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Research Article

The impact of engaging leadership on employee engagement and team effectiveness: A longitudinal, multi-level study on the mediating role of personal- and team resources

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Methodology, Writing – original draft

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliation Department of Education Studies, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy

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Roles Conceptualization, Investigation, Project administration, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliations Research Unit Occupational & Organizational Psychology and Professional Learning, KU Leuven, Belgium, Department of Psychology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

  • Greta Mazzetti, 
  • Wilmar B. Schaufeli

PLOS

  • Published: June 29, 2022
  • https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0269433
  • Reader Comments

Fig 1

Most research on the effect of leadership behavior on employees’ well-being and organizational outcomes is based on leadership frameworks that are not rooted in sound psychological theories of motivation and are limited to either an individual or organizational levels of analysis. The current paper investigates whether individual and team resources explain the impact of engaging leadership on work engagement and team effectiveness, respectively. Data were collected at two time points on N = 1,048 employees nested within 90 work teams. The Multilevel Structural Equation Modeling results revealed that personal resources (i.e., optimism, resiliency, self-efficacy, and flexibility) partially mediated the impact of T1 individual perceptions of engaging leadership on T2 work engagement. Furthermore, joint perceptions of engaging leadership among team members at T1 resulted in greater team effectiveness at T2. This association was fully mediated by team resources (i.e., performance feedback, trust in management, communication, and participation in decision-making). Moreover, team resources had a significant cross-level effect on individual levels of engagement. In practical terms, training and supporting leaders who inspire, strengthen, and connect their subordinates could significantly improve employees’ motivation and involvement and enable teams to pursue their common goals successfully.

Citation: Mazzetti G, Schaufeli WB (2022) The impact of engaging leadership on employee engagement and team effectiveness: A longitudinal, multi-level study on the mediating role of personal- and team resources. PLoS ONE 17(6): e0269433. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0269433

Editor: Ender Senel, Mugla Sitki Kocman University: Mugla Sitki Kocman Universitesi, TURKEY

Received: December 29, 2021; Accepted: May 23, 2022; Published: June 29, 2022

Copyright: © 2022 Mazzetti, Schaufeli. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: The data that support the findings of this study are available on Open Science Framework (OSF) website at the following link: https://osf.io/yfwgt/?view_only=c838730fd7694a0ba32882c666e9f973 . DOI: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/YFWGT .

Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

Multiple studies suggest that work engagement, which is defined as a positive, work-related state of mind characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption [ 1 ], is related to extremely positive outcomes, particularly in terms of employees’ well-being and job performance (for a narrative overview see [ 2 ]; for a meta-analysis see [ 3 ]).

Therefore, when work engagement is arguably beneficial for employees and organizations alike, the million-dollar question (quite literally, by the way) is: how can work engagement be increased? Schaufeli [ 4 ] has argued that operational leadership is critical for enhancing follower’s work engagement. Based on the logic of the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model [ 5 ], he reasoned that team leaders may (or may not) monitor, manage, and allocate job demands and resources to increase their follower’s levels of work engagement. In doing so, team leaders boost the motivational process that is postulated in the JD-R model. This process assumes that job resources and challenging job demands are inherently motivating and will lead to a positive, affective-motivational state of fulfillment in employees known as work engagement.

The current study focuses on a specific leadership style, dubbed engaging leadership and rooted in Self-Determination Theory (SDT) [ 6 ]. Engaging leaders inspire, strengthen, and connect their followers, thereby satisfying their basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness, respectively. In line with the motivational process of the JD-R model, cross-sectional evidence suggests that engaging leaders increase job resources [ 7 ] and personal resources [ 8 ], which, in their turn, are positively associated with work engagement. So far, the evidence for this mediation is exclusively based on cross-sectional studies. Hence, the first objective of our paper is to confirm the mediation effect of resources using a longitudinal design.

Scholars have emphasized that “the study of leadership is inherently multilevel in nature” (p. 4) [ 9 ]. This statement implies that, in addition to the individual level, the team level of analysis should also be included when investigating the impact of engaging leadership.

The current study makes two notable contributions to the literature. First, it investigates the impact, over time, of a novel, specific leadership style (i.e., engaging leadership) on team- and individual outcomes (i.e., team effectiveness and work engagement). Second, it investigates the mediating role of team resources and personal resources in an attempt to explain the impact of leadership on these outcomes. The research model, which is described in greater detail below, is displayed in Fig 1 .

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0269433.g001

Leadership and work engagement

Leadership is defined as the way in which particular individuals–leaders–purposefully influence other individuals–their followers–to obtain defined outcomes [ 10 ].

A systematic narrative review identified twenty articles on leadership and work engagement [ 11 ] and showed that work engagement is positively associated with various person-centered leadership styles. The most pervasively used framework was transformational leadership, whereas authentic, ethical, and charismatic leadership was used much less. The authors conclude that "most of the reviewed studies were consistent in arguing that leadership is significantly correlated with and is affecting employee’s work engagement directly or via mediation” (p. 18) [ 11 ]. Moreover, they also conclude that research findings and inferences on leadership and engagement remain narrowly focused and inconclusive due to the lack of longitudinal designs addressing this issue. A recent meta-analysis [ 12 ] identified 69 studies and found substantial positive relationships of work engagement with ethical (k = 9; ρ = .58), transformational (k = 36; ρ = .46) and servant leadership (k = 3; ρ = .43), and somewhat less strong associations with authentic (k = 17; ρ = .38) and empowering leadership (k = 4; ρ = .35). Besides, job resources (e.g., job autonomy, social support), organizational resources (e.g., organizational identification, trust), and personal resources (self-efficacy, creativity) mediated the effect of leadership on work engagement. Although transformational leadership is arguably the most popular leadership concept of the last decades [ 13 ], the validity of its conceptual definition has been heavily criticized, even to the extent that some authors suggest getting “back to the drawing board” [ 14 ]. It should be noted that three main criticisms are voiced: (1) the theoretical definition of the transformational leadership dimensions is meager (i.e., how are the four dimensions selected and how do they combine?); (2) no causal model is specified (i.e., how is each dimension related to mediating processes and outcomes?); (3) the most frequently used measurement tools are invalid (i.e., they fail to reproduce the dimensional structure and do not show empirical distinctiveness from other leadership concepts). Hence, it could be argued that the transformational leadership framework is not very well suited for exploring the impact of leadership on work engagement.

Schaufeli [ 7 ] introduced the concept of engaging leadership , which is firmly rooted in Self-Determination Theory. According to Deci and Ryan [ 6 ], three innate psychological needs are essential ‘nutrients’ for individuals to function optimally, also at the workplace: the needs for autonomy (i.e., feeling in control), competence (i.e., feeling effective), and relatedness (i.e., feeling loved and cared for). Moreover, SDT posits that employees are likely to be engaged (i.e., internalize their tasks and show high degrees of energy, concentration, and persistence) to the degree that their needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness are satisfied [ 15 ]. This is in line with Bormann and Rowold [ 16 ]. Based on a systematic review on construct proliferation in leadership research, these authors recommended that leadership concepts should use SDT because this motivational theory allows a more parsimonious description of the mechanisms underlying leadership behaviors. These authors posited that the core of "narrow" leadership constructs "bases on a single pillar" (p. 163), and therefore predict narrow outcomes. In contrast to broad leadership constructs, the concept of engaging leadership is narrow because it focuses on leadership behaviors to explicitly promote work engagement.

Schaufeli [ 7 ] reasoned that leaders, who are instrumental in satisfying their followers’ basic needs, are likely to increase their engagement levels. More specifically, engaging leaders are supposed to: (1) inspire (e.g., by enthusing their followers for their vision and plans, and by making them feel that they contribute to something important); (2) strengthen (e.g., by granting their followers freedom and responsibility, and by delegating tasks); and (3) connect (e.g., by encouraging collaboration and by promoting a high team spirit among their followers). Hence, by inspiring, strengthening, and connecting their followers, leaders stimulate the fulfillment of their follower’s basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness, respectively, which, in turn, will foster work engagement.

The underlying mechanisms of the relationship between engaging leadership and work engagement are a major focus of research, as the construct of engaging leadership was built upon the identification of the leadership behaviors that are capable of stimulating positive outcomes by satisfying needs. The literature on engaging leadership provides empirical evidence for its indirect impact on followers’ engagement by fulfilling followers’ basic needs. This finding is consistent across occupational sectors and cultural contexts [ 17 – 19 ]. Further, the observation of a partial mediation effect for need satisfaction suggests the presence of a direct relationship between engaging leadership and engagement [ 20 , 21 ]. In their behaviors, engaging leaders are likely to improve their job characteristics to the point of stimulating greater engagement among their employees. This assumption has been corroborated by a recent longitudinal study that delved deeper into the association between engaging leadership and needs satisfaction [ 22 ]. That study found that the relationship between engaging leadership and basic needs satisfaction is mediated by enhanced levels of job resources (among them were improved feedback and skill use and better person-job fit). The fulfilment of those needs, in turn, resulted in higher levels of work engagement. Therefore, perceived job resources seem to play a crucial role in the causal relationship between engaging leadership and basic needs satisfaction. This evidence found support in a later two-wave full panel design with a 1-year time lag, where engaging leadership promoted employees’ perception of autonomy and social support from colleagues [ 23 ]. In addition, a recent study by Van Tuin and colleagues [ 24 ] revealed that engaging leadership is associated with increased perceptions of intrinsic organizational values (e.g., providing a contribution to organizational and personal development) and satisfaction of the need for autonomy which, in turn, may boost employees’ level of engagement.

A recent study investigated the ways in which engaging leadership could boost the effects of human resource (HR) practices for promoting employees’ psychological, physical, and social well-being over time [ 25 ]. Teams led by an engaging leader reported higher levels of happiness at work and trust in leadership, combined with lower levels of burnout than their colleagues who were led by poorly engaging leaders. Happiness and trust played a key role in improving team member performance. These findings indicate that engaged leaders provide a thoughtful implementation of HR practices focused on promoting employee well-being, being constantly driven by their employees’ flourishing.

Another line of studies may reveal the causality between engaging leadership and work-related outcomes. A multilevel longitudinal study provided cross-level and team-level effects of engaging leadership [ 26 ]. Engaging leadership at T1 explained team learning, innovation, and individual performance through increased teamwork engagement at T2. Interventions targeting engaging leadership created positive work outcomes for leaders (e.g., autonomy satisfaction and intrinsic motivation) and decreased employee absenteeism [ 27 ]. However, cross-lagged longitudinal analyses indicate that employees’ current level of work engagement predicts their leaders’ level of engaging leadership rather than the other way around [ 23 ]. These findings imply that the relationship between engaging leadership and work engagement cannot be narrowed to a simple unidirectional causal relationship but rather exhibits a dynamic nature, where engaging leadership and work engagement mutually influence each other. The dynamic nature of engaging leadership has also been investigated through a diary study. The results suggest that employees enacted job crafting strategies more frequently on days when leaders were more successful in satisfying their need for connectivity [ 28 ]. Hence, leaders who satisfy the need for connectedness among their followers will not only encourage higher levels of engagement among their followers but also an increased ability to proactively adapt tasks to their interests and preferences.

Since transformational leadership is currently the most frequently studied leadership style, a summary of the similarities and differences in the proposed new conceptualization of leadership proposed (i.e., engaging leadership) must be provided.

A key difference between transformational and engaging leadership originates from their foundation. Whereas transformational leadership is primarily a change-oriented style, engaging leadership encourages employees’ well-being through the promotion of supportive relationships and is defined as a relationship-oriented leadership style [ 29 ].

Further similarities entail the combination of behaviors meant to foster employees’ well-being and growth. Transformational leaders act as role models admired and emulated by followers (idealized influence), encourage a reconsideration of prevailing assumptions and work practices to promote stronger innovation (intellectual stimulation), identify and build on the unique characteristics and strengths of each follower (individualized consideration), and provides a stimulating view of the future and meaning of their work (inspirational motivation) [ 30 ]. A considerable resemblance involves the dimensions of inspirational motivation and inspiring, which are, respectively, included in transformational and engaging leadership. They both entail recognizing the leader as a guiding light to a specific mission and vision, where individual inputs are credited as essential ingredients in achieving the shared goal. Thus, they both fulfill the individual need for meaningfulness. In a similar vein, transformational and engaged leaders are both committed to promote followers’ growth in terms of innovation and creativity. In other words, the intellectual stimulation offered by transformational leadership and the strengthening component of engaging leadership are both aimed at meeting the need for competence among followers.

Alternatively, it is also possible to detect decisive differences between the dimensions underlying these leadership styles. Transformational leadership entails the provision of personal mentorship (i.e., individualized consideration), while engaging leadership is primarily focused on enhancing the interdependence and cohesion among team members (i.e., team consideration). Furthermore, engaging leadership disregards the notion of idealized influence covered by transformational leadership: an engaging leader is not merely identified as a model whose behavior is admired and mirrored, but rather proactively meets followers’ need for autonomy through the allocation of tasks and responsibilities.

Empirical results lent further support to the distinctiveness between transformational and engaging leadership. The analysis of the factor structure of both constructs revealed that measures of engaging and transformational leadership load on separate dimensions instead of being explained by a single latent factor [ 31 ]. More recently, additional research findings pointed out that engaging and transformational leadership independently account for comparable portions of variance in work engagement [ 32 ]. However, this does not alter the fact that a certain overlap exists between both leadership concepts; thus, it is not surprising that a consistent, positive relationship is found between transformational leadership and work engagement [ 11 ].

In sum: a positive link appears to exist between person-centered leadership styles and work engagement. Moreover, this relationship seems to be mediated by (job and personal) resources. However, virtually all studies used cross-sectional designs, and the causal direction remains unclear. We followed the call to go back to the drawing board by choosing an alternative, deductive approach by introducing the theory-grounded concept of engaging leadership and investigate its impact on individual and team outcomes (see Fig 1 ).

Engaging leadership, personal resources, and employee engagement (individual level)

Serrano and Reichard [ 33 ], who posit that leaders may pursue four pathways to increase their follower’s work engagement: (1) design meaningful and motivating work; (2) support and coach their employees; (3 ) facilitate rewarding and supportive coworker relations, and (4) enhancing personal resources. In the present study, we focus on the fourth pathway. Accordingly, a cross-sectional study using structural equation modeling [ 8 ] showed that psychological capital (i.e., self-efficacy, optimism, resiliency, and flexibility) fully mediated the relationship between perceived engaging leadership and follower’s work engagement. Consistent with findings on job resources, this study indicated that personal resources also mediate the relationship between engaging leadership and work engagement. In a nutshel, when employees feel autonomous, competent, and connected to their colleagues, their own personal resources benefit, and this fuels their level of engagement.

In the current study, we use the same conceptualization of psychological capital (PsyCap) as Schaufeli [ 7 , 8 ], which slightly differs from the original concept. Originally, PsyCap was defined as a higher-order construct that is based on the shared commonalities of four first-order personal resources: “(1) having confidence (self-efficacy) to take on and put in the necessary effort to succeed at challenging tasks; (2) making a positive attribution (optimism) about succeeding now and in the future; (3) persevering toward goals and, when necessary, redirecting paths to goals (hope) to succeed; and (4) when beset by problems and adversity, sustaining and bouncing back and even beyond (resiliency) to attain success” (p. 10) [ 34 ]. Instead of hope, flexibility is included; that is, the capability of employees to adapt to new, different, and changing requirements at work. Previous research showed a high correlation ( r > .70) between hope and optimism, thus increasing the risk of multicollinearity [ 35 ]. This strong relationship points at conceptual overlap: hope is defined as the perception that goals can be set and achieved, whereas optimism is the belief that one will experience good outcomes. Hence, trust in achieving goals (hope) implies optimism. Additionally, hope includes "when necessary, redirecting paths to goals", which refers to flexibility. Finally, in organizational practice, the flexibility of employees is considered an essential resource because organizations are continuously changing, which requires permanent adaption and hence employee flexibility. In short, there are psychometric, conceptual, and pragmatic arguments for replacing hope by flexibility.

According to Luthans and colleagues [ 36 ], PsyCap is a state-like resource representing an employee’s motivational propensity and perseverance towards goals. PsyCap is malleable and open to development, thus it can be enhanced through positive leadership [ 37 ]. Indeed, it was found that transformational leadership enhances PsyCap, which, in turn, increases in-role performance and organizational citizenship behavior [ 38 ]. In a similar vein, PsyCap mediates the relationships between authentic leadership and employee’s creative behavior [ 39 ].

We argue that engaging leadership may promote PsyCap as well. After all, by inspiring followers with a clear, powerful and compelling vision, engaging leaders: (1) create the belief in their ability to perform tasks that tie in with that vision successfully, thereby fostering follower’s self-efficacy ; (2) generate a positive appraisal of the future, thereby fostering follower’s optimism ; (3) trigger the ability to bounce back from adversity because a favorable future is within reach, thereby fostering follower’s resiliency ; (4) set goals and induce the belief that these can be achieved, if necessary by redirecting paths to those goals, thereby fostering follower’s flexibility [ 38 ].

Furthermore, engaging leaders strengthen their followers and unleash their potential by setting challenging goals. This helps to build followers’ confidence in task-specific skills, thereby increasing their self-efficacy levels, mainly via mastery experiences that occur after challenging goals have been achieved [ 40 ]. Setting high-performance expectations also elevates follower’s sense of self-worth, thereby leading to a positive appraisal of their current and future circumstances (i.e., optimism ). Moreover, a strengthening leader acts as a powerful contextual resource that augments followers’ self-confidence and, hence, increases their ability to bounce back from adversity (i.e., resiliency ) and adapt to changing requirements at work (i.e., flexibility ).

Finally, by connecting their followers, engaging leaders promote good interpersonal relationships and build a supportive team climate characterized by collaboration and psychological safety. Connecting leaders also foster commitment to team goals by inducing a sense of purpose, which energizes team members to contribute toward the same, shared goal. This means that in tightly knit, supportive and collaborative teams, followers: (1) experience positive emotions when team goals are met, which, in turn, fosters their level of self-efficacy [ 40 ]; (2) feel valued and acknowledged by others, which increases their self-worth and promotes a positive and optimistic outlook; (3) can draw upon their colleagues for help and support, which enables to face problems and adversities with resiliency ; (4) can use the abilities, skills, and knowledge of their teammates to adapt to changing job and team requirements (i.e., flexibility ).

In sum, when perceived as such by followers, engaging leadership acts as a sturdy contextual condition that enhances their PsyCap. We continue to argue that, in its turn, high levels of PsyCap are predictive for work engagement; or in other words, PsyCap mediates the relationship between engaging leadership and work engagement.

How to explain the relationship between PsyCap and work engagement? Sweetman and Luthans [ 41 ] presented a conceptual model, which relates PsyCap to work engagement through positive emotions. They argue that all four elements of PsyCap may have a direct and state-like relationship with each of the three dimensions of work engagement (vigor, dedication, and absorption). Furthermore, an upward spiral of PsyCap and work engagement may be a source of positive emotion and subsequently broaden an employee’s growth mindset, leading to higher energy and engagement [ 42 , 43 ]. In short, PsyCap prompts and maintains a motivational process that leads to higher work engagement and may ultimately result in positive outcomes, such as job satisfaction and organizational commitment [ 44 ].

Psychological capital is a valuable resource to individuals [ 45 ] that fosters work engagement, as demonstrated in past research [ 46 ]. Hence, following the reasoning above, we formulate the following hypothesis:

  • Hypothesis 1: Psychological capital (self-efficacy , optimism , resiliency , and flexibility) mediates the relationship between T1 employee’s perceptions of engaging leadership and T2 work engagement .

Engaging leadership, team resources, and work team effectiveness (team level)

So far, we focused on individual-level mediation, but an equivalent mediation process is expected at the aggregated team level as well. We assume that leaders display a comparable leadership style toward the entire team, resulting in a similar relationship with each of the team members. This model of leader-follower interactions is known as the average leadership style (ALS) [ 47 ]. This means that homogeneous leader-follower interactions exist within teams, but relationships of leaders with followers may differ between teams. The relationships between leadership and team effectiveness might be based on an analogous, team-based ALS-approach as well [ 48 ]. Following this lead, we posit that team members share their perceptions of engaging leadership, while this shared perception differs across teams. Moreover, we assume that these shared perceptions are positively related to team effectiveness.

An essential role for leaders is to build team resources, which motivate team members and enable them to perform. Indeed, the influence of leader behaviors on team mediators and outcomes has been extensively documented [ 49 , 50 ].

Most studies use the heuristic input-process-output (IPO) framework [ 51 ] to explain the relationship between leadership (input) and team effectiveness (output), whereby the intermediate processes describe how team inputs are transformed into outputs. It is widely acknowledged that two types of team processes play a significant role: “taskwork” (i.e., functions that team members must perform to achieve the team’s task) and “teamwork” (i.e., the interaction between team members, necessary to achieve the team’s task). Taskwork is encouraged by task-oriented leadership behaviors that focus on task accomplishment. In contrast, teamwork is encouraged by person-oriented leadership behaviors that focus on developing team members and promoting interactions between them [ 49 ]. The current paper focuses on teamwork and person-oriented (i.e., engaging) leadership.

Collectively, team resources such as performance feedback, trust in management, communication between team members, and participation in decision-making constitute a supportive team climate that is conducive for employee growth and development, and hence fosters team effectiveness, as well as individual work engagement. This also meshes with Serrano and Reichard [ 33 ], who argue that for employees to flourish, leaders should design meaningful and motivating work (e.g., through feedback and participation in decision making) and facilitate rewarding and supportive coworker relations (e.g., through communication and trust in management).

To date, engaging leadership has not been studied at the team level and concerning team resources and team effectiveness. How should the association between engaging leadership and team resources be conceived? By strengthening, engaging leaders provide their team members with performance feedback; by inspiring, they grant their team members participate in decision making; and by connecting, they foster communication between team members and install trust. Please note that team resources refer to shared, individual perceptions of team members, which are indicated by within-team consensus. Therefore, taken as a whole, the team-level resources that are included in the present study constitute a supportive team climate that is characterized by receiving feedback, trust in management, communication amongst team members, and participating in decision-making. We have seen above that engaging leaders foster team resources, but how are these resources, in their turn, related to team effectiveness?

The multi-goal, multi-level model of feedback effects of DeShon and colleagues [ 52 ] posits that individual and team regulatory processes govern the allocation of effort invested in achieving individual and team goals, resulting in individual and team effectiveness. We posit that the shared experience of receiving the team leader’s feedback prompts team members to invest efforts in achieving team tasks, presumably through team regulatory processes, as postulated in the multi-goal, multi-level model.

Trust has been defined as: “the willingness of a party to be vulnerable to the actions of another party based on the expectation that the other party will perform a particular action to the trustor, irrespective of the ability to monitor or control that other party” (p. 712) [ 53 ]. Using a multilevel mediation model, Braun and colleagues [ 54 ] showed that trust mediates the relationship between transformational leadership and performance at the team level. They reasoned that transformational leaders take into account a team member’s needs, goals, and interests, making them more willing to be vulnerable to their supervisor. This would apply even more for engaging leaders, which is defined in terms of satisfying basic follower’s needs. It is plausible that a team’s shared trust in its leader enhances the trust of team members in each other. That means that team members interact and communicate trustfully and rely on each other’s abilities, which, in turn, is conducive for team effectiveness [ 55 ].

Communication is a crucial element of effective teamwork [ 56 ]. Team members must exchange information to ascertain other members’ competence and intentions, and they must engage in communication to develop a strategy and plan their work. Several studies have shown that effectively gathering and exchanging information is essential for team effectiveness [ 57 , 58 ]. Furthermore, participation in decision-making is defined as joint decision-making [ 59 ] and involves sharing influence between team leaders and team members. By participating in decision-making, team members create work situations that are more favorable to their effectiveness. Team members utilize participating in decision-making for achieving what they desire for themselves and their team. Generally speaking, shared mental models are defined as organized knowledge structures that allow employees to interact successfully with their environment, and therefore lead to superior team performance [ 60 ]. That is, team members with a shared mental model about decision-making are ‘in sync’ and will easily coordinate their actions, whereas the absence of a shared mental model will result in process loss and ineffective team processes.

Taken together and based on the previous reasoning, we formulate the second hypothesis as follows:

  • Hypothesis 2: Team resources (performance feedback , trust in management , team communication , and participation in decision-making) mediate the relationship between T1 team member’s shared perceptions of engaging leadership and T2 team effectiveness .

Engaging leadership, team resources, and work engagement (cross-level)

Engaging leaders build team resources (see above). Or put differently, the team member’s shared perceptions of engaging leadership are positively related to team resources. Besides, we also assume that these team resources positively impact work engagement at the individual level. A plethora of research has shown that various job resources are positively related to work engagement, including feedback, trust, communication, and participation in decision- making (for a narrative overview see [ 61 ]; for a meta-analysis see [ 62 , 63 ]). Most research that found this positive relationship between job resources and work engagement used the Job-Demands Resources model [ 5 ] that assumes that job resources are inherently motivating because they enhance personal growth and development and are instrumental in achieving work goals. Typically, these resources are assessed as perceived by the individual employee. Yet, as we have seen above, perceptions of resources might also be shared amongst team members. It is plausible that these shared resources, which collectively constitute a supportive, collaborative team climate, positively impact employee’s individual work engagement. Teams that receive feedback, have trust in management, whose members amply interact and communicate, and participate in decision-making are likely to produce work engagement. This reasoning agrees with Schaufeli [ 64 ], who showed that organizational growth climate is positively associated with work engagement, also after controlling for personality. When employee growth is deemed relevant by the organization this is likely to translate, via engaging leaders, into a supportive team environment, which provides feedback, trust, communication, and participative decision-making. Hence, we formulate:

  • Hypothesis 3: Team resources (performance feedback , trust in management , team communication , and participation in decision-making) mediate the relationship between team shared perceptions of engaging leadership at T1 and individual team member’s work engagement at T2 .

Sample and procedure

In collaboration with the HR department, data were collected among all employees of a business unit of a large Dutch public service agency. This agency is responsible for the administration of unemployment benefits and work incapacitation claims, as well as for the rehabilitation and return to work of unemployed and incapacitated employees. A one-year time-lagged design was applied to minimize the likelihood of common method variance effects and to explore causal relationships among the study variables [ 65 ]. The questionnaire included a cover letter reporting the aims and contents of the study. The letter also stated that participation in the study was completely voluntary, and that one can withdraw from the study at any time without having to give explanations and without this involving any disadvantage or prejudice. Participants’ consent was concluded by conduct, through ticking the consent checkbox as a prerequisite to access the questionnaire. This research was conducted in 2015, thus before the publication of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and complied with the latest version of the Declaration of Helsinki. Thus, ethics approval was not compulsory, as per applicable institutional and national Dutch guidelines. Additionally, the current study did not involve any treatment, medical diagnostics, or procedures generating psychological or social discomfort among participants.

In the first survey at Time 1 ( N = 2,304; response rate 63%), employees were asked about their socio-demographic background, engaging leadership, team resources (i.e., performance feedback, trust in management, communication, and participation in decision-making), team effectiveness, personal resources (i.e., resiliency, optimism, and flexibility), and work engagement. At Time 2 ( N = 2,183; response rate 51%), participants filled out the same survey, which included an additional self-efficacy scale. At both measurement points, participants received an email from the HR department containing a link that allowed them to fill out the online survey. This introductory email provided background information about the study’s general aim and guaranteed that participants’ responses would be treated confidentiality. A sample of N = 1,048 employees filled out the questionnaire twice, with an interval of one year between T1 and T2.

The estimation of multilevel models with at least 50 teams of at least 5 members per group is strongly recommended to avoid underestimating standard errors and variances for random effects [ 66 , 67 ]. Therefore, participants being part of teams with less than 5 employees were excluded from the analyses. Accordingly, the data of 1,048 participants, who completed both questionnaires, could be linked and constitute the current study sample. Employees were nested within 90 work teams, with an average of 13.7 ( SD = 5.72) employees per team. Slightly more women (51.8%) as men were included (48.2%), the average age of the sample was 49.70 years ( SD = 7.46), and the mean organization tenure was 12.02 years ( SD = 9.56).

All measures described below were rated using five-point scales that either ranged from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5), or from never (1) to always (5). The internal consistencies (Cronbach’s α) of the measures are displayed on the diagonal of Table 2 .

Engaging Leadership was measured using a scale developed by Schaufeli [ 64 ] including nine items. This questionnaire contains three subscales of three items each: Inspiring, Strengthening, and Connecting. Sample items are: “My supervisor is able to enthuse others for his/her plans” (inspiring); “My supervisor delegates tasks and responsibilities” (strengthening); and “My supervisor encourages team members to cooperate” (connecting).

Individual-level measures.

Optimism was measured with three items from the Optimism scale of the PsyCap Questionnaire developed by Luthans and colleagues [ 36 ], which is aimed at assessing employees’ expectations about future success at work because of a positive view of their job. A sample item is: “I always look on the bright side of things regarding my job”.

Resiliency was assessed using three items from the Resiliency scale of the PsyCap Questionnaire [ 36 ]. These items refer to employees’ beliefs about their ability to recover from uncertainty and failure and to react successfully to setbacks that can occur at work. A sample item is: "I usually take stressful things at work in stride”.

Self-efficacy referred to the perceived capability to efficiently plan and implement courses of action required to attain a specific work goal and was measured using three items from Mazzetti, Schaufeli, and Guglielmi [ 68 ]. A sample item is: "At work, I reach my goal even when unexpected situations arise".

Flexibility refers to the individual ability to adapt to changes in the workplace and to modify one’s schedules and plans to meet job requirements. It was assessed by using three items: "If the job requires, I am willing to change my schedule”; “I do not have problems changing the way I work” and “I adapt easily to changes at work”.

Work engagement was assessed using a three-item scale developed by Schaufeli and colleagues [ 69 ]. This ultra-short version of the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale has similar psychometric properties as the nine-item version. A sample item is: "At my work, I feel bursting with energy”.

Team-level measures.

Performance feedback was assessed by the three-item scale from the Questionnaire on the Experience and Evaluation of Work (QEEW) [ 70 ]. A sample item is: “Do you get enough information about the result of your work?”.

Trust in Management of team members was assessed using two items from Schaufeli [ 7 ]: “I trust the way my organization is managed”, and “I have confidence in my immediate supervisor”. Following the recommendations from Eisinga and colleagues [ 71 ] we computed the Spearman-Brown coefficient, since it represents the most appropriate reliability coefficient for a two-item scale ( r s = .43, p < .001).

Communication , meaning the perception of an efficient and prompt circulation of information at the team level was measured using the three-item Communication scale taken from the QEEW [ 70 ]. A sample item is: "I am sufficiently informed about the developments within my team”.

Participation in decision-making was measured by a single item (i.e., “Can you participate in decision making about work-related issues?”) from the QEEW [ 70 ].

Team effectiveness . The team-level criterion variable was assessed with a three-item scale [ 8 ]. A sample item is: “Do you cooperate effectively with others in your team?”.

In order to check for systematic dropout, the social-demographic background, as well as the scores on the study variables were compared of those employees in the panel who filled out the questionnaire twice at T1 and T2 ( N = 1,142) and those who dropped out and filled out the questionnaire only once at T1 ( N = 1,161). It appeared that compared to the group who dropped out, the panel group was slightly younger (t (2301) = -2.21; p < .05) and had less organizational tenure (t (2301) = -4.05; p < .001). No gender differences were observed between both groups (χ 2 = .88; n . s .). A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) that included all study variables revealed a significant between-groups effect: F (12,2291) = 3.54, p < .001. Subsequent univariate tests showed that compared to the dropouts, the panel group scored higher on inspiring (F (1,2302) = 14.90, p < .001), strengthening (F (1,2302) = 9.39, p < .01), and connecting leadership (F (1,2302) = 14.90, p < .05), as well as on optimism (F (1,2302) = 5.59, p < .05), flexibility (F (1,2302) = 12.56, p < .001), work engagement (F (1,2302) = 9.16, p < .05), performance feedback (F (1,2302) = 11.68, p < .01), and participation in decision making (F (1,2302) = 8.83, p < .05). No significant differences were found for resiliency, trust in management, communication, and team effectiveness.

It seems that, taken together, the panel group is slightly younger and less tenured, and scores more favorable than the dropouts on most study variables. However, the differences between both groups are relatively small and vary between 0 and .13 on a 5-point scale. Therefore, it is not likely that systematic dropout has influenced the results of the current study.

Control variables.

At the individual level, we controlled for the potential confounding effects of gender, age, and tenure by including these variables as covariates in our analyses. More specifically, the impact of age was controlled for because previous research suggested that older employees report higher levels of personal resources [ 72 ] and work engagement [ 73 ]. Gender was also included as a control variable because previous research suggested that compared to women, men score lower on work engagement [ 74 ] and higher on personal resources, such as optimism and self-efficacy [ 75 ]. Finally, previous investigations also revealed that job tenure may affect employees’ level and stability of work engagement, with tenured employees reporting higher and more stable levels of work engagement compared to newcomers [ 76 ]. Besides, Barbier and colleagues [ 77 ] suggested that job tenure might affect employees’ personal resources (i.e., self-esteem and optimism). Considering this empirical evidence, job tenure was also included as a covariate in our model.

Data aggregation.

Our research model includes the three dimensions of engaging leadership (i.e., inspiring, strengthening, and connecting) three team resources (i.e., performance feedback, trust in management, communication and participation in decision-making), and one outcome (i.e., team effectiveness) at the team level of analysis. To check the reliability and validity of aggregated scores at the team level, four indices were computed [ 78 ]: (1) ICC [1] , which indicates the proportion of variance in ratings due to team membership; (2) ICC [2] , representing the reliability of between-groups differences; (3) r wg(j) , that measures the level of agreement within work teams; (4) deff , that measures the effect of independence violations on the estimation of standard errors through the formula 1+(average cluster size-1)*ICC [ 79 ]. Generally speaking, values greater than .05 for ICC [1] [ 80 ] and .40 for ICC [2] [ 81 ] an r wg(j) higher than .70, and a deff- index exceeding 2 are considered a prerequisite for aggregating data [ 78 ]. Moreover, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed to explore whether participants’ scores on the Level 2 constructs differed significantly among work teams. The results of the aggregation tests are displayed in Table 1 . Taken together, these results justify the aggregation of the team-level variables.

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0269433.t001

Strategy of analysis

To test our hypotheses, a multilevel structural equation modeling (MSEM) was tested using the Mplus 7 statistical modeling software [ 82 ]. The application of this procedure allows the inclusion of latent variables that take measurement errors into account and permits the simultaneous estimation of mediation effects at the individual and team levels; therefore, it is superior to stepwise approaches [ 83 ]. As suggested by Zhang and colleagues [ 84 ], predictors at the individual level (i.e., engaging leadership dimensions and personal resources) were team-mean centered using a centering within context – CWC approach [ 85 ]. This procedure was aimed at preventing the confounding effect of mediation within and between work teams. In other words, predictors at the individual level for subject i were centered around the mean of the cluster j to which case i belongs (i.e., predictor ij —M predictor j ). Accordingly, the latent engaging leadership factor at within-level was indicated by the CWC means of the three dimensions of engaging leadership (i.e., inspiring cwc , strengthening cwc , and connecting cwc ) at T1. In a similar vein, personal resources were included as a latent variable indicated by the observed levels of optimism cwc , reisliency cwc , self-efficacy cwc , and flexibility cwc at T2. Finally, T2 work engagement was included as an observed variable equal to the mean score of the corresponding scale. As previously stated, gender, age, and organizational tenure were included as covariates at the individual level of the MSEM model.

At the team level, the latent measure of engaging leadership at T1 was assessed through the observed scores on the three dimensions of inspiring, strengthening, and connecting leadership. T2 team resources were modeled as a single latent factor indicated by the observed scores on performance feedback, trust in management, communication, and participation in decision-making. The observed mean score on T2 team effectiveness was modeled as the team level criterion variable.

At the individual level, the mediation was tested by considering path a , from T1 individual perceptions of engaging leadership (X) to T2 personal resources (M) and path b , from T2 personal resources to T2 work engagement (Y), controlling for X → Y. At the team level, the same procedure was applied considering path c , linking team perceptions of T1 engaging leadership (X) and T2 team resources (M) and path d , from T2 team resources to T2 team effectiveness (Y).

The individual and team-level perceptions of engaging leadership were assessed at T1. In contrast, the mediating variables (i.e., psychological capital and team resources), and the outcomes (i.e., work engagement and team effectiveness) were measured at T2.

Preliminary analysis

Before testing our hypotheses, a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed using the maximum likelihood method of estimation using the software package AMOS 21.0 [ 86 ]. This preliminary analysis was aimed at assessing redundancy between the constructs under investigation. For the team level, engaging leadership was included as a latent factor indicated by the observed team levels of inspiring, strengthening, and connecting leadership dimensions. The measured performance feedback levels indicated the latent team resources factor, trust in management, communication, and participation in decision-making. Team effectiveness, assessed as a criterion variable at the team level, was indicated by a single corresponding item. At the individual level, the group-mean centered scores on inspiring, strengthening, and connecting dimensions were considered indicators of the latent engaging leadership factor. Besides, optimism, resiliency, self-efficacy, and flexibility were included as indicators for the single personal resources latent factor; the observed average score on work engagement was used for assessing the corresponding latent variable. The model fit was assessed by considering the comparative fit index (CFI) and Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) ≥ .95, Root-Mean-Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) ≤ .06, and Standardized Root-Mean-Square Residual (SRMR) ≤ .08 [ 87 , 88 ]. According to these criteria, the hypothesized measurement model showed a good fit to the data, with χ 2 (91) = 465.09, CFI = .96, TLI = .95, RMSEA = .06, and SRMR = .03. Moreover, all indicators showed significant factor loadings on their respective latent factors ( p < .001) with λ values ranging from .51 to .95, thus exceeding the commonly accepted criterion of .50 [ 89 ]. Hence, these results support the assumption that the study variables were non-redundant and adequately distinct from each other.

Model testing

The means, standard deviations, correlations, and internal consistencies for all study variables are displayed in Table 2 . As expected, the constructs under investigation showed significant relationships in the hypothesized direction.

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0269433.t002

The hypothesized MSEM showed a good fit to data: χ 2 (60) = 155.38, CFI = .97, TLI = .96, RMSEA = .04, SRMR = 0.03 (within teams) and .08 (between teams). As displayed in Fig 2 , at the individual level the three indicators of engaging leadership loaded significantly on their intended latent factor, with λ = .83 ( p = .000, 95% CI = [.79, .87]) for inspiring, λ = .77 ( p < .001, 95% CI = [.73, .81]) for strengthening, and λ = .81 ( p < .001, 95% CI = [.78, .85]) for connecting. Similarly, the standardized factor loadings for the indicators of personal resources were all significant as well: λ = .74 ( p < .001, 95% CI = [.68, .79]) for optimism, λ = .68 ( p < .001, 95% CI = [.63, .72]) for resiliency λ = .68 ( p < .001, 95% CI = [.62, .74]) for self-efficacy, and λ = .64 ( p < .001, 95% CI = [.59, .69]) for flexibility.

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0269433.g002

The direct relationship between T1 engaging leadership and T2 work engagement was significant β = .16 ( p < .001, 95% CI = [.10, .22]). Moreover, results indicated that engaging leadership at T1 had a positive impact on personal resources at T2: γ = .27 ( p < .001, 95% CI = [.18, .37]). T2 personal resources, in turn, were positively associated with T2 work engagement: β = .55 ( p < .001, 95% CI = [.49, .62]). The estimated indirect effect of T1 engaging leadership on T2 work engagement via personal resources (i.e., a*b) was statistically significant: B (SE) = .19 (.04), p < .001, 95% CI [.11, .27]. Hence, personal resources (i.e., optimism, resiliency, self-efficacy, and flexibility) at T2 partially mediated the impact of T1 engaging leadership on employees’ engagement within work teams at T2. These findings provide partial support for Hypothesis 1 . Among the covariates included at the individual level, only gender and age showed a significant association with work engagement, with γ = -.10 ( p < .001, 95% CI = [-.15, -.05]) and γ = .10 ( p < .001, 95% CI = [.04, .16]), respectively.

At the team level, all factor loadings for the three indicators of engaging leadership on their corresponding latent variable were significant: λ = .95 ( p < .001, 95% CI = [.93, .99]) for inspiring, λ = .86 ( p < .001, 95% CI = [.80, .91]) for strengthening, and λ = .94 ( p < .001, 95% CI = [.90, .97]) for connecting. Additionally, the observed measure of each team resource loaded significantly on its intended latent variable: λ = .69 ( p < .001, 95% CI = [.56, .82]) for performance feedback, λ = .86 ( p < .001, 95% CI = [.78, .94]) for trust in management, λ = .89 ( p < .001, 95% CI = [.81, .97]) for communication, and λ = .71 ( p = .000, 95% CI = [.60, .82]) for participation in decision-making. Moreover, engaging leadership at T1 had a nonsignificant direct impact on team effectiveness at T2, with β = -.06 ( p = .641, 95% CI = [-.30, .19]). In contrast, team perception of engaging leadership at T1 had a positive impact on team resources at T2: γ = .59 ( p < .001, 95% CI = [.42, .75]). Team resources at T2 were, in turn, positively related to T2 team effectiveness, β = .38 ( p = .003, 95% CI = [.13, .62]). These results suggest full mediation and were supported by the estimation of the indirect effect of T1 engaging leadership on T2 team effectiveness via team resources at T2 (i.e., c*d): B (SE) = .18 (.07), p = .013, 95% CI [.04, .32]. Thus, Hypothesis 2 was fully supported.

Hence, in the current study team resources at T2 (i.e., performance feedback, trust in management, communication, and participation in decision-making) fully mediated the effect of T1 engaging leadership on T2 team effectiveness across different work teams. Moreover, T2 team resources (i.e., performance feedback, trust in management, team communication, and participation in decision-making) showed a significant cross-level effect on T2 individual team member’s level of engagement: β = .57 (p < .001, 195% CI = [.27, .87]). This result provided evidence for Hypothesis 3 .

The current study aimed to explore the role of individual and collective perceptions of engaging leadership in predicting team effectivity and work engagement. To this purpose, we developed a two-level research model using a two time-point design.

Main results

At the individual level, the obtained results suggest that psychological capital (i.e., the combination of self-efficacy, optimism, resiliency, and flexibility) partly mediated the longitudinal relationship between employees’ perceptions of engaging leadership and their levels of work engagement. In other words, team leaders perceived as inspiring, strengthening, and connecting could enhance their followers’ engagement directly and indirectly through an increase in psychological capital. Thus, engaging leaders could make their followers feel more optimistic, resilient, self-efficacious, and flexible. At the team level, a shared perception of engaging leadership was associated with a greater pool of team resources (i.e., performance feedback, trust in management, communication, and participation in decision-making), which contribute to define an open and supportive team climate that is conducive for employee growth and development. In their turn, these collective resources were positively related to the perceived effectiveness of work teams.

Hence, team resources at the team level fully mediated the relationship between engaging leadership and team effectiveness. That means that teams in which the leader is considered to be inspiring, strengthening, and connecting can draw upon more team resources, and could feel, in turn, more effective. Simultaneously, a significant cross-level mediation effect was found for team resources, meaning that they mediate the relationship between engaging leadership at team level and individual level work engagement. In other words, teams with engaging leaders are not only more effective at the team level, but they also report higher levels of work engagement among their members. These leaders create a team climate that fosters employee growth and development by providing performance feedback, installing trust, and stimulating communication and participation in decision-making.

Three different contributions.

Thus, three major conclusions can be drawn for the current study, which signifies its contribution to the literature. First, engaging leadership can be considered an individual-level construct (i.e., the perception of particular leadership behaviors by individual followers) and a collective, team-level construct (i.e., the shared perception of specific leadership behaviors among team members). As far as the latter is concerned, our results support the notion of an average leadership style (ALS) [ 47 ]; namely, that homogeneous leader-follower interactions exist within teams, but relationships of leaders with followers differ between teams.

Secondly, Individual-level engaging leadership predicts individual work engagement through increasing follower’s PsyCap. Previous research suggested a positive relationship between person-focused leadership styles and follower’s work engagement, albeit that virtually all studies were cross-sectional in nature (for an overview see [ 11 , 33 ]). Our study added longitudinal evidence for that relationship and hinted at an underlying psychological process by suggesting that psychological capital might play a mediating role. As such, the current study corroborates and extends a previous cross-sectional study that obtained similar results [ 8 ]. However, it should be noted that the present study used a slightly different operationalization of PsyCap as is usually employed [ 36 ]. In addition to the three core elements of optimism, resiliency, and self-efficacy, flexibility instead of hope was used as a constituting fourth element of PsyCap. The reason was that hope and optimism overlap both theoretically as well as empirically [ 35 ] and that flexibility–defined as the ability to readapt, divert from unsuccessful paths, and tackle unpredictable conditions that hinder employees’ goal attainment [ 8 ]–was deemed particularly relevant for public service agencies that are plagued by red tape. Our results indicate that engaging leaders strengthen followers’ sense of proficiency when developing a task-specific skill to reach challenging objectives (i.e., self-efficacy). They also encourage a favorable appraisal of the prevailing conditions and future goal achievement (i.e., optimism).

Furthermore, they enhance subordinates’ abilities to recover from failures and move beyond setbacks effectively (i.e., resiliency) through supporting an increased aptitude for adaption to unfamiliar work circumstances (i.e., flexibility). These results corroborate the assumption that leaders who inspire, strengthen, and connect their followers provide a stimulating work environment that enhances employees’ personal resources. In their turn, elevated levels of PsyCap mobilize employees’ energy and intrinsic motivation to perform, expressed by a high level of work engagement. This result concurs with previous evidence that PsyCap can be framed as a critical component of the motivational process of the JD-R model, namely as a mediator of the relationship between contextual resources (i.e., engaging leadership) and work engagement [ 46 ]. However, this mediation was only partial because a direct effect of engaging leadership on follower’s work engagement was also observed in the current study. This evidence is not surprising since previous research showed that other mediating factors (which were not included in the present study) played a role in explaining the relationship between leadership and work engagement. Among them, innovative work behaviors, meaningful work, role clarity, positive emotions, identification with the organization, and psychological ownership [ 11 ]. Thus, increasing their follower’s PsyCap is not the whole story as far as the impact of engaging leadership is concerned. It is likely that engaging leaders also impact these alternative mediating factors. If this is the case, this might explain why the additional variance in follower’s work engagement is explained by engaging leadership, as indicated by the direct effect.

Thirdly, team-level engaging leadership predicts work engagement of individual team members and team effectiveness through increasing team resources. An earlier cross-sectional study found that engaging leadership, as perceived by their followers, showed an indirect, positive effect on their work engagement level through an increase in job resources [ 7 ]. However, in that study, engaging leadership and job resources, including performance feedback, trust in management, communication, and participation in decision-making, were assessed at the individual and not at the aggregated team level. This means that the current study corroborates previous findings at the aggregated team level, using a longitudinal design. It is important to note that employees’ level of work engagement not only depends on individual-level processes (through the increase in PsyCap) but also on collective processes (trough the rise in team resources). Finally, our findings concur with research on team climate, showing that leaders who endorse supportive relations between team members and create an open, empowering team climate enable employees to succeed [ 33 ]. Simultaneously, a team climate like that is also likely to foster personal growth and development, which, in turn, translates into greater work engagement [ 63 ].

Practical implications

Our study shows that engaging leadership matters, and therefore organizations are well-advised to stimulate their managers to lead by the principles of engaging leadership. To that end, organizations may implement leadership development programs [ 90 ], leadership coaching [ 91 ], or leadership workshops [ 92 ]. Previous research has shown that leadership behaviors are malleable and subject to change using professional training [ 93 – 95 ]. Furthermore, leaders may want to establish and promote an open and trusting team climate in which employees feel free to express their needs and preferences [ 96 , 97 ].

Accordingly, our study shows that this climate is conducive not only for work engagement but also for team effectiveness. Finally, our results also suggest that psychological capital is positively associated with work engagement, so that it would make sense to increase this personal resource, mainly because PsyCap is state-like and open to development through instructional programs [ 45 ]. For instance, a short PsyCap Intervention (PCI) has been developed by Luthans and colleagues, which is also available as a web-based version for employees [ 98 ]. PCI focuses on: (a) acquiring and modifying self–efficacy beliefs; (b) developing realistic, constructive, and accurate beliefs; (c) designing goals, pathway generation, and strategies for overcoming obstacles; and (d) identifying risk factors, and positively influencing processes.

Strengths, limitations, and directions for future research

A significant strength of the current study is its design that combines a multilevel investigation of engaging leadership with mediating processes at the individual and team levels. This is in line with the claim that leadership research suffers from a lack of theoretical and empirical differentiation between levels of analysis [ 99 ]. However, leadership is an inherently multilevel construct in nature [ 9 ]. Although the current findings shed light on the role of the emergent construct of engaging leadership, both regarding individuals and teams, an exciting venue for future research involves exploring its predictive validity in comparison with traditional leadership models. This concurrent validation would adhere to the recommendations accompanying the introduction of new leadership constructs in the face of the risk of construct proliferation [ 16 ].

A further strength of the current study is its large sample size, including 1,048 employees nested within 90 work teams. Moreover, data were collected at two time points with a one-year time lag that was considered long enough for the effects of engaging leadership to occur. In contrast with widespread cross-sectional studies that sometimes draw unjustified conclusions on the corollaries of leadership [ 100 ], the current research relied on a longitudinal design to better understand the consequences of engaging leadership at the individual and team level of analysis. According to our results, engaging leadership indeed shows a positive effect across time on outcomes at the individual (i.e., work engagement) and team level (i.e., team effectiveness).

Along with its strengths, the current study also has some limitations that should be acknowledged. The main weakness of the current study lies in the homogeneity of the sample, which consisted of employees working in a Dutch public service agency. This specific work setting prevents us from generalizing the findings of our research with other occupational groups. However, focusing on an organization where most activities are conducted in teams permits independent but simultaneous assessment of the impact of (engaging) leadership on the perceived pool of resources among teams and workers, as suggested by current trends in leadership literature [ 101 , 102 ].

Furthermore, the collection of data at different time points overcomes the inherent weakness of a cross-sectional design, yet a design including at least three data waves would have provided superior support for the hypothesized mediated relationships. Based on within-group diary studies [ 103 , 104 ], it can, on the one hand, be argued that leadership might impact the team and personal resources within a much shorter time frame. On the other hand, work engagement represents a persistent psychological state that is not susceptible to sudden changes in the short term [ 1 ]. Thus, the chosen one-year time lag can be considered reasonable for a between-group study to detect the impact of engaging leadership accurately. This impact needs some time to unfold. An additional limitation of this study entails measuring individual and team resources with only a few items. Nevertheless, all scales had an internal consistency value that met the threshold of .65 [ 105 ] with an average Cronbach’s alpha value equal to .81.

Concluding remark

Despite the novelty of the construct, the emerging research on engaging leadership suggests the potential value of a theoretically sound leadership model that could foster followers’ engagement. While earlier findings showed that engaging leadership is positively associated with the employee’s level of engagement [ 7 , 8 ], the current study suggested that engaging leadership could predict work engagement and team effectiveness. More specifically, being exposed to a leader who inspires, strengthens and connects team members may foster a shared perception of greater availability of team resources (i.e., performance feedback, trust in management, communication, and participation in decision-making), as well as greater psychological capital (i.e., self-efficacy, optimism, resilience, and flexibility). Hence, engaging leadership could play a significant role in the processes leading to work engagement at both the team and the individual levels.

Supporting information

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0269433.s001

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Shared leadership and team effectiveness: an investigation of whether and when in engineering design teams.

\r\nQiong Wu*

  • 1 School of Business, Macau University of Science and Technology, Macau, China
  • 2 Lero – The Irish Software Research Centre, School of Engineering, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland

Shared leadership is lauded to be a performance-enhancing approach with applications in many management domains. It is conceptualized as a dynamic team process as it evolves over time. However, it is surprising to find that there are no studies that have examined its temporally relevant boundary conditions for the effectiveness of the team. Contributing to an advanced understanding of the mechanism of shared leadership in engineering design teams, this research aims to investigate whether shared leadership is positively related to team effectiveness and when shared leadership is more likely to be effective. Using a field sample of 119 individuals in 26 engineering design teams from China and the technique of social network analysis, we found that, consistent with cognate studies, shared leadership is positively related to team effectiveness when measured in terms of team task performance and team viability. Moreover, by integrating the project life cycle as a moderator, this study is among the first to investigate the temporal factors, for the effectiveness of shared leadership. The result shows that the stage of the project life cycle moderates the positive shared leadership-team effectiveness relationship, such that this association is stronger at the early phase than at the later phase of the project. Overall, these findings offer insightful thoughts to scholars in the field of shared leadership and bring practical suggestions for project managers in business who seek to implement best practice in organizations toward high team effectiveness.

Introduction

In recent years, leadership researchers have emphasized a team-level phenomenon, where leadership is carried out by the team as a whole, rather than exclusively by those at the top or by those in formal leadership positions ( Carson et al., 2007 ; Pearce et al., 2014 ). As such, the notion of shared leadership has gained more traction in the extant literature. By definition, shared leadership is described as “a dynamic, interactive influence process among individuals in groups for which the objective is to lead one another to the achievement of group or organizational goals or both” ( Pearce and Conger, 2003 , p. 1). As Acar (2010) noted, shared leadership represents a fundamental shift away from the notion of a single, appointed leader, to the idea that team members mutually influence each other and collectively share leadership roles, responsibilities and functions. Recent empirical work has provided evidence for the important role of shared leadership in groups ( Nielsen and Daniels, 2012 ; Nicolaides et al., 2014 ; Sousa and Van Dierendonck, 2016 ; Sun et al., 2016 ). More interestingly, some studies have even found that shared leadership is more influential than convectional vertical leadership for team effectiveness ( Pearce and Sims, 2002 ; Ensley et al., 2006 ). However, our understanding of whether shared leadership is positively related to team effectiveness and when shared leadership is more likely to be effective is still limited in at least three fundamental ways.

First, in recent years, researchers and practitioners have advocated the benefits of shared leadership as a way to promote team effectiveness. For example, Ramthun and Matkin (2012) stated that shared leadership is often advantageous, since members are more likely to follow the person having the best knowledge and skills than depending solely on the vertical influence process of traditional leadership. Indeed, many other empirical studies have also demonstrated that teams with shared leadership yield higher team effectiveness ( Pearce and Sims, 2002 ; Wang et al., 2014 ; Serban and Roberts, 2016 ). However, we must caution that this is not always the case. Fausing et al. (2013) and Mehra et al. (2006) failed to find support for this significant and positive relationship, and Boies et al. (2011) even found that shared leadership exerts a negative influence on team effectiveness. Such inconsistent findings point to the need for more empirical evidence. Therefore, in order to enrich our understanding of the value of shared leadership, the first purpose of our study is to explicitly examine the shared leadership – team effectiveness relationship. In this study, we define team effectiveness as the extent to which teams meet the expectations of organizations ( Essens et al., 2009 ). This viewpoint encourages us to think about team effectiveness from a multidimensional perspective. Consequently, we follow Aube and Rousseau (2005) , Balkundi and Harrison (2006) , and Mathieu et al. (2008) , who consider team effectiveness from two distinct aspects: team task performance and team viability. Team task performance refers to how well the group meets (or even exceeds) work expectations while team viability is the potential of teams to retain its members and to function effectively over time ( Balkundi and Harrison, 2006 ).

Second, in order to gain a more fine-grained understanding of the impacts of shared leadership, unanswered questions must be addressed. More specifically, there is a clear need to investigate the temporally relevant moderators for its effectiveness. Researchers have emphasized that shared leadership is a dynamic, emergent, time-varying construct ( Avolio et al., 2009 ) that is affected by the environment of a team ( Carson et al., 2007 ; Wu et al., 2020 ) and task characteristics ( Serban and Roberts, 2016 ; Hans and Gupta, 2018 ). Therefore, continuous changes in the inputs, processes and outputs of different phases of the project life cycle could influence the emergence of shared leadership in teams ( Wu and Cormican, 2016 ) as well as its relationship with team effectiveness. However, the potential moderating impact of the project life cycle for the effectiveness of shared leadership is not well theoretically developed nor rigorously empirically tested. This important unaddressed gap needs further attention so as to provide insights into the boundary conditions regarding when shared leadership is more or less influential to team effectiveness. Consequently, the second research goal is to focus on the dynamic nature of shared leadership and investigate the moderating effect of the project life cycle in the relationship between shared leadership and team effectiveness.

Third, although there is growing interest in the shared leadership domain, studies concentrating on project teams are still limited and under-developed ( Scott-Young et al., 2019 ). Shared leadership theory has been widely spread and applied across a range of team types, e.g., top management teams ( Singh et al., 2019 ), entrepreneurial teams ( Zhou, 2016 ), consulting teams ( Carson et al., 2007 ), and change management teams ( Pearce and Sims, 2002 ). However, there is a dearth of investigations relating to project teams. While the current workplace is becoming increasingly project-centric ( Scott-Young et al., 2019 ), there remain very few studies focusing on shared leadership theory in the project management context. In order to extend the external validity of the shared leadership construct in project settings, this study examines the effectiveness of shared leadership in project-based engineering design teams. Moreover, as project teams uniquely have definitive start and end times based on the duration of the tasks ( Farh et al., 2010 ), it is well suited to help explain when shared leadership is more likely to be effective in teams.

Taken together, this research seeks to enrich our understanding of the mechanisms of shared leadership and investigates whether and when shared leadership is positively related to team effectiveness in engineering design teams. To do this, we used the social network approach to measure the construct of shared leadership by calculating network density and creating binary matrices as well as sociograms. Team effectiveness was measured using nine items consisting of two separate, theoretically derived subscales: team task performance and team viability . Moreover, an internal consistency analysis and confirmatory factor analysis was performed to assess the reliability and validity of our measurement model. We then conducted a two-way moderated hierarchical regression analysis ( Carson et al., 2007 ; Erkutlu, 2012 ; Fausing et al., 2013 ) in this study so as to test hypotheses proposed. By doing so, our study makes several significant contributions: (1) it extends a line of research and explicitly examines the relationship between shared leadership and team effectiveness; (2) it builds on the dynamic nature of shared leadership and is among the first to investigate an important temporal moderator, the project life cycle, for the effectiveness of shared leadership; (3) it adds to the academic debate by extending the external validity of shared leadership theory in engineering design teams; (4) it brings insightful thoughts to the field of project management by providing practical suggestions for project managers in business who seek to implement best practice in their organizations.

Theory and Hypotheses

Shared leadership theory.

Leadership scholars have realized the importance of shared leadership and worked to understand how to conceptualize it, measure it, and to assess what impacts it brings to teams. Table 1 presents details of relevant prior empirical studies. As illustrated, conceptually, shared leadership is a team-centric phenomenon ( Ensley et al., 2006 ; Serban and Roberts, 2016 ) whereby team members engage in “leadership roles and responsibilities on behalf of the team” ( Robert and You, 2018 , p. 503), and “accepts their colleagues’ leadership” ( Aubé et al., 2017 , p. 199). Furthermore, shared leadership is not a static process; it is defined as an emergent, dynamic phenomenon that unfolds over time ( Avolio et al., 2009 ; Drescher et al., 2014 ; Wang et al., 2014 ). According to Carson et al. (2007) , shared leadership is considered in terms of a continuum ranging from low to high, which implies that shared leadership is not a rigid either-or category, but occurs in every group at various levels ( Liu et al., 2014 ).

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Table 1. Definitions, measures, and impacts of shared leadership.

While progress has been made relating to the definitions of shared leadership, many empirical studies have centered on what impacts shared leadership brings. As shown in Table 1 , the positive relationship between shared leadership and team performance has received much attention ( Sivasubramaniam et al., 2002 ; Ensley et al., 2006 ; Mehra et al., 2006 ; Carson et al., 2007 ; Drescher et al., 2014 ). Additionally, shared leadership is also demonstrated to be positively related to team functioning ( Bergman et al., 2012 ), team proactive behavior ( Erkutlu, 2012 ), team and individual learning ( Liu et al., 2014 ), team member’ diversity and emotional conflict ( Acar, 2010 ), team members’ trust, autonomy and satisfaction ( Robert and You, 2018 ). These findings are encouraging and suggest the need for more sophisticated designs on the notion of shared leadership. Accordingly, this study extends a line of research to further examine its relationship with team effectiveness and goes beyond simple relationships to investigate when shared leadership plays a stronger or weaker role in the effectiveness of teams. The relevant research hypotheses are proposed below.

Shared Leadership and Team Effectiveness

Based on the work of Aube and Rousseau (2005) , Balkundi and Harrison (2006) , and Mathieu et al. (2008) , team effectiveness is considered in terms of two distinct aspects: team task performance (how well the group meets (or even exceeds) work expectations) and team viability (the potential of teams to retain its members and to function effectively over time). This assessment conforms to the classic work of Barrick et al. (1998) , who suggested that a comprehensive assessment of team effectiveness should capture both current team effectiveness (i.e., present task performance) and future team effectiveness (i.e., capability to continue working together). Therefore, this research adopts a broad perspective to team effectiveness and explores the relationship between shared leadership and team effectiveness.

First of all, this study expects that shared leadership is positively associated with team task performance. As suggested by Day et al. (2004) , shared leadership advances the social capital of the team via the utilization of team resources such as the knowledge and capability of group members, which subsequently fosters team task performance. Katz and Kahn (1978) also proposed that when group members offer leadership to others and to the mission or purpose of their group, they bring more personal and organizational resources to the task, share more information, and they experience greater commitment. Further, when group members are influenced by their fellows, team functioning is improved as high levels of respect and trust are evidenced among group members. Collectively, teams exhibiting these characteristics, can also exhibit greater levels of performance ( Day et al., 2004 ). This premise aligns with many empirical studies (see Table 1 ). For instance, Carson et al. (2007) , in a study of 59 consulting teams, found that shared leadership is positively associated with team performance as rated by clients. Ensley et al. (2006) , in a study of 66 top management teams, demonstrated that shared leadership is a more significant predictor than vertical leadership of new venture performance when considered in terms of revenue and employee growth. Furthermore, Drescher et al. (2014) , in a longitudinal examination of 142 teams who engaged in a strategic simulation game, also demonstrated support for the positive influence of shared leadership on team task performance. Taken these together, this study proposes:

Hypothesis 1a: Shared leadership is positively related to team task performance in engineering design teams.

Shared leadership, as an important intangible resource available to teams ( Carson et al., 2007 ), fosters not only team task performance, but also team viability. As Wood and Fields (2007) suggested, shared leadership exerts a series of positive impacts on team members’ job perceptions: it brings low levels of role overload, role conflict, role ambiguity and job stress, as well as high levels of job satisfaction. Similarly, Bergman et al. (2012) also demonstrated that teams with shared leadership experience less conflict, greater consensus, and higher intragroup trust and cohesion. This may foster team viability as members in shared leadership teams experience increased interdependence, more collaboration, and they sense greater levels of satisfaction. Additionally, when there is effective coordination and collaboration among team members fulfilling leadership responsibilities, it is easier for them to identify the potential causes of conflicts and propose potential solutions. It thus reduces the amount of conflict and promotes team consensus and trust ( Balkundi and Harrison, 2006 ). As a consequence, team viability, which retains members and maintains good team functioning over time, could be enhanced. This research therefore posits:

Hypothesis 1b: Shared leadership is positively related to team viability in engineering design teams.

Taken these two hypotheses (hypothesis 1a and 1b) together, this study expects that shared leadership will foster team effectiveness by enhancing team task performance and team viability. As Wang et al. (2014) suggested, shared leadership nurtures a collective identity among members of the team and strengthens the level of engagement with and commitment to the group, which in turn enhances team effectiveness. Moreover, Mathieu et al. (2015) mentioned that shared leadership fosters social inclusion and enhances team cohesion, which can, subsequently, facilitate team effectiveness. In light of this, this research suggests:

Hypothesis 1c: Shared leadership is positively related to team effectiveness in engineering design teams.

The Moderating Role of the Project Life Cycle

Notwithstanding the fact that research on the relationship between shared leadership and team effectiveness brings valuable insights into the understanding of shared leadership in teams, there is an important omission in prior studies regarding its temporal moderating roles on such a relationship ( Carson et al., 2007 ; D’Innocenzo et al., 2014 ; Wang et al., 2014 ). In an attempt to open the black box, this study seeks to examine a potential moderator of shared leadership, namely the project life cycle, and expects that the positive association between shared leadership and team effectiveness will be stronger at the early phase than the later phase of the project. This is because the focal concern of the early stage is toward planning and strategy generation ( Chang et al., 2003 ; Farh et al., 2010 ), where project team members are more willing to engage in mutual leadership as they become proactively involved in constructive communication and decision-making ( Wu and Cormican, 2016 ). It thus allows individuals to bring more resources to the task, share more information, and to experience higher levels of commitment ( Bergman et al., 2012 ). Collectively, these consequences would result in greater team effectiveness ( Day et al., 2004 ; D’Innocenzo et al., 2014 ). Furthermore, as time and resources are less constrained at the early stage ( Farh et al., 2010 ), members are able to take initiative to develop their own leadership abilities as well as to facilitate the leadership skills of others, which subsequently fosters the effectiveness of project teams ( Ensley et al., 2006 ; Serban and Roberts, 2016 ). However, when the project advances into the later stage, resources are dedicated to execute project plans ( Farh et al., 2010 ). This leads to a change in the leadership distribution from many team members to a few individuals, who assume the responsibility of integrating resources, controlling the development of the project to meet deadlines and keeping costs within budget ( Wu and Cormican, 2016 ). Teams may no longer afford to spend too much time cultivating a positive team environment to promote shared leadership ( Carson et al., 2007 ). As such, any potential of shared leadership for enhancing team effectiveness would be more difficult to realize in the later stage of the project life cycle. Therefore, this research expects that:

Hypothesis 2 : The stage of the project life cycle moderates the positive association between shared leadership and team effectiveness, such that this relationship will be stronger at the early phase than at the later phase of the project in engineering design teams.

Methodology

Research setting and sample.

A survey-based design was conducted in this study. The sample comprised 26 project-based engineering design teams working in the construction industry in China. As suggested by Carson et al. (2007) , shared leadership is effective for teams composed of knowledge-based employees, because people having high levels of expertise and skills seek autonomy in how they apply their specialties, and thus desire more opportunities to shape and participate in the leadership functions for their groups. Engineering design teams comprising knowledge workers have the potential to leverage the expertise of a diverse group of members by pooling their talent and knowledge. This kind of team is likely to nourish the emergence or development of shared leadership. This perspective thus adds to the academic debate on the relationship between shared leadership and team effectiveness and extends the external validity of shared leadership theory into engineering design teams. Moreover, we chose a Chinese sample due to the fact that the conceptualization and operationalization of shared leadership is predominantly developed in the Western countries (see Table 1 ) and it remains uncertain whether its theoretical models hold up in Chinese cultural settings. Furthermore, scholars, like Whetten (2009) , have called for more attention to be paid to explaining cultural context effects. Therefore, to plug this gap, this study seeks to extend the validity of the shared leadership construct to a Chinese context, whereby its organizational culture differs from Western countries. Specifically, according to Hofstede et al. (2005) , the power distance and collectivism in China are rated stronger than in Western cultures. Initially, a pilot test was conducted with 16 employees from three engineering design teams. Based on feedback provided, minor modifications to the survey items were made. Next, 146 members from 34 engineering design teams were invited to participate in this study. Of the 146 participants who received the questionnaire, 127 returned it, yielding an 87% response rate. Teams with less than three members were eliminated from the sample. It resulted in a sample of 119 employees working in 26 project teams. The average team size of the sample is 5.26. The specific participant demographics are outlined in the Table 2 .

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Table 2. Sample characteristics.

Shared Leadership

This research study adopted a social network approach to assess the nature of shared leadership. The social network technique is an intrinsically relational method that advocates a natural theoretical and analytical method to modeling the patterns of the relationships among interconnected individuals ( D’Innocenzo et al., 2014 ). This study used the most common index of social network analysis, network density, to explicitly measure the extent to which team members are perceived to be involved in the sharing of leadership ( Wang et al., 2014 ). This popular measurement was employed in many empirical studies of shared leadership ( Carson et al., 2007 ; Lee et al., 2015 ; Chiu et al., 2016 ; Serban and Roberts, 2016 ). Following Carson et al. (2007) , this study assessed the level of shared leadership by requiring every team member to rate each of his/her peers on the following question: “To what degree does your team rely on a particular individual for leadership?” A five-point Likert scale was used to measure the level of perceived leadership, where 1, represents “not at all,” and 5, “to a very great extent.” Network density was then calculated by summing all of the responses from group members divided by the total number of possible relations among group members ( Carson et al., 2007 ; Mathieu et al., 2015 ). The values of density ranged from 0 to 1, where higher values indicate higher degrees of shared leadership within a team. Furthermore, as shared leadership is a team-level phenomenon, agreement among the respondents’ ratings of group members was also measured thus proving appropriate interrater reliability [mean r wg = 0.75, ICC(1) = 0.44, ICC(2) = 0.77].

To visually represent the density of shared leadership, this study developed leadership sociograms for each sample team similar to Carson et al. (2007) and Pastor and Mayo (2002) . To do this, binary matrices were created, which were then used to quantify the degree of leadership influence for each team and to represent the presence or absence of leadership relations between pairs of team members. More specifically, the raw leadership ratings collected from each participant were aggregated and included in g × g squared matrices. These data were then dichotomized, where values of 4 (to a great extent) or 5 (to a very great extent) are considered as 1, and values of 3 and less are given a value of 0. The second step was to create leadership sociograms based on these binary matrices. Figure 1 shows the leadership sociograms in our study. Specifically, it illustrates three examples with low, middle and high levels of density of shared leadership networks. Among all of our sample data (26 engineering design teams), 0.52 is the lowest score, 0.66 is the medium score, and 0.75 is the highest score of network density. The nodes symbolize team members and the arrows represent leadership relations. One arrow points from team member (A) to member (B), indicating that B is perceived as a source of leadership by A. In this vein, two-headed arrows imply that two members perceive each other as a source of leadership.

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Figure 1. Leadership sociograms in this study. Low degree of shared leadership Medium degree of shared leadership (Network density = 0.52) (Network density = 0.66). High degree of shared leadership (Network density = 0.75).

Team Effectiveness

Team effectiveness was measured by team participants (including team leaders and members) via nine items consisting of two separate, theoretically derived subscales: team task performance and team viability using a five point Likert scale ranging from 1 “strongly disagree” to 5 “strongly agree.” Team task performance was assessed using five items derived from Sousa and Van Dierendonck (2016) and Suprapto et al. (2018) . It measures the degree to which the project meets its goals, quality, schedule, budget, and overall level of customer satisfaction. Team viability was measured using four items derived from Aube and Rousseau (2005) . These include the extent of a team’s capacity to solve problems, the ability to integrate new members, the ability to adapt to changes, as well as the ability to continue to work together in the future. In order to test for the discriminant validity, a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed. This yielded a good fit to the data (X 2 27 = 33.90, CFI = 0.99, GCI = 0.94, AGFI = 0.09, RMSEA = 0.05). These CFA results demonstrate the support for the hypothesized structure to measure team effectiveness. This study further examined the correlation between these two subscales to check the convergent validity of this measurement model. The finding provides evidence that these two subscales are highly correlated with each other ( r = 0.92, p < 0.001). Given the strong support of the hypothesized measurement model, this study aggregated these two subscales to the group level and then averaged the scores to generate a single variable to represent team effectiveness (Cronbach α = 0.95). To justify whether this aggregation is appropriate, this research used the interrater agreement statistic, r wg ( James et al., 1993 ). The mean r wg value of 0.82 was much larger than the conventional cut-off value of 0.70 ( James et al., 1993 ), which implies that on average, there is a high degree of agreement among different raters with a group. Furthermore, the intraclass correlation coefficient, ICC (1) and the reliability of the group-level mean, ICC (2) were also calculated to test between-group variance and within-group agreement ( Bliese, 2000 ). The results showed that the ICC (1) value of 0.73 suggested that team membership accounted for significant variance and the ICC (2) value of 0.92 demonstrated that the group-level means were reliable.

Project Life Cycle

Led by the research of Farh et al. (2010) , the phase of the project life cycle was measured from the percentage of the project work completed at the time of the survey, as reported by project managers. In the sample of our study, the mean project completion rate across 26 teams was 56%. This research checked journal guidelines and similar papers (see Farh et al., 2010 ) and used a mean split, where teams with a percentage of project completion equal to and below 56% were classified as being at an early phase and teams above 56% were classified as being at a later phase . Accordingly, there are 14 project teams in the early phase subgroup with the percentage of project completion ranging from 5% to 56%, and 12 in the later phase subgroup with 57–100% project completion. Figure 2 graphically illustrates the distribution of network density of shared leadership in the early phase vs. later phase.

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Figure 2. The distribution of network density of shared leadership in the early phase vs. later phase.

Control Variables

Several control variables were included in the study. First is team size, as it has been proposed to be negatively related to the emergence of shared leadership ( Cox et al., 2003 ) and negatively to customer ratings and team self-ratings of team effectiveness ( Pearce and Sims, 2002 ). The second control variable is team tenure (the length of time an individual has worked on a specific team). It was included as it reflects the experience of group members working together which may influence team effectiveness ( Marrone et al., 2007 ) and shared leadership because team longevity affects mutual familiarity, trust and interaction among team members ( Cox et al., 2003 ). Third is team members’ educational levels, since the team member’s diversity has been demonstrated to moderate the relationship between shared leadership and team outcomes ( Hoch, 2014 ). Therefore, team members’ educational levels were controlled, together with team size, team tenure for the analysis of this present research.

Table 3 presents the means, standard deviations and zero-order correlations of all the constructs. As illustrated, shared leadership is positively and significantly correlated to team task performance ( r = 0.52, p < 0.01), team viability ( r = 0.43, p < 0.05) as well as team effectiveness ( r = 0.50, p < 0.05), which provides preliminary evidence to support hypothesis 1a, 1b, and 1c. Figure 3 , a three-panel correlation plot, visually depicts the relationship between shared leadership and team task performance, team viability as well as team effectiveness.

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Table 3. Descriptive statistics and correlations.

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Figure 3. The three-panel correlation plot.

To further test the relationship between shared leadership and team effectiveness, as well as the moderating role of the project life cycle in such relationships, this research employed a two-way moderated hierarchical regression analysis ( Carson et al., 2007 ; Erkutlu, 2012 ; Fausing et al., 2013 ). Led by the procedure delineated in Cohen et al. (2014) , in the regression model, the control variables, team size, team tenure and educational diversity were entered in the first step for this research; shared leadership as an independent variable was entered in the second step; the interaction terms (predictor variable, shared leadership and moderator variable, project life cycle) was entered in the third step. In order to avoid multicollinearity problems, the standardized scores were utilized in the regression analysis ( Aiken et al., 1991 ). Table 4 depicts the results of the moderated regression analyses.

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Table 4. Results of regression analysis for team effectiveness.

As can be seen in step 1 in Table 4 , the control variables were not significantly associated with team effectiveness. In step 2, we find that there is a significant positive relationship between shared leadership and team effectiveness (β = 0.53, p < 0.05), supporting hypothesis 1c (shared leadership is positively related to team effectiveness in engineering design teams). Moreover, the result of step 3 shows that the interaction between shared leadership and the project life cycle is significantly related to team effectiveness (β = −0.47, p < 0.05). We then graphically plotted the relationship between shared leadership and team effectiveness as moderated by the project life cycle ( Figure 4 ) as recommended by Aiken et al. (1991) . We see that a positive relationship is stronger in the early stage, when compared to the later phase of the project life cycle. Therefore, hypothesis 2 (the stage of project life cycle moderates the positive association between shared leadership and team effectiveness, such that this relationship will be stronger at the early phase than at the later phase of the project in engineering design teams) was fully supported in this study.

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Figure 4. The moderating effect of the project life cycle on the relationship between shared leadership and team effectiveness.

By integrating concepts from shared leadership, team effectiveness and project management literature, the current research sheds light on our understanding of whether and when shared leadership is positively related to team effectiveness. More specifically, this research advances prior work by demonstrating that there is a positive relationship between shared leadership and team effectiveness in Chinese engineering design teams. Furthermore, we also demonstrated that the stage of the project life cycle moderates the relationship between shared leadership and team effectiveness; where the positive association is stronger at the early phase than at the later phase of project life cycle. These findings provide significant theoretical contributions as well as practical implications.

Theoretical Contribution

First of all, by joining a handful of researchers in the field of shared leadership ( Liu et al., 2014 ; Chiu et al., 2016 ; Serban and Roberts, 2016 ), this study further confirms that shared leadership plays a significant role in building effective team outcomes. Specifically, this research linked shared leadership with team task performance [defined in terms of how well the group meets (or even exceeds) expectations regarding its assigned tasks]. Shared leadership has been consistently shown to be critical for improving team performance in practice and in the extant literature ( Ensley et al., 2006 ; Carson et al., 2007 ; D’Innocenzo et al., 2014 ; Hoch, 2014 ; Wang et al., 2014 ; Chiu et al., 2016 ; Fransen et al., 2018 ). Although these studies have advocated the benefits of shared leadership on team performance, there is still some disagreement and controversy surrounding it ( Mehra et al., 2006 ; Boies et al., 2011 ; Hmieleski et al., 2012 ). This current study therefore extends this line of research by demonstrating that the positive association between shared leadership and team task performance holds up in engineering design teams, thus supporting cogent work in the field of shared leadership. Moreover, the results of the current study also suggest that shared leadership is positively associated with team viability (considered in terms of the potential of teams to retain its members and to keep good team functioning over time). This finding is consistent with previous studies that suggested that shared leadership fosters team functioning and team member satisfaction. For example, Bergman et al. (2012) suggested that teams with shared leadership experience less conflict, greater consensus, and higher intragroup trust and cohesion than teams without shared leadership. Wood and Fields (2007) proposed that shared leadership exerts positive impacts on the job satisfaction of team members as shared leadership inherently advocates greater empowerment and autonomy. Therefore, as demonstrated in the current study, members of teams who share leadership, experience increased interdependence, higher levels of collaboration, and a greater sense of satisfaction. Furthermore, the ability to retain team members and to maintain positive team functioning over time is enhanced.

Another important theoretical contribution is that this study provides interesting insights into an important boundary condition of shared leadership effects. Specifically, this study investigated and demonstrated that phases of the project life cycle moderate the shared leadership-team effectiveness relationship; such relationship is stronger at the early phase than the later phase. The result of this investigation is consistent with the theory on the dynamic nature of shared leadership. As Avolio et al. (2009) noted, shared leadership is not a static, but a transferable and quite a fluid process, wherein roles and relations among individuals merge, co-evolve, and change throughout the entire life cycle of the project. Moreover, this result also supports the proposition proposed by Ford and Sullivan (2004) who asserted that creative ideas and strategies generated at the early stage of the team cycle are more likely to be valued and integrated into effective outcomes. Our findings extend this theory by identifying shared leadership as a potential source to encourage novel ideas. Specifically, at the early stage of the project life cycle where the focus is on planning and strategy generation, team members proactively participate in constructive communication and decision-making process. It thus provides a positive environment to nourish shared leadership. Such high-levels of leadership shared by individuals helps to generate more novel ideas, which could sequentially be valued and incorporated into effective results. Therefore, by integrating the project life cycle as a moderator, this study demonstrated how the temporal factor influence the shared leadership-team effectiveness association.

Practical Lmplications

This research brings several significant practical implications to project management practitioners. Most notably, our findings confirm the positive relationship between shared leadership and team effectiveness in engineering design teams. It indicates that shared leadership can be a useful way to improve project team outcomes. This suggests that project managers seeking to foster high-levels of effectiveness should be supportive of sharing leadership within their groups and take steps to encourage group members to share leadership roles and responsibilities and provide them with adequate opportunities to interact with each other. Moreover, this study demonstrated that the association between shared leadership and team effectiveness is stronger at the early phase of the project life cycle. This emphasizes the need for managers to support shared leadership forms particularly at the early phase of the project in order to leverage benefits and maximize team effectiveness. Moreover, this research provides a benchmark with social network technique to help managers to assess their leadership development programs, in order to determine the extent to which they are reinforcing the notion of leadership as a collective process.

Limitation and Future Research

As is the case for any research, there are some limitations related to this current study which are worthy of being acknowledged. First of all, since the measurements for the variables used in the study were taken from the same source, there could be common source bias influencing the relationship between shared leadership and team effectiveness. However, this research assessed team effectiveness by measuring the entire team’s behavior and outcomes, while shared leadership measured the behavior of individual members and was analyzed by a social network method. As such, the common source bias was mitigated to some extent because of this measurement distinction. In addition, the sample of this experimental study consisted of 26 teams for both the early and later phase of the project life cycle. Replications of current research and future studies are encouraged to increase the sample size so as to achieve greater statistical power.

Second, while the definition of team effectiveness (measured in terms of team task performance and team viability) is multidimensional in nature, it does not take every possible aspect into consideration, e.g., happiness of the team members. In other words, the predictors used in this research are not an exhaustive list. There can be other consequences of shared leadership that have not been accounted for. This study thus encourages more studies to examine additional predictors of shared leadership, especially predictors from a multilevel perspective. For example, more consequences at the firm and organizational level should be examined, e.g., firm competitive advantage, organizational effectiveness and creativity. Furthermore, since our research focused only on engineering design teams, it limits the generalizability of the results. Therefore, future studies can make a valuable contribution by examining the relationship between shared leadership and its outcomes from a wide variety of contexts.

Third, an important premise of this investigation, regarding when shared leadership influences team effectiveness across the project life cycle, is the dynamic nature of shared leadership. Its emergence is likely to be influenced by team environments (i.e., cross-functional communication and coordination, and active participation in the decision-making process); as well as task characteristics (i.e., creative tasks). Unfortunately, the design of the current study did not directly examine these factors that could simulate the occurrence and development of shared leadership. It thus would be a promising research direction for future studies. Moreover, since shared leadership is a dynamic and emergent process, research with a longitudinal design that captures multiple iterations and cyclic feedback loops of shared leadership, to understand how it changes or evolves throughout stages of the project team life cycle, is another fruitful avenue for future studies.

Fourth, this study is among the first to explore the moderating role of the project life cycle in the relationship between shared leadership and team effectiveness. We thus encourage future research to provide a more complete understanding of the boundary conditions of shared leadership effectiveness, particularly for project-related moderators. Examples like project complexity, project uncertainty, and project creativity are worthy of attention in future studies. Moreover, the potential temporal indicators should also be examined considering shared leadership is a dynamic process in nature. This would serve as another promising direction for future research.

Fifth, shared leadership, as a new leadership pattern that has been demonstrated to facilitate team effectiveness in the engineering design teams. However, we do not advocate that shared leadership is a panacea for all organizational woes. There may be many circumstances where shared leadership is not suitable e.g., non-knowledge teams. Furthermore, Pearce (2004) suggested that shared leadership is a more complex and time-consuming process than traditional vertical leadership. In light of this, research concerning when and for whom shared leadership is inappropriate should be another interesting avenue and thus worthy of further attention.

Contribution

The current study was designed to produce novel theoretical and empirical insights regarding whether shared leadership is positively related to team effectiveness and when shared leadership is more likely to be effective. By demonstrating a positive association between shared leadership and team effectiveness in engineering design teams, this study adds to a growing literature extolling the value of shared leadership. Another important contribution of the present research is that it is among the first to investigate a temporally relevant moderator, the project life cycle, for the effectiveness of shared leadership. The authors hope that the insightful findings gained through this effect will spur future studies aimed at understanding the dynamics of shared leadership in project teams and further explore temporal factors for its effectiveness.

Data Availability Statement

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

Ethics Statement

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by Graduate Research Committee (GRC), National University of Ireland, Galway. The patients/participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.

Author Contributions

QW was responsible for conducting analysis and writing the first draft. KC contributed to the structure and content and revised all versions of the manuscript. QW and KC both participated in idea development.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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Keywords : shared leadership, team effectiveness, project life cycle, social network analysis, engineering design teams

Citation: Wu Q and Cormican K (2021) Shared Leadership and Team Effectiveness: An Investigation of Whether and When in Engineering Design Teams. Front. Psychol. 11:569198. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.569198

Received: 03 June 2020; Accepted: 24 December 2020; Published: 18 January 2021.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2021 Wu and Cormican. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Qiong Wu, [email protected] ; Kathryn Cormican, [email protected]

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Leadership, Teamwork, and Collaboration: The Lived Experience of Conducting Multisite Research Focused on Quality and Safety Education for Nurses Competencies in Academia

Affiliation.

  • 1 About the Authors Monika S. Schuler, PhD, RN, CNE, is assistant professor, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth College of Nursing and Health Sciences, North Dartmouth, Massachusetts. Rayna Letourneau, PhD, RN, is assistant professor, College of Nursing, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida. Gerry Altmiller, EdD, APRN, ACNS-BC, ANEF, FAAN, is professor and director, Quality and Safety Innovation Center, The College of New Jersey, Ewing Township, New Jersey. Belinda Deal, PhD, RN, CNE, is associate professor and BSN program director, University of Texas at Tyler School of Nursing, Tyler, Texas. Beth A. Vottero, PhD, RN, CNE, is associate professor, Purdue University Northwest, Hammond, Indiana. Teri Boyd, EdD, MNSc, RN, is assistant professor, Goldfarb School of Nursing at Barnes Jewish College, St. Louis, Missouri. Nancy W. Ebersole, PhD, RN, is associate professor, Salem State University, Salem, Massachusetts. Randi Flexner, DNP, APN, FNP-BC, RN, is clinical assistant professor, Rutgers University College of Nursing, New Brunswick, New Jersey. Janet Jordan, MSN, RN, and Vicki Jowell, MSN, RN, are clinical instructors, University of Texas at Tyler School of Nursing. Linda McQuiston, PhD, RN, is assistant professor, Indiana State University, Terre Haute, Indiana. Tommie Norris, DNS, RN, is professor, University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, Tennessee. Mary Jo Risetter RN, MSN, is a faculty member and Kathleen Szymanski, MSN, RN, is an instructor, Lake Michigan College, Benton Harbor, Michigan. Danielle Walker, PhD, RN, CNE, is assistant professor, Harris College of Nursing and Health Professions, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, Texas. For more information, contact Dr. Schuler at [email protected].
  • PMID: 33596031
  • DOI: 10.1097/01.NEP.0000000000000725

Aim: The aim of this study was to explore facilitators and barriers to conducting a multisite national study in nursing academia unsupported by grant funding.

Background: Scholarship focused on the Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) competencies stimulates opportunities for research and collaboration among nurse educators and clinicians. Twelve members of the QSEN Academic Task Force collaborated on a multisite study of the effectiveness of a QSEN teaching strategy and published the findings.

Method: A descriptive phenomenological reflective approach using Kim's critical reflective inquiry model was used to explore the lived experiences of the original study investigators. Data were analyzed using Colaizzi's phenomenological reduction.

Results: Findings revealed seven facilitators and one overarching barrier to conducting academic research projects of this scope.

Conclusion: Participants found that strong leadership, a commitment to teamwork and collaboration, and a shared interest were critical to conducting a successful national study across academic settings.

Copyright © 2020 National League for Nursing.

  • Clinical Competence*
  • Leadership*

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The role of leadership in collective creativity and innovation: Examining academic research and development environments

Zijian huang.

1 School of Economics, Yunnan University, Kunming, China

Stavros Sindakis

2 School of Social Sciences, Hellenic Open University, Patras, Greece

3 National Research Base of Intelligent Manufacturing Service, Chongqing Technology and Business University, Chongqing, China

Sakshi Aggarwal

4 Institute of Strategy, Entrepreneurship and Education for Growth (iSEEG), Paphos, Cyprus

Ludivine Thomas

5 Business and Law University of Roehampton London, Roehampton, United Kingdom

Associated Data

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

Introduction

Leadership is pragmatically linked to innovation adoption and implementation at a team level, as managers oversee the strategic decisions and policymaking, control resources, and moderate the scanning and searching of the environment. The paper attempts to provide new concepts and examines theoretical and practical implications to better understand how the leadership role is executed in an R&D environment to foster team creativity and innovation.

A quantitative analysis was plausible over qualitative research mainly because the survey was conducted using a single technique, employing a questionnaire that was selected after checking the principal component analysis (PCA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).

The findings show that the production of ideas positively impacts leadership, leading to growth and competitive advantage for the organization. Also, the PMEG (people, means, effects, goals) framework will positively impact leadership as leaders focus on those factorsthat influence an individual’s attitudes, behaviors, and interactions between groups.

The paper highlights the involvement of R&D organizations and groups in developing innovative products, services, technologies, and processes that further positively impact a team. This study is the first to highlight the role of the PMEG framework with the factors that influence an individual’s attitudes, behaviors, and interactions between groups. The study’s main contribution is to explore creativity as a potential mediator for leadership–organizational innovation.

Research and development depend significantly on creative minds that will be able to fashion tomorrow’s innovations. Barsh et al. (2008) explored that innovation is predicted to become one of the primary drivers of growth in the coming years. Previous research (e.g., Amabile, 2012 ; Kesting et al., 2015 ; Yi et al., 2017 ) has shown that the majority of innovative ideas (about 80%) are implemented by employees, who are a vital source of innovation. Innovative employee ideas give firms the ability to achieve their objectives and grow. For instance, Shafique et al. (2019) investigated the patterns of connections between a transformational leadership style and organizational-level innovation via individual-level creativity. In a different study, Shafique et al. (2019) used a multi-level model to examine the impact of authentic leadership on team creativity via individual-level creativity.

Further, Amabile and Pratt (2016) cited a model of organizational innovation incorporating individual creativity. This model reveals the concepts of organizational innovation and individual creativity. Moreover, the corporate environment impacts individual creativity, while individual creativity reinforces organizational innovation. In addition to building up a favorable climate for creativity, leaders’ roles are to ensure their subordinates remain actively involved in their work and try to generate innovative products, techniques, and methods to remain competitive ( Shalley and Gilson, 2004 ). This holds true for scientists in an R&D environment, who are particularly interested in motives such as intellectual challenges or autonomy ( Sauermann and Cohen, 2010 ). Therefore, Rosso (2014) claims that the componential model of creativity influences organizational creativity, which suggests that motivation is the drive to engage in exciting and essential creative outputs.

The componential theory of creativity emphasized by Amabile (1988) through the mediational model proposes that a leader’s behavior influences subordinate perceptions of leader support that, in turn, influence creativity and is the aspect that is the most directly influenced by the supervisor ( Amabile et al., 2004 ). Further work revealed that interactions between leaders and subordinates could influence “perception, feelings and performance” and can, over time, positively inspire creativity by fostering subordinates’ intrinsic motivation ( Amabile et al., 2004 ; Amabile, 2012 ). The study also revealed that leaders who did keep team members informed about stressful issues recognized exemplary performance in public or reacted to problems in work with understanding and helped correlated positively with apparent support. They, however, pointed to the need for additional studies to further examine these characteristics and, of interest, the relationship between creativity, innovation, and leadership style. Thus far, the authors suggest the need to explore these characteristics further to gain further insights into the roles they play, for example, in the R&D environment. The present study will thus attempt to determine the leader’s characteristics that enhance subordinates’ motivation towards creativity and environment in the academic and R&D-based environment.

Theoretical background

Leadership outline.

Although the concept of leadership is versatile, the person guiding the leadership role is named the “leader,” while the group guides are called the “followers,” although the same person can perform both functions simultaneously ( Yukl, 2002 ; Gosling et al., 2009 ; Middlehurst et al., 2009 ; Griffith et al., 2018 ; Pelletier et al., 2019 ). Leaders can inspire followers to pursue collective values and aspirations as well as sacrifice egocentric needs and goals. These theories also reveal that leaders can invoke and regulate emotions – rather than rely on rational processes – to motivate other individuals ( Moss and Ritossa, 2007 , p. 433). In the light of Kesting et al. (2015) , leadership means an expression of behavior that influences an individual’s attitudes and behaviors and interaction between groups (see Figure 1 below) for the motive of achieving goals. Therefore, there are four generic dimensions of leadership, i.e., people, means, effects, and goals (PMEG). People mean effects goals framework is not used by any researcher. Furthermore, Winston and Patterson (2006) also added that during the leading process, the leader allows the followers to be innovative and even self-directed within the scope of individual-follower assignments and allows the followers to learn from their own as well as others’ successes, mistakes, and failures along the process of completing the organization’s objectives.

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The role of a leader in R&D environments.

The PMEG framework ( Figure 1 ) highlights two central concepts considering the generic dimensions influencing business and the examined leadership theories in an R&D environment. Leadership means an expression of a particular behavior ( Kesting et al., 2015 ) but considering this framework; we do not know how the PMEG framework will impact leadership in an R&D environment. However, a knowledge gap exists regarding how and to what extent the PMEG framework will impact leadership in an R&D environment ( Fachrunnisa et al., 2019 ; Andrej et al., 2022 ). Correspondingly, Chemers (1997 , p.1) defines leadership as “a process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task.” The occurrence of four generic dimensions in leadership ( Kesting et al., 2015 , p. 23) are implied as follows:

People – Leadership is a supra-individual concept that requires a logical distinction (which can be explicit or implicit, temporary or persistent) between leaders and followers, but without it, leadership is pointless. For instance, ethical leaders are likely to be people-oriented. Human rights, personality, capabilities, and learning, are likely to be promoted by ethical leaders who give their staff members a chance to learn the skills and information required for their jobs and put them in the appropriate positions. Additionally, they inspire followers to focus their skills in the appropriate direction for improved work performance. As a result, employees have the information, abilities, and motivation to act creatively and are then expected to do so in the workplace, fostering creativity ( Kremer et al., 2019 ; Shafique et al., 2019 ).

Means – The nature of leadership is that leaders lead and carry out certain activities to direct or influence followers. The review will show that these means can include very heterogeneous activities like coaching, empowering, or even servicing, and there is no leadership without such activities. For example, the importance of employee effort in achieving company goals is highlighted by leaders with high ethical and moral standards; it has been observed. Employees are motivated by cognitive mechanisms to pay more attention to the worth of their job, which encourages them to generate and use original ideas to discover new ways to achieve organizational goals ( Shafique et al., 2019 ; Khan et al., 2020 ; Lee et al., 2020 ).

Effects – The outcome of leading is to cause a reaction in the followers, i.e., to make them follow. The analysis will show that the effects can include heterogeneous reactions, like increased enthusiasm or commitment, the rational optimization of rewards, implicit convictions, etc. Without any result, leadership efforts go nowhere. It is noted in Shafique et al.’s (2019) study that employees are more likely to participate in knowledge development and dissemination in companies where ethical leaders create policies to facilitate knowledge sharing and foster a cooperative environment. The creation of such an atmosphere makes it easier for employees to connect and communicate, and it helps them build relationships of cooperation and trust with their colleagues and leader(s). Therefore, to sustain communication and promote cooperation, employees invest their time in knowledge creation, which increases the number of new ideas they bring to their workplace ( Akbari et al., 2020 ; Khan et al., 2020 ).

Goals – Leadership is ultimately associated with specific goals. These goals can be broad visions of promising future states, but they can also be firm targets. In either case, leadership points towards a path. In the context of this paper and considering the above arguments, we claim our first hypothesis below, which is linked to RQ1:

H1 : The PMEG framework will have a positive impact on leadership as leaders focus on those factors that influence an individual’s attitudes, behaviors, and interactions between groups.

Additionally, it builds followers’ performance, transforms personal values, and moves them toward high aspirations ( Paulsen et al., 2013 ; Kremer et al., 2019 ; Shafique et al., 2019 ).

Role and skills of the leader

One of the prominent roles leaders can play is to create an environment that will support the engagement of their subordinates and other people involved with tasks (effective teamwork; Amabile et al., 2004 ; Konradt, 2014 ; Mailhot et al., 2016 ). Leadership also includes encouraging followers and fostering auspicious conditions to carry out the work ( Yukl, 2002 ; Bolden et al., 2009 ). Concepts of shared leadership ( Konradt, 2014 , p. 290) argue that leadership should not be conceptualized as a centralized downward process of influence on subordinates that is carried out by an appointed leader. Another prominent role of leaders is to create structures that will enhance creative activities to thrive and support creative endeavors ( Anderson and West, 1998 ; Bain et al., 2001 ). More so, team leaders play a significant role in ensuring that projects, processes, and managing of resources are successful through efficient and flexible leadership (Magellan Horth and Vehar, 2015 ; Andrej et al., 2022 ). In that regard, it was revealed that a good leader not only challenges but also inspires work creativity ( Sauermann and Cohen, 2010 ). Therefore, the technical skills of a leader not only impact the skillfulness of this individual, but it is an asset for a company towards promoting creativity and innovative performance of subordinates.

As a leader, having the necessary skill set to lead a supportive working environment are stepping-stones in initiating a creative environment for the subordinates. Yukl (2002) recognized that three primary skill sets are essential for leaders. First, technical skills include knowledge about methods, processes, and equipment for carrying out particular activities in the given unit. Second, cognitive or conceptual skills comprise the general analytical ability, logical thinking, proficiency in concept formation, and conceptualization of complex and ambiguous relationships. They include, for example, good judgment, intuition, or creativity. Finally, interpersonal skills like empathy, tact, and diplomacy are essential to follow human behavior and interpersonal processes and thus influence others ( Yukl, 2002 ; Khan et al., 2020 ). Hackman and Hackman (2002) also proposed that both displays of “diagnostic skills” and “execution skills” from the leader are decisive. While “diagnostic skills” helps leaders to distinguish important events happening to the team/organization from noises, “execution skills” are needed for effective team leadership.

Leadership in the research and development (R&D) environment

R&D organizations and groups are dynamically involved in developing innovative products, services, technologies, and processes that may foster superior performance at lower costs. Moreover, focusing on the above leads to coherent ideas and methods that foster technological information in the R&D environment ( Gupta and Singh, 2015 ; Du et al., 2020 ; Rêgo et al., 2022 ). Therefore, the production of ideas ( Figure 1 ) for organizational products and services is one of the critical growth production drivers, i.e., employee creativity. It has been stated that creativity is a vital component of innovation. The central idea of social cognitive theory is self-efficacy. Bandura (1997) emphasized that strong self-efficacy in individuals is a prerequisite for creativity and the discovery of new knowledge. The most important component affecting conduct is self-efficacy. A particular form of self-efficacy called creative self-efficacy pertains to people’s beliefs that they can engage in creative action ( Cai et al., 2019 ).

Additionally, Zheng et al. (2010) define R&D teams as groups focused on creating original innovations and expanding existing ones in their field of interest. These teams are composed of highly educated and creative members ( Berson and Linton, 2005 ; Bagheri and Harrison, 2020 ). However, Gupta and Singh (2015) further proclaim that the key factors that sustain R&D professionals in creative behavior imply enhancing organizational competitiveness. Due to the unique and uncertain process of innovation, R&D must manage different work units where the work is routine. Furthermore, R&D leaders are more professional than organizational professionals and usually select technical expertise for leadership skills. In Gumusluoglu et al.’s (2017) view, R&D leaders should facilitate innovation behaviors through different recognitions, such as team innovative behavior (generation and implementation of new ideas) through team identification and cross-team innovative action (exchange of resources, coordination with other teams to facilitate and implement innovations) through building department identification ( Gilbert and Basran, 2019 ; Du et al., 2020 ).

Empowering leadership (EL), examined by Amundsen and Martinsen (2015) , mentions EL as behaviors that share power with subordinates and lead others. This approach promotes self-leadership (the process of controlling their behavior and influence, leading themselves through a specific set of cognitive and behavioral strategies) among employees. By and large, R&D environments offer a unique challenge to leadership ( Bryman and Lilley, 2009 ; Basran et al., 2019 ; Du et al., 2020 ; Ackaradejruangsri et al., 2022 ). In addition to building up a favorable climate for creativity, leaders’ roles are also to ensure their subordinates remain actively involved in their work and try to generate innovative products, techniques, and methods as means to remain competitive ( Shalley and Gilson, 2004 ; Xenikou, 2017 ; Wang et al., 2019 ). According to Gupta and Singh (2015) , an R&D leader’s behavior makes things work and avoids wasting time, labor, and capital. These R&D professionals constitute unique leadership challenges essential to foster team creativity. Most studies testing leadership’s impact on employee creativity have found the two-factor behavioral conceptualizations of leadership (e.g., initiating structure and task-oriented). However, only a limited number of studies have been conducted focusing on R&D organizations and contexts compared to the flood of studies on leadership in general ( Elkins and Keller, 2003 ; Xenikou, 2017 ; Tong, 2020 ).

Interestingly, teams in the R&D environment are typically cross-functional, bringing together a combination of scientists, technicians, engineers, and specialists ( Denison et al., 1996 ). Also, Lisak et al. (2016) support that R&D leaders foster the team’s innovation goals and motivate a team to adapt to understanding within teams, which will positively affect an organization. In this regard, the managerial practices that have been recognized to foster this type of climate include autonomy of subordinates, personal recognition, development of group cohesion, and resource maintenance.

Different types of leadership applied in R&D

Over the past 30 years, research has shown the crucial role leaders play not only in their subordinates’ motivation and efficacy but also in their creativity and innovation performances. For example, Tierney et al. (1999) demonstrated that creativity and inventions increased when leaders and followers pursued productive exchange relationships. Interestingly, Michalko (2001) showed that creativity was more likely to occur when leaders avoid letting their judgment emerge when a follower speaks. Various leadership theories have been described, including authoritative, coaching, and democratic ( Goleman, 2000 ; Al Harbi et al., 2019 ; Perpék et al., 2021 ). However, only a few have tested in R&D environments. Additionally, Yunlu and Murphy (2012) explore that during the recession, R&D generally decreases, but the researchers find support for R&D growth, which positively correlates with overall economic growth.

Early work from Pelz (1963) on scientists from 20 research laboratories based in the United States has shown that interactions with a given group’s leader can positively influence creativity, and this was particularly prominent in junior scientists. Further work also emphasized that the supervisory style employed by the leaders toward creativity was positively related to performance ( Mednick and Mednick, 1967 ; Xenikou, 2017 ; Tong, 2020 ). Research has also shown that leaders play a significant role in exploiting the outcomes of R&D projects by triggering cooperation among teammates and communicating and sharing the body of knowledge and skills ( Gillespie and Mann, 2004 ; Carayannis et al., 2021 ; Perpék et al., 2021 ) efficiently. It has been proposed that the most influential leadership theories are the transformational and the transactional leadership theories ( Bass, 1985 ), which are related to innovation performance both at the individual and the team levels and when whole organizations are the unit of measurement.

The concept of transactional leadership was first introduced and discussed with transformational leadership by MacGregor Bums (1980) . There have been discussions about the two leadership styles, but as Kesting et al. (2015) clarify, transactional leadership does not focus on change as transformational leadership does ( Moss and Ritossa, 2007 ; Lin et al., 2020 ; Ali et al., 2021 ). Particularly transactional leadership focuses on the exchanges between followers and leaders, as shown in Figure 1 above ( McCleskey, 2014 ). Additionally, transformational leadership about innovation and change is the most researched leadership style ( Bolden et al., 2009 ; Kesting et al., 2015 ; Oeij et al., 2017 ; Alghamdi, 2018 ). Paulsen et al. (2013) claim that transformational leadership focuses on the specific role of a leader in promoting organizational and personal change to assist employees in exceptional performance. Also, it empowers the team members and moves them by providing them with idealized charisma and inspirational motivation. Additionally, it builds followers’ performance, transforms personal values, and moves them toward high aspirations. However, there is no description of how can/whether transformational leadership can aspire to the shortcomings of charismatic leadership ( Figure 1 ). Similarly, in a prolonged study, Chaubey et al. (2019) found that transformative leadership encourages staff innovation. To lead for creativity, one must inspire followers to come up with creative ideas. As a result, leadership is a crucial requirement for creative outcomes. The creativity of organizational employees is positively impacted by transformational leadership ( Al Harbi et al., 2019 ).

Leadership can enhance a follower’s sustainability, facilitating an employee’s performance and creativity; for this, the leader-member exchange (LMX) theory was introduced ( Smothers et al., 2012 ; Oeij et al., 2017 ; Alghamdi, 2018 ). It focuses on the unique work relationship between leaders and their subordinates (as shown in Figure 1 ) rather than on variables such as traits or behaviors. LMX theory is the quality of exchanges that develop between leaders and followers to conduct creativity ( Smothers et al., 2012 ; Qu et al., 2017 ; Martin et al., 2018 ; Soleas, 2020 ). Another essential theory was introduced in management, which relates to the ability to excel at explorative and exploitative organizational strategies known as Amberdexidery ( Raisch and Birkinshaw, 2008 ; Xenikou, 2017 ; Tong, 2020 ). Keller and Weibler (2015) support that exploration (comprises activities) and exploitation (captures activities) are the two organizational patterns of ambidextrous pursuit that are essential for the superior performance of a firm. Further, Zacher and Rosing (2015) have used the term primarily to mention exploration and exploitation activities ( Figure 1 ). Concerning such activities, Sinha (2016) confirm Zacher and Rosing’s argument by supporting that the ability of these existing resources and activities create platforms for future growth through experimentation and innovation, which further focus on organizational performance in both the long and short-term.

Factors influencing creativity and innovation

Research and development depend significantly on creative minds that will be able to fashion tomorrow’s innovations. Gumusluoglu et al. (2017) examine that if organizations want to foster creativity and innovative behavior, it is particularly essential to enhance leadership through the coordination of their collective actions as well as expertise. Leadership that stimulates innovation has been a subject of research, and the mechanisms for its connection with the innovation process include creativity and implementation of creative ideas ( Černe et al., 2013 , p. 64; Ackaradejruangsri et al., 2022 ). Creativity is essential in the production of ideas by employees, as well as critical to the leader trying to enhance work settings. Among several factors, the output of creativity is highly influential in the supportive behaviors of leaders ( Li et al., 2018 ; Bagheri and Harrison, 2020 ; Soleas, 2020 ).

Additionally, Rosso (2014) states that creativity is defined as the solutions to produce valuable ideas in an organizational setting as a critical implementation of ideas. Hence, creativity is an analytical source for competitive advantage and innovative products and technologies. Furthermore, Ghosh (2015) supports that creativity is a composite but still constructed in several ways. Creativity is an ingredient for innovation (see Figure 2 ) that implies the successful implementation of ideas. Hon and Lui (2016) confirm Ghosh’s argument by supporting that creativity leads individuals to contribute their skills, ability, and willingness to work. Thus, Ghosh (2015) claims that creative ideas provide a base for innovation and its implementations.

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Dynamics between creativity, innovation and change in R&D settings.

Correspondingly, Kesting et al. (2015) state innovation as a multistage process that transforms ideas into products and services that further successfully compete in the market. Therefore, creativity is necessary but not essential for some conditions. Thus, change is needed, and innovation does not occur without change (see Figure 2 ; Jiang et al., 2017 ; Ali et al., 2021 ). Moreover, it is presumed that innovation consists of a variety of activities. One approach to structure this distinction’s complexity is the various innovation phases, such as implementation and ideation or the difference between commercialization and development. Creativity is just an element of the ideation or development stage related to innovation. Conversely, Lisak et al. (2016) support that the information perspective on team creativity is examined by leaders’ positive effects on team innovation.

Personal traits affecting creativity and innovation

Both creativity and innovation have now become critical positive factors of organizational performance ( Arad et al., 1997 ; Drazin et al., 1999 ; McMahon and Ford, 2013 ; Yi et al., 2017 ). Several core personality traits such as broad interests, independence of judgment or a strong sense, skills like problem-solving or engaging in divergent thinking ( Amabile, 1988 ; Mumford et al., 1997 ; Vincent et al., 2002 ), as well as experience in a field ( Weisberg, 1999 ), influence creativity at the individual level, have been identified as potentially triggering creativity and innovation. The interview-based study by Amabile (1988) showed that some qualities that promote creativity, including persistence, curiosity or intellectual honesty, strong self-motivation, unique talents, attraction to challenges, and expertise in a particular field, positively encourage creativity. Additionally, the same study showed that specific qualities of the environment play a role in creativity. For example, the factors detected as the most important by the scientists interviewed were decision freedom, project management, sufficient resources, and encouragement, with 74, 65, 52, and 47%, respectively. Further, general organizational performance has also been associated with creativity and innovation in corporations ( Irwin et al., 1998 ; Capron, 1999 ; Bagheri and Harrison, 2020 ).

Creativity and innovation in the R&D environment

Creative thinking and development of innovations such as new methods of analysis are of utmost importance to develop the liability of the service research laboratory and thus build up the client base of the laboratory. Also, the development of new methods offers the potential for scientists to continue publishing in high-standard peer-reviewed journals and give them chances to progress in their career path. Although publishing in scientific journals might not be the most important motive of scientists working in service-based laboratories, this still provides a stable motivational ground. Recent work by Roach and Sauermann (2010) revealed that incentives influence the decision to work in academia or the industry. The authors collected 472 responses to their questionnaire from Ph.D. students based in North Carolina (US). They showed that scientists motivated by the freedom to choose their research projects, the ability to publish, and the aspiration to perform necessary research tend to pursue careers in academia. At the same time, the industry attracts those motivated with a competitive salary, access to equipment, and the possibility to carry out applied research. In the light of Shalley and Gilson (2004) , innovations also offer the possibility for service-based laboratories to remain competitive; for this, managers or leaders need to ensure their employees are actively involved in their work.

The ability to innovate is hampered by external and internal organizational constraints, which are significant organizational factors in long-term competitive positions. An organization can achieve long-term success if and only if it consistently maintains new products and services to satisfy the needs of its clients. A company must acknowledge the importance of creativity and innovation, both of which are crucial elements of the same process, in order to be successful. Having ideas does not mean they have to be put into action; rather, an individual’s excitement for networking and doing so leads to execution. Individuals or groups can produce creativity, independent of their functional specialties or hierarchical levels within the organization ( Hughes et al., 2018 ; Chaubey et al., 2019 ; Shafi et al., 2020 ).

Creativity and innovation capacity are necessary/essential elements in a knowledge-based economy. Furthermore, it is a primary competitive advantage source as well as a key to high productivity ( Figure 2 ). Likewise, Wang et al. (2015) claim that the organizational climate has proven to be the best factor that exploits employees’ innovation. Comparatively, Hon and Lui (2016) support that organizational leadership has devoted attention to innovation models and creativity. Further, Wang et al. (2015) support Hon’s argument by confirming that innovative behavior refers to the promotion, generation, and realization of the latest and new ideas within a workgroup or organization. Therefore, the individual’s innovation success depends on an employee’s relationship with the organization that provides information, resources, support, and inspiration that helps innovators to promote and develop new ideas.

Influence of leadership on creativity and innovation

Innovative achievements can only happen when team members bring about ideas and efforts. Also, Vogel and Fischler-Strasak (2014) stated that innovation is essential for the sustainable growth of large enterprises as they are misdesigned for innovation. However, in most organizations’ cultures, innovation is not impossible but challenging. Thus, to stay competitive, every organization should nurture innovation appropriately and particularly (see Figure 2 ). Likewise, Dunne et al. (2016) claim that innovation is particularly essential for small firms resulting in the efficient production of their products and services. Further, some precursor of innovation includes information, marketing capabilities, and communication technologies.

As organizations encounter rapid changes in technology and economic forces, employee creativity is regarded as the potential resource for an organization’s survival (generation of ideas for products, services, and practices in the workplace). Among these factors, leadership plays a vital role in employee creativity to facilitate an organization’s goals ( Yi et al., 2017 ). Organizational factors also restrain the creativity of individuals working together. Moreover, organizational creativity has investigated various factors taking into consideration the employee surrounding, employee rewards, job characteristics, and organizational goal setting, which leads to creative outcomes ( McMahon and Ford, 2013 ; Felix et al., 2019 ). According to Noor (2013) , the relationship between leadership practices and innovative work behavior is shown. The purpose of organizational innovation is affected by individual attributes like resistance to change and leadership.

Additionally, leadership can influence innovative behavior; this is agreed upon by most researchers. However, giving a reward to the employees was related to innovativeness, but this does not correlate with innovativeness. Correspondingly, stimulating new ideas and solutions by enhancing ideas and goals for work are the two essential processes for leadership and innovation. The importance of leadership and integration for innovation is comprehensive and targeted, which attain team innovation to promote creativity ( Noor, 2013 ; Hughes et al., 2018 ; Jiang and Chen, 2018 ). Furthermore, Yuan and Woodman (2010) have also found that innovation might be enhanced when leaders expect high performance and then recognize the work done. It is the role of managers to create an environment that fosters creativity. Additionally, Jaiswal and Dhar (2016) state that leaders play an essential role in determining employees’ creativity. For instance, a leader’s behavior is critical because it determines the creativity among individuals in the work environment. Therefore, employee creativity is fostered through a distinct leadership style, i.e., transformational leadership.

Despite no difference, creativity and innovation are studied separately with little or no amalgamation. There is a default as team innovation, and creative endeavors are essential for an organization to thrive. But despite the role of leaders, those energetic team innovation and creativity, no research simultaneously influences both outcomes. Now the motive is to foster both team innovation and employee creativity simultaneously. For this, the role of servant leadership on employee creativity is examined. Therefore, a holistic approach, i.e., servant leadership, encompasses a leader’s emotional, rational, and moral dimensions that further enhance followers’ growth and capabilities. Servant leadership shares some similarities with transformational leadership, but these behaviors are motivated more by organizational goals than followers’ performance and development, as a transformational leader does ( Yoshida et al., 2014 ; Lin et al., 2020 ). It has thus suggested that leadership styles that offer team members an active role in the leader-follower work relationship would be more suited to R&D settings.

The conceptual framework ( Figure 2 below) highlights another concept, exploring one more research gap, i.e., how and to what extent the production of ideas in an organization leads to growth, fostering team innovation and creativity. As mentioned in the literature above, organizations encounter rapid changes in technology and the economy; employee creativity is regarded as the potential resource for an organization’s survival (generation of ideas for products, services, and practices in a workplace). Among these factors, leadership plays a vital role in employee creativity to facilitate an organization’s goals ( Yi et al., 2017 ; Amah and Oyetuunde, 2020 ). Correspondingly, stimulating new ideas and solutions by enhancing ideas and goals for work are the two essential processes for leadership and innovation. The importance of leadership and integration for innovation is comprehensive and targeted, which attain team innovation to promote creativity ( Noor, 2013 ; Jiang and Chen, 2018 ). Further, these arguments lead to the second hypothesis below, which is linked to RQ2:

H2 : Production of ideas will impact positively on leadership, leading to growth and competitive advantage of the organization.

Thus, the outcome of the conceptual framework developed is improved sustainable growth and enhanced employee relationship within the organization, further leading to the organization’s competitive advantage.

Research methodology

Overview of the research approach.

A quantitative analysis was plausible over qualitative research mainly because the survey was conducted using a single technique, employing a questionnaire ( Bryman, 2006 ). Quantitative researchers attempt to study the phenomena of their interest, i.e., standardized surveys and other quantitative measuring devices are often used to carefully measure what is observed between different groups, companies, countries, or organizations, which is best understood through the survey approach ( Amah and Oyetuunde, 2020 ). Further, the cross-sectional survey helps the researchers analyze the relationship between the variables described in the previous sections. Quantitative research is appropriate for this study because questionnaire items are selected after checking the principal component analysis (PCA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA; Chevallier et al., 2016 ). Further, Eikebrokk and Olsen (2005) support that quantitative research methods are essential for hypotheses testing as the dependent variable is measured with reflective indicators of each four dimensions of success, such as efficiency, novelty, lock-in, and complementarities. Each dimension’s success is necessary because it is constructed as the average item score. Moreover, Rahman (2016) supports that this method uses statistics data analysis, helping researchers understand several principles and elements of the data while utilizing measurable data to originate facts and uncover patterns in research.

Demographics and professional data were assessed in terms of ratios of total participants and included analysis of participants based on gender, age, nationalities, and continent representation. Further, gender representation was assessed by participants based on educational level, professional experience, professional role, and professional entities. Data distribution was statistically evaluated using standard statistical parameters such as calculating data mean, standard deviation, minimum, median, and maximum values. The six-point Likert scale was grouped into three categories, “the negative feeling,” which included the “not at all” (represented by 1) and “to almost no extent” (represented by 2) responses, “the neutral feeling,” composed of the answers “to a slight extent” (represented by 3) and “to a moderate extent” (represented by 4) and “the positive feeling” category, that correlated to “a great extent” (represented by 5) and “to a very great extent” (represented by 6) responses. These three groups allowed for a direct comparison against qualitative data analysis ( Amabile et al., 2004 ). Finally, correlations among the different variables (questions/statements in the survey) were calculated to assess relatedness between statements. The correlation coefficient measures the linear relationship between two variables, always between −1 and +1. A correlation of +1 denotes that the two variables under consideration are perfectly related in a linear mode, while a −1 means the variables are perfectly related in a linear negative sense, and 0 denotes no linear relatedness between variables ( Felix et al., 2019 ). All calculations were carried out using Excel (Microsoft Office).

A representative subset of the participants is chosen to complete the cross-sectional survey. The subset includes a vast majority of the participants (86.2%) who worked in an academic environment, only 10.8% worked in the industry, and 3% were employed in independent entities. About 20% of participants were between 21 and 30 years old, of which 69% were females, 19% percent were aged between 41 and 50 years, and about 67% were males. Demographically, 24 nationalities were represented in the survey, with Zimbabwean (19.7%), German (12.1%), British (10.6%), and French (9.1%) nationalities being the most represented. Noteworthy, six continents, namely Africa, Australia, Asia, Europe, America, and North America, were represented, giving a global perspective and a global scale of the way people from different nationalities and different continents perceive leadership and its role in creativity and innovation.

Regarding the education level, most participants (75%) obtained a Ph.D. as their highest qualification, and 20% had a Master’s degree. The remaining participants (about 5%) had an Undergraduate degree. Most participants had 1–5 years (37.5%) of professional experience, followed by 11–15 years (26.6%). Only 3% were juniors and had less than 1 year in professional environments. Further, when connecting the professional experience to the professional role, the results indicate that many participants were experienced staff (35.8%).

Demographically, participants from the academic research environment were randomly recruited to participate in this study, which was designed to gather views on the role of leadership, including team leadership, to promote creativity and innovation in academic scientific environments. The survey was developed with a total of 64 participants affiliated with the scientific community completing the survey. The large proportion of females in the student category correlates with the observation that most women in the study reached 1–5 years of experience. The results presented here suggest that professionals in academia must obtain PhDs to enter middle-range or high-range managerial positions. This agrees with the current data where more males holding PhDs had senior administrative positions than females.

Data collection method

The survey was powered using Google forms, an online application, for simple accessibility, ensuring confidentiality and anonymity, and obtaining a high enough response rate for quantitative data analysis. This survey formed the basis of the quantitative-based data analysis allowing inferring statements. The number of participants needed to be large enough to ensure the accuracy of conclusions and limit bias ( Easterby-Smith et al., 2012 ). This survey intended to “generalize from a sample to a population” ( Babbie, 1990 ). Participants in the study were personally invited in participate in the survey via email. The invitation included an explanation of the study, and that confidentiality was guaranteed, the aim of the study as well as the link to the survey. Participation in the survey was completely voluntary and anonymous. Hence, it is not all invited participants responded to the survey. Only filled questionnaires were taken into consideration. Data from every question and every participant was converted to a table in Excel (Microsoft Office) using the “View Responses” tool on Google Forms and limited errors in data file transcription.

Analysis of findings

Personal work perception of individual participants.

In the following section of the survey, participants were invited to give their sentiments about eight statements describing their perceptions at work ( Table 1 ). Here, participants had to choose from a six-point Likert scale to answer qualitatively about their feelings. For this set of questions, the maximum measure selected was “to a very great extent” designated by value 6, while the minimum ranges from “not at all” (1) to “to a slight extent” (3). Table 1 shows that respondents rated “individual characteristics necessary for creativity and innovation” as the most important factor (mean: 5), followed by “position in which creativity and innovation thinking are necessary” (mean: 4.83) and “you like your working environment” (mean: 4.78). On the other hand, the least two important factors where “you find your work rewarding” (mean: 4.25) and “you feel that you have support from your team and colleagues” (mean: 4.33).

Summary of statistics indicating the mean, standard deviation, minimum, median, and maximum values of the participants’ responses.

Besides, the six measures were grouped into three categories. The first category corresponds to negative feelings and comprises “not at all” (1) and “to almost no extent” (2) responses. The second group depicts neutral sentiments and contains the answers “to a slight extent” (3) and “to a moderate extent” (4). At the same time, the third section integrates positive feelings with “to a great extent” (5) and “to a very great extent” (6). Responses showed that most respondents were neutral or positive about their work. 58% of the participants were motivated to go to work (s8), and about 67% liked their working environment (s9). A large proportion found their job rewarding (s10), but the ratio of neutral feelings was greater (48.4%) than the positive responses (43.8%). 56.3% of the participants found their work challenging (s11) and received relative support from their colleagues (s14; 43.8% positive and 50% neutral). Interestingly, 71.9% responded positively about the necessity for creativity in their current positions (s12), and 78.1% feel they have the characteristics for creativity and innovation (s15). None of the respondents felt pessimistic about their capacity for creativity and innovation. Of all participants, 68.8% thought they had the necessary tools to perform well at work.

The analysis of the participants’ work perception revealed that although they felt they had the personal capacity and motivation for creativity and innovation and the tools to succeed, there was generally low support from colleagues. This can be caused by high competitiveness within the academic sector and a limited drive for collaboration ( Carson et al., 2013 ). This aspect has, however, been shown to be critical to encouraging creativity in previous studies ( Payne, 1990 ; Amabile et al., 1996 ). This suggests that the lack of formal teamwork may hinder exposure to novel ideas, reduce commitment to projects and, in turn, reduce individuals’ motivation over time. It may also minimize creative thinking ( Abra, 1994 ; Cagliano et al., 2000 ) suggested that this requires acquiring and utilizing expertise and collaborative efforts. Thus, academic leaders must focus on developing teamwork, collaboration, and team spirit to benefit creativity and innovation in their teams.

Effect of a leader’s behavior and management style on subordinates

On assessing the manager’s leadership style, 15 statements were asked for an assessment, similar to the above section. Data analysis revealed that the minimum mean was given to the statement about “opportunities for rewards,” with a mean value of 2.78. On the other hand, participants rated the statement on “communication and interaction” the highest, with a mean value of 4.63 ( Table 1 ).

Statements in this section were derived from the Managerial Practices Survey (MPS) and the categories defined by Yukl (2002) , except “Managing conflicts” and “Team-building” which were split into two separate categories. In the present study, the four categories that raised the most positive feelings were “Informing” (64.1%), “Planning and organizing” (50%), “Supporting” (46.9%), and “Clarifying roles and objectives” (45.3%; Table 2 ). In the study by Amabile et al. (2004) , the categories of “Monitoring,” “Consulting,” “Supporting,” and “Recognizing” were found to be positively correlated to leader support. Of these, only the category of “Supporting” was associated with a positive feeling in the present study. The other three categories, namely “Monitoring,” “Consulting,” and “Recognizing,” were found to bring neutral feelings at 50, 40.6, and 43.8%, respectively, as the most common consensus among the participants.

Categories of an individual’s feelings and perspectives about work.

1 Negative feeling combines answers ‘not at all’ and ‘to almost no extent’; 2 Neutral feeling combines answers ‘to a slight extent’ and ‘to a moderate extent’; 3 Positive feeling combines answers ‘to a great extent’ and ‘to a very great extent’.

On the other hand, Amabile et al.’s (2004) study revealed that the category of “Roles and objectives,” “Problem solving,” and “Monitoring” were negative forms of support. However, in the present study, none of these categories raised high negative ratios. The negative impact for “Roles and objectives” was observed in 9.4%, “Problem solving” in 12.5%, and “Monitoring” in 9.4% of the participants. Solving problems is critical in R&D environments and scoring a low negative ratio signals that leadership in this sector does confront complex, ill-defined problems, although, in this study, the category does not seem to critically depend on support. Team leadership has been posited as critical to diagnose and solve problems that keep the team from realizing their full potential ( Zaccaro et al., 2001 ). It has been pointed out that influential team leaders must know how to solve problems accurately, intervene effectively ( Shea and Guzzo, 1987 ), and use the team’s combined expertise to analyze problems to design effective solutions ( Hiller et al., 2006 ). The three categories that showed the most important negative feelings were “Consulting,” “Delegating,” and “Rewarding” with 21.9, 21.9, and 43.8% of the total participants.

Interestingly, the category “Consultation” was detected as one of the positive forms of behavior. The discrepancies between the study of Amabile et al. (2004) and the present study are probably due to the different setups of the two studies and the focus on R&D-based participants in the present study. In the study, data were collected through an online survey, while the study by Amabile et al. (2004) was derived from a quantitative analysis of daily diaries. Additionally, the pool of participants was a much wider participant group in the study of Amabile et al. (2004 ; i.e., 238 employees) against 64 in the present study. However, the results suggest that academic environments might have very particular managerial practices.

The observation of the categories of “Informing,” “Planning and organizing,” “Supporting,” and “Clarifying roles and objectives” as the four most positive managerial practices suggest that managers in R&D environments can organize and communicate to their subordinates effectively in addition to providing leadership support and planning. These categories show that the leaders provide resources and take action to secure them using planning, organizing, and supporting subordinates ( Shea and Guzzo, 1987 ). As the authors argued, providing adequate resources is beneficial as they facilitate the completion of tasks and show support to the team. It has also been proposed that providing resources can motivate teams because it communicates that the work is valued and appreciated and facilitates work efficiency ( Morgeson et al., 2010 ).

However, the most negative categories, “Consultation” and “Delegation,” suggest a risk of reduced team involvement in important tasks as subordinates are given low opportunities to evolve and limited empowering prospects. This may impact motivation in the long run, and thus overtime workers will become less actively involved and motivated in their work, although Shalley and Gilson (2004) stated that this was an essential role of leaders. Finally, the fact that “Rewards” was the most negatively rated practice suggests that leaders need to use this practice, especially recognition and other informal methods, to trigger their subordinate’s motivation, as indicated by Sankar et al. (1991) . This fact is supported by a study of 26 project teams in different industry sectors, namely chemical, technology, and consumer products, in which rewarding team members upon achievement of goals was observed as one of the critical behaviors of a leader that has a positive impact on facilitating team creativity and ultimately innovation ( Amabile et al., 2004 ).

Support to nurture creativity and innovative spirit provided to an individual and the team

The last set of nine statements relates to creativity and innovation. In this set, responses ranged from “not at all” (1) to “a very great extent” (6; Table 1 ). Table 1 shows that the lowest mean (3.88) relates to the ability of the manager to prepare for change and integrate new ideas and information, which could be because tenured scientists, those that generally have managerial positions, are holding onto their roles in their 60s and beyond. This might negatively impact innovation as several new ideas might be rejected. On the other hand, the question regarding “the level of autonomy offered” recorded the highest mean with a value of 4.56, although the delegation level was rated low. This suggests that subordinates might be left working autonomously on projects rather than working on tasks to help their managers, which could further empower them.

For this section, all statements except those relating to “team adaptation to change and idea integration” and “nurturing of openness and opportunities” recorded between 50 and 67% of positive feelings. The maximum negative emotion was recorded for a question relating to “nurturing of openness and opportunities” with 20.3%, which is in correlation with the relatively low positive feeling expressed for “Developing and mentoring” (statement 25; 40.6%) and “Networking” (statement 28; 35.9%). Taken together, this suggests that managers might hinder the possibility of their collaborators learning more and possibly evolving to new horizons. Besides, it has been shown that leadership actions directed towards coaching, developing, and mentoring the team promote team progressivity and effectiveness ( Hackman and Wageman, 2005 ), positively impacting creativity and innovation. Findings from the training and development functions of four team leaders across 14 teams in a Swedish manufacturing plant showed that the team leaders were proactively in the team’s task and engaged in developing team members’ knowledge, skills, and team spirit. Further, the role of a leader in mentoring, training, and development was positively related to team innovation and creativity ( Dackert et al., 2004 ). This study indicates that even though the academic environment provides the opportunity for scholars to nurture their talent, this opportunity is inadequate without support, mentoring, and developing leadership functions.

To gain insights into the effects of the behavioral traits of leaders display on team creativity and innovation within the R&D environment, we need a better understanding of the team’s views on leadership styles and motivational support to enable creativity and innovation in the academic environment. In the R&D environment, particularly the academic, cross-functional teams are observed more regularly and, when properly managed, can positively affect team creativity and innovation. By providing empirical evidence on the views on leadership styles and functions of team members of academic-based teams in the R&D environment, this research provides a richer insight into how teams and their subordinates can be engaged and motivated to nurture and thus possibly promote creative thinking and hence innovativeness. Therefore, a questionnaire was used to explore these relationships and target the R&D environment, particularly the academic environment, to gain insights into how leadership influences motivation, creativity, and innovation.

Demographics data outcome

A total of 86% of the participants in this study were employed in the academic sector, setting a good ground for the study, as the aim of the study was to look at the R&D environment and preferably academia. The study observes that a Ph.D. level is necessary for academia to reach higher positions, such as middle and higher-range manager positions. However, gender inequality was noticed as fewer females were in senior professional positions. This is in agreement with previous studies ( Shen, 2013 ), which showed that women do not have equal chances to reach high-profile positions. However, the correlation analysis revealed that the gender itself played a limited influence on the outcome of the results.

The present study reveals that the participants were motivated by their work and liked their working environment. Over 70% of the participants were positive about the necessity for creativity and having the characteristics of innovation and creativity. Most importantly, none of the participants rated negatively about this later statement. It is intriguing to note that the participants have the necessary tools to perform their respective work but felt there was limited support among colleagues, depicting limited teamwork. The lack of teamwork was further emphasized in the correlation analysis that revealed that managers in academia tend to focus on individual performance and contribution. This can translate to high competitiveness in the academic environment that hinders the drive for collaboration, effective teamwork ( Carson et al. 2018 ), cognitive flexibility, problem-solving, and creativity ( Gagné and Deci, 2005 ). Previous studies have proposed that inadequacy in teamwork might impair commitments to projects and reduce exposure to novel ideas. Thus, this may reduce motivation and creative thinking ( Abra, 1994 ; Cagliano et al., 2000 ). Therefore, academic leaders must focus on developing teamwork, collaborative work, and team spirit to benefit creativity and innovation. The present study also suggests that managers in an academic environment should focus on reducing the influence of group conflicts as a means to enhance creativity and innovative thinking. Furthermore, in a knowledge-based economy, creativity and innovation capacity are essential elements. Therefore, the individual’s innovation success depends on an employee’s relationship with the organization that provides information, resources, support, and inspiration that helps innovators to promote and develop new ideas.

Effect of the leader’s behavior and management style on subordinates

Of the Managerial Practices Categories, “Informing,” “Planning and Organizing,” “Supporting,” and “Clarifying roles and objectives” showed a positive relationship with leadership in the R&D environment. This observation suggests that leaders in R&D environments provide subordinates with a clear plan and organization and that they can communicate effectively and efficiently. The root of success in a team is fostered through leadership that provides adequate support and planning and is likely to be beneficial and facilitate the completion of tasks in addition to creative and innovative thinking. Appreciation of the working environment is also expected to trigger motivation and inspiration. It is, therefore, essential for managers to work on improving the work environment as a way to foster extrinsic motivation of their subordinates, notably when this fosters the feeling of autonomy and competence in their subordinates, as described in the cognitive evaluation theory ( Ryan, 1982 ).

Results showed that managers in academic environment offer autonomy to their subordinates, which can provide intrinsic motivation and drive performance, notably creativity and innovation ( Gagné and Deci, 2005 ). This positively offers self-management and the opportunity for the subordinates to rely more on their resources and become more resilient and adaptable. However, this also means they must be proactive and autodidact, skills not developed by everyone, especially young professionals or students. Thus, managers must focus on adapting their managerial styles to subordinates, notably by developing emotional intelligence ( Moss et al., 2006 ).

Leadership functions involving consulting, delegation, and rewarding had negative feedback in this study. These three negatively rated practices suggest a limitation in celebrating success in R&D compared to other industrial environments, as previously reported ( Amabile et al., 2004 ). Additionally, the analysis of statements 31–39 revealed that leaders in academic environments have a limited ability to embrace change and integrate new ideas, possibly because higher manager positions are obtained by highly experienced and, thus, aging leaders. Overall, this is likely to have a negative impact on innovation and creativity. Taken together, it appears that leaders in academia allow their subordinates to work autonomously rather than delegating and empowering them, limiting the subordinates’ opportunities to evolve to new horizons and higher positions. Interestingly, this might reinforce the high competitiveness observed in academia and described in the analysis of the demographic data. Dackert et al. (2004) stated that mentoring was positively related to team innovation and creativity. This, in turn, suggests that leaders should emphasize developing support and mentoring. Worth noting is that leaders in academic environments seem to offer little rewards, indicating the limited opportunities they provide to their subordinates.

Conclusion and recommendations

The present research intended to answer two research questions with the aim of determining if the leader’s behaviors influence subordinate creativity and innovation in academic R&D environments. On the contrary, the relationship between the production of ideas and the leadership role in fostering team innovation and creativity is examined. The first research question that the study disclosed was to what extent the “PMEG framework” impacts leadership in an R&D environment. In this regard, the positive effect is that group interactions lead to fostering team creativity and innovation. It thus appears that “people” influence logical variance between followers and leaders, “means” carry activities to influence followers, “effects” include certain heterogeneous reactions to followers, and finally, “goals” are essential for directing innovation. Thus, these four dimensions allow a systematic framework for making leadership easier and positively impact leadership (explained in the above sections) that influences an individual’s attitudes and behaviors and interaction between groups.

The second research question that the study intended to answer was to understand the production of ideas in an organization as well as the relationship between the creation of ideas and leadership roles. Therefore, the results show that the relationship between them can be positive, as reflected in the literature that managers of the academic R&D environment can improve to foster their subordinates’ motivation to trigger creative thinking and innovation. Thus, every organization should nurture innovation appropriately and particularly to stay competitive. Finally, it reveals that innovation does not take place without change. We have put the above hypotheses for testing, and the results are discussed in our study. The survey’s findings revealed that managers display behaviors that influence creativity and innovation, some in a positive way, which can enhance creativity and innovation, but also some that can negatively impact creativity and innovation. The positive behaviors included providing adequate support, planning, organization, and communicating effectively and efficiently. The survey also revealed that managers in the academic R&D environment focus on reducing the influence of group conflicts. On the other hand, the survey’s data also showed that managers tend to focus on individual performance and contribution.

The findings also had applications for managers hoping to foster creativity among their employees. First, managers should utilize transformational leadership primarily to develop a person’s creative instinct. Additionally, managers have the potential to be transformative leaders. High-caliber managers should have the appropriate training to serve as role models for their staff. Second, management should hire leaders who provide each employee the specific attention they need, in addition to training technocrats. Such an event encourages staff creativity and increases employee motivation. Thirdly, managers or supervisors need to accurately translate their ideals into concrete objectives so that staff members can work to achieve the targets. Additionally, transformational leaders should provide their team members the freedom to experiment with new concepts, look for intellectually stimulating challenges, and foster their creativity.

Along with making a significant contribution, the study has limitations that must be taken into account while explaining its results. By conducting a cross-regional and cross-cultural study, researchers could better understand how ethical leadership impacts employee and corporate outcomes. Further investigation is needed on the moral conduct of managers in service-related industries, such as hospitals, where nurses and doctors may influence their staff members’ behavior to foster creativity or innovation. This study also demonstrates that for innovation to be implemented in firms, executives must be inspired to welcome employee ideas.

Ideas for future research

Although the present study offers theoretical knowledge and insights about the processes that can trigger and impair creativity and innovation in academic R&D environments. Notably, it would be insightful to conduct a survey focusing on subordinates only to differentiate data gathered between subordinates and managers. In the present study, the entire data set was analyzed rather than separated according to the position held among participants. A follow-up analysis based on semi-structured interviews would also allow for deepening the knowledge and help understand better the meaning of answers gathered in the survey. For example, interviews could bring a better understanding of the feelings behind the development of autonomy, role clarity, and the work environment in academic environments and help to understand the intricate roles of these towards creativity and innovation. The data collected from interviews would, however, need to be analyzed using a qualitative method. However, Rahman (2016) states that there are certain disadvantages to the quantitative research approach. Firstly, using this research method requires us to be prepared financially. Also, as we need an enormous number of respondents, we need cash for questionnaire printing, transportation fees, etc. Secondly, positivism cannot address how social reality is retained and shaped or how people interpret their actions. Thirdly, this research method requires a larger sample of people, leading to more statistical accuracy.

On the other hand, Rahman (2016) claims that this research method overlooks the respondents’ experience because when collecting data, there seems to be an indirect connection between the researchers and the respondents. Lastly, it proclaims another limitation of this research method is that it is inclined to take a screenshot of a phenomenon, measure variables at a specific moment in time, and disregard whether the photograph looks unusually disarranged. It has been reported that integrating quantitative and qualitative data analysis multiplies the potential and likelihood of unanticipated outcomes, meaning that the outcome gives new understandings and new insights ( Bryman, 2006 ). Besides, a perception of a multidisciplinary approach can be tested to validate whether leaders in academia promote trans-disciplinary research and the influence this has on creativity and innovation as well as on the expansion of collaborative work. Finally, the authors have also highlighted that few academic contributions have explored the role of leadership in an R&D environment. In this perspective, more research needs to be carried out on the dynamics of the R&D environment to foster team innovation and creativity.

Data availability statement

Ethics statement.

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by University of Roehampton Online. The ethics committee waived the requirement of written informed consent for participation.

Author contributions

SS contributed to conception and design of the study. SA organized the database. LT and ZH performed the statistical analysis. ZH, SS, LT, and SA contributed to writing the first draft of the manuscript. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Why Collaboration Is Critical in Uncertain Times

  • Jenny Fernandez,
  • Kathryn Landis,

leadership and teamwork research paper

Working together can catalyze innovation — even in risk-averse companies.

Recent research suggests that when resources become limited, many business leaders’ inclinations are to become risk-averse and protect their own interests, fostering a culture of conservatism and prioritizing stability over innovation. In such circumstances, the emphasis often shifts toward preserving existing assets, reducing expenditures, and maintaining the status quo, which can hinder the organization’s ability to adapt, pivot, and thrive in a competitive environment. However, it’s precisely during these challenging times that the untapped potential of collaboration can be a game-changer. If you’re a leader struggling with risk-taking, here are four strategies to make the mindset and behavior shifts to become more collaborative and unlock growth.

A client of ours — let’s call her Mary, a senior executive in the technology industry — faced significant challenges managing a large organization amid economic uncertainty. Both her company and industry were experiencing tough times, resulting in budget cuts and a hiring freeze. Moreover, she was tasked with exceeding her annual revenue goals to compensate for the underperformance of a struggling business line, which was beyond her direct control.

  • Jenny Fernandez , MBA, is an executive and team coach, Columbia and NYU faculty, and future of work and brand strategist. She works with senior leaders and their teams to become more collaborative, innovative, and resilient. Her work spans Fortune 500 companies, startups, and higher education. Jenny has been recognized by LinkedIn as a “Top Voice in Executive Coaching, Leadership Development, and Personal Branding” and was invited to join the prestigious Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches community. She is a Gen Z advocate. Connect with her on LinkedIn .
  • Kathryn Landis , MBA, is the founder and CEO of the global coaching and advisory firm Kathryn Landis Consulting, which helps senior leaders empower and inspire their teams, create a lasting positive impact, and become the best versions of themselves in work and life. She is an adjunct professor at New York University and a former leader at American Express and Automatic Data Processing. Connect with her on LinkedIn .
  • Julie Lee , PhD, is a clinical psychologist, NYU faculty, and a leading Gen Z employment and mental health strategist. Dr. Lee’s work spans Fortune 500 companies,  startups, and higher education institutions, including Harvard and Brown University. In her consulting work, Dr. Lee helps organizations to motivate and retain Gen Z professionals and coaches executives to lead with purpose and empathy. Connect with her on LinkedIn .

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  1. (PDF) Reflections on Leadership, Teamwork, & Organizational Management

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  2. (PDF) A Case Study on Developing Students’ Leadership Skills via Team

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  3. 💐 Teamwork research paper. Teamwork Research Paper On Team Building And

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  4. 1309169166_Introduction to Leadership and Teamwork

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  6. 6: Teamwork and Leadership

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  1. Teamwork Paper Rollarcoaster. (1st Place🥇) (STEM Class)

COMMENTS

  1. Leadership and teamwork: Two sides of the same coin

    This paper will therefore explore and propose the best practices that would enable an optimal balancing of leadership and teamwork towards successful outcomes in a competitive environment ...

  2. The Science of Teamwork

    The science of teamwork has been extensively studied, 1 and with good reason. Successful teams improve business outcomes, including revenue and performance. 2 Many organizations are intentionally fostering a collaborative team-based culture, 2 and feeling like a part of a team is a primary driver of employee engagement. 3 Prior to the pandemic ...

  3. The impact of engaging leadership on employee engagement and team

    Most research on the effect of leadership behavior on employees' well-being and organizational outcomes is based on leadership frameworks that are not rooted in sound psychological theories of motivation and are limited to either an individual or organizational levels of analysis. The current paper investigates whether individual and team resources explain the impact of engaging leadership ...

  4. Emotional intelligence, leadership, and work teams: A ...

    Emotional intelligence (EI) has been widely researched in different fields of knowledge. This paper reviews the literature on emotional intelligence, leadership, and teams in 104 peer-reviewed articles and reviews provided by the Web of Science and Scopus databases from 1998 to 2022. It is a hybrid or mixed review as it uses both quantitative ...

  5. When Leadership Powers Team Learning: A Meta-Analysis

    For more than two decades, research and practice have shown that teams are essential for various organizations in adapting to the ever-changing, competitive, and increasingly complex working environment (Kozlowski & Ilgen, 2006).Teams are defined as "a collection of individuals who are interdependent in their tasks, who share responsibility for outcomes, who see themselves and who are seen ...

  6. (PDF) The Effect of Leadership and Teamwork on Employee ...

    Abstract and Figures. This study aims to investigate the influence of leadership and teamwork on team performance while exploring the potential effects of team turnover. Our methodology involved ...

  7. Six ways of understanding leadership development: An exploration of

    A review of adult development leadership research identified the need for more research with a wider use of contextual factors and how developmental activities are interpreted at different orders of development (McCauley et al., 2006). Thus, the current research focuses on the leader as a person or the concept of leadership, but no study has ...

  8. Frontiers

    This research checked journal guidelines and similar papers (see Farh et al., 2010) and used a mean split, where teams with a percentage of project completion equal to and below 56% were classified as being at an early phase and teams above 56% were classified as being at a later phase. Accordingly, there are 14 project teams in the early phase ...

  9. (PDF) The Influence of Leadership Roles and Team Building

    This study has developed a research model underpinned on Cohen and Bailey's (1997) Team Effectiveness Framework to empirically analyze how leadership roles and team building & participation can ...

  10. Full article: Transformational leadership effectiveness: an evidence

    Leadership models. Although almost every leadership researcher seems to propose a new or modified definition of the construct, leadership is generally operationalised in two ways: (1) leadership as a formal role or (2) leadership as a social influence (Yukl and Van Fleet Citation 1992).Most of the leadership research focuses on the latter, which it aims to understand through operationalisation ...

  11. How effective is teamwork really? The relationship between teamwork and

    Contextual factors of teamwork effectiveness. Based on a large body of team research from various domains, we hypothesise that several contextual and methodological factors might moderate the effectiveness of teamwork, indicating that teamwork is more important under certain conditions. 31 32 Therefore, we investigate several factors: (a) team characteristics (ie, professional composition ...

  12. Leadership Effectiveness in Healthcare Settings: A Systematic Review

    1. Introduction. Over the last years, patients' outcomes, population wellness and organizational standards have become the main purposes of any healthcare structure [].These standards can be achieved following evidence-based practice (EBP) for diseases prevention and care [2,3] and optimizing available economical and human resources [3,4], especially in low-industrialized geographical areas [].

  13. The Impact of Mental Health Leadership on Teamwork in Healthcare ...

    Background: There is compelling evidence to suggest that leadership behaviour and teamwork are critical success factors in healthcare organisations facing increasingly complex demands and limited resources. Effective teamwork is essential to deliver high-quality care, requiring integrating different professionals in the healthcare sector. Leaders play a significant role in facilitating ...

  14. Leadership, Teamwork, and Collaboration: The Lived Experience of

    Results: Findings revealed seven facilitators and one overarching barrier to conducting academic research projects of this scope. Conclusion: Participants found that strong leadership, a commitment to teamwork and collaboration, and a shared interest were critical to conducting a successful national study across academic settings.

  15. Workplace team resilience: A systematic review and conceptual

    Team resilience is critical for those contexts in which failure of effective teamwork can have serious consequences (e.g., emergency response teams failing to effectively collaborate and, thereby, jeopardizing people's lives). ... none of the empirical papers employed a longitudinal research design to examine work team processes linked to ...

  16. The role of leadership in collective creativity and innovation

    The lack of teamwork was further emphasized in the correlation analysis that revealed that managers in academia tend to focus on individual performance and contribution. ... Leadership in research and development organizations: a literature ... White Paper Report, Center for Creative Leadership. Hughes D. J., Lee A., Tian A. W., Newman A ...

  17. Leadership and Teamwork by Chenoy Ceil :: SSRN

    Leadership and teamwork are the two most important keywords for the success of any organization. Poor leadership cannot lead a team to success and a group of unmotivated and incompetent team cannot help a leader to achieve great success (Kouzes & Posner, 2007). To achieve organizational goals, the team must work as a whole under the leader and ...

  18. Enhancing the Effectiveness of Work Groups and Teams: A Reflection

    Abstract. Teamwork has been at the core of human accomplishment across the millennia, and it was a focus of social psychological inquiry on small group behavior for nearly half a century. However, as organizations world-wide reorganized work around teams over the past two decades, the nature of teamwork and factors influencing it became a ...

  19. Research paper Improving teaching, teamwork, and school organization

    But for exploring new ideas on teamwork, a leadership position seemed to have some importance. There were positive and significant effects on receiver covariates in three schools. ... Research Papers in Education, 33 (2) (2017), pp. 216-238, 10.1080/02671522.2017.1286682. Google Scholar. Hunter et al., 2008. D.R. Hunter, S.M. Goodreau, M.S ...

  20. (PDF) The Impact of Teamwork on Work Performance of ...

    The research study revealed that teamwork, leadership and structure, team trust and performance appraisal and rewards have a significant and positive impact on the performance of faculty members ...

  21. Transformational Leadership and Team Performance

    Jung and Avolio (2000) identified three dimensions of team performance: quantity, quality, and satisfaction. They found that transformational leadership affects team performance through value congru-ence and trust. Burke et al. (2007) suggested that team per-formance is the distal outcome variable of trust in leadership.

  22. Why Collaboration Is Critical in Uncertain Times

    Jenny Fernandez, MBA, is an executive and team coach, Columbia and NYU faculty, and future of work and brand strategist.She works with senior leaders and their teams to become more collaborative ...

  23. (PDF) Characteristics of Effective Leadership

    The main objective of this research paper is to acquire an efficient understanding of characteristics of effective leadership. In various types of organizations, when the leaders are carrying out ...

  24. Analysis of Leader Effectiveness in Organization and Knowledge Sharing

    Leadership styles from the 1970s to the present have been receiving increasing interest. To date, research has mostly been related to the impact on employees and their impact on innovation and creativity (Hussain et al., 2017). For this reason, it is necessary to examine the relationships between variables in terms of how the effectiveness of ...