The Divergent Effects of Transformational Leadership on Individual and Team Innovation

Abstract

Transformational leadership has consistently been argued to enhance team innovation, yet related research has generated ambiguous findings. We suggest that our understanding of leader impact on innovation would benefit from explicitly recognizing both group-and individual-focused transformational leadership dimensions and their distinct effects on team and individual innovation. In particular, we predict a novel contrasting effect in which group-focused transformational leader behavior has a positive impact on team innovation but a negative impact on individual innovation. We further argue that this divergence in leader effect is strengthened by task interdependence, which enhances the negative effects of grouplevel transformational leadership on individual innovation. Data from 195 members of 56 teams support our predicted pathways, which contribute to a clearer understanding of the complex, multilevel effects of leadership in innovation in teams, and highlight the importance of differentiating between team and individual leader dimensions and outcomes.

Enhancing employee creativity via individual skill development and team knowledge sharing: Influences of dual‐focused transformational leadership

“…Sample items for team-focused TFL included [The leader] "articulates a vision for the team" and "facilitates the acceptance of group goals." In keeping with previous research (e.g., Li et al, 2016;Wang & Howell, 2010), we averaged all items at the individual level to create an overall score for the individual-focused TFL scale. To obtain the team-focused TFL, we averaged all team-focused items for each individual and then aggregated members' team-focused TFL scores for each team.…”

“…Team size has been suggested to influence employee creativity and various team processes (e.g., Eisenbeiss et al, 2008;Hirst et al, 2009). We also controlled for team task interdependence because it may have a distinct impact on team knowledge sharing and employee creativity (Gong et al, 2013;Li et al, 2016). Task interdependence was assessed using the four-item scale from Kirkman, Rosen, Tesluk, and Gibson (2004) and aggregated to the team level.…”

“…Yet, in a recent meta‐analysis, Rosing, Frese, and Bausch () have pointed to inconsistencies in the research on TFL–creativity relationship and suggested that the high degree of variation found in the relationship may be due to the lack of clarification of the levels of analyses. In fact, recent theoretical advancements regarding TFL posit that effective transformational leaders have different emphases when managing individuals and teams (Li, Mitchell, & Boyle, ; Li, Shang, Liu, & Xi, ; Wang & Howell, ; Wu, Tsui, & Kinicki, ), with some behaviors most meaningfully targeted at individuals (individual‐focused TFL) and other behaviors more properly directed to the team (team‐focused TFL). Thus, the dual‐focused conceptualization of TFL may have the potential to advance creativity research.…”

“…Here, we extend that research stream by exploring the possibility that dual‐focused TFL increases the prospect that the followers themselves can step up to the creativity requirements of the job, while also stimulating the team toward greater creativity production. Specifically, individual‐focused TFL tends to “stimulate individuals to develop their own skills” (Li et al, , p. 4), while team‐focused TFL motivates team members to offer information out of intentions to benefit the collective (Zhang, Tsui, & Wang, ) and enables “transmission and sharing of knowledge” (García‐Morales, Lloréns‐Montes, & Verdú‐Jover, , p. 300). Enhanced individual skills and knowledge sharing may, in turn, help the individual and the group, respectively, enact their creative potential.…”

Liderança transformacional e a eficácia grupal: o papel mediador dos comportamentos de suporte

“…Com efeito, múltiplos estudos documentam o impacto positivo da liderança transformacional sobre diferentes resultados (ou critérios de eficácia), dos quais são exemplo a satisfação (Bass, 1999;Braun, Peus, Weisweiler, & Frey, 2013;Judge & Piccolo, 2004), o desempenho (Schaubroeck, Lam, & Peng, 2011;Wang & Howell, 2010;Wang, Oh, Courtright, & Colbert, 2011) ou a inovação (Keller, 1992;Li, Mitchell & Boyle, 2015;Mumford, Ginamarie, Scott, Gaddis, & Strange, 2002).…”