TY - JOUR
T1 - A meta-analysis of shared leadership and team effectiveness
AU - Wang, Danni
AU - Waldman, David
AU - Zhang, Zhen
PY - 2014/3
Y1 - 2014/3
N2 - A growing number of studies have examined the "sharedness" of leadership processes in teams (i.e., shared leadership, collective leadership, and distributed leadership). We meta-analytically cumulated 42 independent samples of shared leadership and examined its relationship to team effectiveness. Our findings reveal an overall positive relationship (ρ = 34). But perhaps more important, what is actually shared among members appears to matter with regard to team effectiveness. That is, shared traditional forms of leadership (e.g., initiating structure and consideration) show a lower relationship (ρ = .18) than either shared new-genre leadership (e.g., charismatic and transformational leadership; ρ = .34) or cumulative, overall shared leadership (ρ = .35). In addition, shared leadership tends to be more strongly related to team attitudinal outcomes and behavioral processes and emergent team states, compared with team performance. Moreover, the effects of shared leadership are stronger when the work of team members is more complex. Our findings further suggest that the referent used in measuring shared leadership does not influence its relationship with team effectiveness and that compared with vertical leadership, shared leadership shows unique effects in relation to team performance. In total, our study not only cumulates extant research on shared leadership but also provides directions for future research to move forward in the study of plural forms of leadership.
AB - A growing number of studies have examined the "sharedness" of leadership processes in teams (i.e., shared leadership, collective leadership, and distributed leadership). We meta-analytically cumulated 42 independent samples of shared leadership and examined its relationship to team effectiveness. Our findings reveal an overall positive relationship (ρ = 34). But perhaps more important, what is actually shared among members appears to matter with regard to team effectiveness. That is, shared traditional forms of leadership (e.g., initiating structure and consideration) show a lower relationship (ρ = .18) than either shared new-genre leadership (e.g., charismatic and transformational leadership; ρ = .34) or cumulative, overall shared leadership (ρ = .35). In addition, shared leadership tends to be more strongly related to team attitudinal outcomes and behavioral processes and emergent team states, compared with team performance. Moreover, the effects of shared leadership are stronger when the work of team members is more complex. Our findings further suggest that the referent used in measuring shared leadership does not influence its relationship with team effectiveness and that compared with vertical leadership, shared leadership shows unique effects in relation to team performance. In total, our study not only cumulates extant research on shared leadership but also provides directions for future research to move forward in the study of plural forms of leadership.
KW - Meta-analysis
KW - Shared leadership
KW - Team effectiveness
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84897599659&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84897599659&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1037/a0034531
DO - 10.1037/a0034531
M3 - Article
C2 - 24188392
AN - SCOPUS:84897599659
SN - 0021-9010
VL - 99
SP - 181
EP - 198
JO - Journal of Applied Psychology
JF - Journal of Applied Psychology
IS - 2
ER -