Shared Leadership: Experimental Evidence On Its Antecedents and Impact on Team Outcomes

Leadership has been traditionally conceptualized as individual-centered and top-down. However, the fast growing environment creates demands beyond the capabilities of an individual leader and requires flexible and adaptive leadership structures in response. The current study built upon research in leadership and teams and employed an iterative experimental design to investigate the emergence of shared leadership through its antecedents (i.e., power structure and role assignment) and examine its impact on team outcomes (i.e., productivity, adaptability and innovation). The relationship between shared leadership and other team properties (i.e., collective efficacy and team cohesiveness) were also scrutinized. Social network analysis (SNA) and growth modeling techniques were utilized. Support for hypotheses was not found. Methodological and analytical limitations and future research directions were discussed.