Modeling leadership and team performance

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to develop a research model that explains team performance based on social cognitive theory and social exchange theory. In the model, team performance indirectly relates to three kinds of leadership (i.e., charismatic, autocratic and considerate) via the full mediation of collective efficacy. At the same time, team justice as a focus in this study is examined as a moderator in the model. Design/methodology/approach The research hypotheses of this study were empirically tested using two-wave data collection across insurance sales teams from a leading bank holding company which is the largest bank holding company in Taiwan. In the first-wave data collection, researchers of this study surveyed six people anonymously from each sales team, including a team leader and five team members. Three months later, the researchers conducted the second-wave data collection by obtaining team performance data from the department of human resource management, which was an independent rater for each team’s performance. Two-wave data collection from 59 teams was achieved for verifying the hypothesized effects. Findings The team-level test results show that collective efficacy fully mediates the relationship between charismatic leadership and team performance and between considerate leadership and team performance. Justice moderates the relationship between collective efficacy and team performance and between charismatic leadership and collective efficacy. Originality/value This study has two major theoretical implications. First, this study conceptualized three distinct kinds of leadership as major determinants of team performance from a social exchange perspective. Such a theoretical conceptualization of leadership not only broadens the boundary of leadership beyond traditional one such as transactional leadership based on the theory of contingent reward but also closely reflects the practical status quo of leadership of teams. Second, this research incorporated social exchange theory into the framework of team performance in social cognitive theory. Specifically, this study theorized and validated justice as a moderator in the development of team performance.

Is Paternalistic Leadership a Double-Edged Sword for Team Performance? The Mediation of Team Identification and Emotional Exhaustion

“…The test results reveal that the three direct paths are all insignificant, suggesting good robustness for the mediation model proposed by this study. This study adopts a bootstrapping approach recommended in the literature (Edwards & Lambert, 2007;Huang & Lin, 2019;C. P. Lin, Wang, et al, 2019) to evaluate the indirect effects of authoritarianism, morality and benevolence on team performance.…”

“…In Table 3, the goodness-of-fit indices reveal that the proposed model based on six factors is the best fit model of all. In addition, discriminant validity was supported by chi-square difference test, the difference of chi-square statistics between constrained models (i.e., fix the covariance of each construct pair equal to 1) and unconstrained model were all significant based on Bonferroni method (Huang & Lin, 2019;C. P. Lin, Wang, et al, 2019).…”

Collectively crafting the sales job: linking charismatic leadership to sales teams’ performance

“…Charismatic leaders can enhance team members' trust in the team's vision, activate their confidence in their abilities (Keller, 2006) and energize them to act toward attaining challenging goals (Dvir et al, 2002). Therefore, according to social cognitive theory, charismatic leaders can leverage the team's efficacy (Le Blanc et al, 2021;Lin et al, 2019). When team members form a self-schema of their confidence in their abilities, the performance system is more strongly regulated (Wood and Crafting the sales job Bandura, 1989).…”

“…Social cognitive theory proposes triadic reciprocal interactions among the environment, individuals’ cognition and other personal factors, and their behaviors (Bandura, 1986). In an organizational context, members’ cognition, motivation and behavior can be influenced by external factors such as leader behaviors (Le Blanc et al ., 2021; Lin et al ., 2019). Therefore, we expect that team members’ crafting of team tasks can be promoted by charismatic leadership as a contextual factor, as well as collective job crafting can foster the performance of a sales team.…”

Role of Organizational Justice in Linking Leadership Styles and Academics’ Performance in Higher Education

“…Moreover, some studies (Lin et al 2019;Thompson et al 2021) have found that organizational justice can also partially mediate the relationship between transformational and transactional leadership and employee performance. This suggests that both transformational and transactional leadership may influence employee performance through the creation of a fair and just workplace.…”