the use of mostly computer-mediated communication (CMC). Together with these virtual teams, it becomes more and more important how leadership develops itself within these teams. Existing literature states that transformational leadership and participative leadership behaviours are of greater importance in teams that communicate digitally. However, few studies have compared this e-leadership to leadership in face-to-face teams. Thus, the first purpose of this study is to provide this comparison between leadership in virtual teams and in face-to-face teams, with a focus on transformational leadership. This is done in two questions: 1) do leaders alter their behaviour to use more (or less) transformational leadership in virtual teams, compared to face-to-face teams? 2) are transformational leadership behaviours more strongly related to team effectiveness in virtual teams or in face-to-face teams? There are several differences between CMC and FTF communication: 1) FTF communication is richer in nonverbal and paraverbal (auditory) cues. 2) FTF communication minimizes information loss due to the simultaneous usage of multiple communication channels. 3) FTF communication maximizes feelings of social presence and conversational involvement. 4) FTF communication transmits information about social context. 5) FTF communication is less physically and cognitively demanding than other communication media. These differences suggest that in virtual teams, there will be less transformational leadership, because of the lack of visual and auditory cues, more confusion of interpretations and more cognitively demanding. Note: research has found that CMC is mostly seen as a tool to achieve tasks and not as a relational tool. Therefore, a person-focused approach such as transformational leadership can suffer from this view. H1 = Transformational leadership, including the four components of idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration, occurs less frequently in virtual than in face-to-face project teams. H2 = Transformational leadership behaviours vary, within leader, based on team context (virtual vs. face-to-face). Due to the more unclear communication environment, virtual teams operate under conditions of challenge, confusion and uncertainty. Therefore, it is proposed that these contexts create the best opportunities for leadership to affect team outcomes. Another view on this is that virtual teams adapt the technology to suit their needs by creating a new culture of technology use. Here it is proposed that the successful adaptation of technology use is linked to the type of leadership that is used (e.g., participative leadership would work better in virtual teams than directive leadership). H3 = Team type will moderate the effects of transformational leadership on team performance, such that there will be a stronger association between transformational leadership and team performance in virtual teams than in face-to-face teams. H4 = Team type will moderate the effects of transformational leadership on project satisfaction, such that there will be a stronger association between transformational leadership and project satisfaction in virtual teams than in face-to-face teams. Results To test the hypotheses, transformational leadership was tested in terms of its four components: idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration. For Hypothesis 1, no differences were found except for intellectual stimulation, providing only partial support for this Hypothesis. Hypothesis 2 was fully supported; however, no direction was given. Hypothesis 3 was fully supported and hypothesis 4 was not supported unfortunately.