Purpose – Shared leadership describes leadership as a collective and reciprocal activity distributed among the members of a team (Carson et al., 2007). The purpose of this paper is to investigate variables assumed to be antecedents for this leadership approach. In particular, the authors examine the importance of external empowering leadership and task and goal interdependence for shared leadership as well as the relationship between shared leadership and team performance. Design/methodology/approach – In order to test the hypotheses, the authors applied structural equation modeling using a field sample of 81 knowledge and manufacturing teams from a Danish company. Findings – Results indicated that an external empowering team leader and interdependence in the team significantly predicted the extent of shared leadership, which, in turn, was positively related to team leader ratings of team performance. Research limitations/implications – Overall, the study supports previous findings that the act of sharing leadership in a team may contribute to increased team performance. In addition, the study provides an initial understanding of antecedent conditions for the successful development of shared leadership. However, as the study was cross-sectional and conducted within a single organization, care must be taken in making causal claims or in generalizing the results without additional evidence. Originality/value – Few studies focus on the antecedents of sharing leadership. The authors obtained evidence, which suggests that the development of shared leadership may depend on the presence of an empowering team leader as well as task and goal interdependence in the team.

PurposePrevious studies show that sharing leadership in teams offers potential performance benefits across various contexts. This paper aims to investigate moderators of the effectiveness of shared leadership. In particular, it seeks to explore the moderating effects of team work function – manufacturing versus knowledge team work – and team autonomy.Design/methodology/approachIn order to test the hypotheses, the authors conducted hierarchical regression analyses and ran moderated two‐way regression analyses using a field sample of 552 employees comprising 81 teams in a Danish manufacturing company.FindingsContrary to expectations, the results demonstrated a non‐significant relationship between shared leadership and team performance. However, as expected, work function significantly moderated this relationship such that shared leadership exhibited a negative relationship with manufacturing team performance and a positive relationship with knowledge team performance. Moreover, team autonomy was positively related to performance, and it significantly moderated the relationship between shared leadership and team performance.Research limitations/implicationsThe study provides a potentially useful framework for understanding boundary conditions for the effectiveness of shared leadership. However, since the design of the study is cross‐sectional, direct causation cannot be inferred. Moreover, the study took place within a single organization in a Danish context and, therefore, care must be taken in generalizing the findings without additional evidence from further research.Originality/valueTo the authors' knowledge, the study is the first to obtain evidence which indicates that the success of shared leadership may depend on the team work function and the level of team autonomy.