Shared Leadership Emergence: The Role of Leader Identity and Leadership Structure Schema

Abstract

The increasing popularity of self-managing teams has sparked interest in the impact of shared leadership structures on team outcomes. Yet, it is unclear how shared leadership structures form or why they vary across teams. While research suggests that leadership claiming and granting are essential to the social construction of shared leadership in teams, the latter has received little attention. Therefore, this study aimed to address the fundamental questions “what factors determine who is granted leadership by individuals in a team?” and “what factors determine how many others are granted leadership by individuals in a team?” I proposed that leader identity level influences granting behaviors such that those with a collective-level leader identity perceive team members who display warmth as leaders and those with an individual-level leader identity perceive team members who display competence as leaders. Further, I proposed that leadership structure schema (LSS) influences granting behaviors such that those with a more hierarchical LSS grant to one or few others and those with a more egalitarian LSS grant to many others. These hypotheses were tested with an experimental vignette design using a sample of MTurk participants and the results were found to be nonsignificant. Limitations and future research are discussed.