Shared leadership in entrepreneurial teams: the impact of personality

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to develop a model to better understand which personality traits and personal values impact transformational leadership qualities in self-directed entrepreneurial teams as perceived by team members. Design/methodology/approach A cohort consisting of six self-directed entrepreneurial teams was selected. A multi-rater system was applied to assess the perceived transformational leadership qualities. A model was developed, using three dimensions of transformational leadership as dependent variables: inspiring others, stimulating interaction among group members and communicating a strong vision. Findings The ability to inspire others was predicted by friendliness, measuring a positive labeling of social phenomena. In addition, two positive moderation effects emerged as being related to inspirational capacities: assertiveness and despondency, and assertiveness and emotional empathy interacted. The second moderation effect also impacted the capacity to stimulate group interaction. The personality traits “modesty” and the personal value “human relations” were negatively related to the perceived capacity to communicate a strong vision. Furthermore, a significant but moderate effect of team membership on the capacity to inspire others respectively stimulate interaction seems to exist. Practical implications The research results offer valuable opportunities to enhance or to develop those informal, transformational leadership qualities positively influencing entrepreneurial effectiveness. Social implications As entrepreneurship in small, self-directed teams is a popular phenomenon, research results add to the understanding of group interaction related to informal leadership. Originality/value Shared or informal transformational leadership in the context of self-directed, entrepreneurial teams is a relatively new phenomenon. Integrating a multi-rater assessment of leadership with personality combines interesting perspectives.

Hurdle Rate and Adverse Selection on Escalation of Commitment

“…Self-justification theory has been a relevant theory to explain the escalation of commitment at the level of individual decision makers (Brockner, 1992;Cheng, et al, 2003). Individual behaviors who seek to rationalize their previous behavior tend to defend themselves against adverse consequences (Festinger, 1957;Sumaedi, Juniarti, & Bakti, 2015;Hensel & Visser, 2018) demonstrates that a person is highly committed when a program is chosen by them and they are personally responsible for the negative consequences. Self-justification theory has been generated from cognitive dissonance theory (Festinger, 1957) and psychological commitment theory (Kiesler, 1971) which explains the motivations underlying the escalation of manager's commitment (Cheng, et al, 2003).…”

How Shared Leadership in Entrepreneurial Teams Influences New Venture Performance: A Moderated Mediation Model

“…As Lazar et al (2020) stated, the division of leadership is often characterized by the “throne versus kingdom” paradox: if lead entrepreneurs desire possession of major shares and leadership authority (i.e., owning the throne), this condition may undermine new venture survival and financial performance (i.e., the kingdom). On the other hand, shared leadership seems excessively valuable in the innovative context such as entrepreneurship within a complex and dynamic environment (Hensel & Visser, 2018; Wang et al, 2014). Several studies have suggested a superior innovative ability of highly autonomous self-directed teams relative to teams with a traditionally vertical leadership (He et al, 2020).…”

Does personality influence effectual behaviour?

“…The same holds for the neuroticism domain. Lower averages of neuroticism are associated with more effectively coping with stress, while the same lower averages for this domain are also associated with lower capacity to cope intellectually with high complexity and ambiguity (Hensel and Visser, 2018;Hensel, 2010). Consequently, the relevancy and especially direction of the domains and facets of neuroticism and agreeableness will be tested to identify the underlying dimensions of the success criterionan (out-)performance in executing effectual behaviours a five-factor model will be compared to a three-factor model.…”