How Team Members’ Transformational Leadership and Effective Followership Work During Team Interactions

Abstract

In the current study, a mixed-method research design was used to explore how teammembers’ transformational leadership and effective followership relate to teamworkquality. Data were collected from 10 student project teams (N [team] = 10; N[individual] = 84 team members) in a leadership class at a large-sized publicuniversity in the United States. As a follow-up, focus group interviews were conductedwith two teams (n = 13 team members) to explore how team members’transformational leadership and effective followership work during team interactions.Correlation results showed that team members’ transformational leadership waspositively related to teamwork quality (r = 0.84, p < 0.01). In the qualitative phase,findings showed that the team exhibiting centralized transformational leadership alsoexhibited passive team followership and low-quality teamwork. Low-quality teamworkwas described as social loafing and polarization. In contrast, the team exhibitingshared transformational leadership also exhibited proactive team followership andhigh-quality teamwork. High-quality teamwork was described as conflict resolution andteam synergy. The findings have important implications for leaders, followers,leadership educators, teams, organizations, and researchers.