SHARED LEADERSHIP NETWORK: A COOPERATIVE PATTERN IN KNOWLEDGE-BASED TEAMS Jiefang Li, South China University of Technology, China,
[email protected] Haibo Wang, Texas A&M International University, U.S.A.
[email protected] Chunhua Chen, South China University of Technology, China,
[email protected]
ABSTRACT. This paper proposes shared leadership (SL) as a cooperative pattern in respond to the requirement of knowledge organization. It gives an integrative definition of SL based on the accumulative and interactive perspectives of recent research. The coordination characteristics of shared leadership are discussed. This paper concludes with the existing deficiency of social network analysis in SL study for future empirical research. Keywords: Shared leadership, Social network analysis, Teamwork INTRODUCTION Leadership plays an important role in stimulating organization effectiveness [2] [11] [12]. The major paradigm for describing team leadership has a leader-centered perspective which emphasizes on personal behaviors and characteristics, [9] thus largely neglecting leadership provided by teams. [2] However, over-reliance on an individual in the knowledge-creation process introduces considerable risk to the organization. [11] Moreover, in knowledge-based work, it is more and more difficult for any one person to have all of the knowledge, skills and abilities that satisfy all aspects of knowledge work. [11] Therefore, Mintzberg challenged the prevailing idea of focused leadership paradigm and proposed “distributed leadership,” of which the roles are dynamically rotated and shared by various people of a group according to their capabilities as conditions change. [10] Shared leadership is in an infancy stage of research. [12] Relatively little research has addressed the implication of this evolutionary shift to internally distributed form of team leadership. [2] This paper discusses the necessity and possibility of developing shared leadership in knowledge-based team concerning the changed situation for leadership. First, this study integrates the concepts of shared leadership based on the accumulative and interactive perspectives of recent research contribution. Secondly, it discusses the coordination characteristics of shared leadership. Finally, the deficit of leadership network is proposed so as to facilitate further research of shared leadership in social network analysis. CHANGED SITUATION: THE CHALLENGE FOR LEADERSHIP Situational leadership theories emphasized that leaders must match their styles to the requirements of the situation [8]. In industrial era which characterized with routine and repeat work, centralized and vertical leadership works well. However, the emergence of knowledge work and knowledge worker challenges the traditional single leader pattern. The Characteristics and Requirements of the Knowledge Workers The creativity. Creativity is the most remarkable ability of the knowledge workers, compared to the manual workers. Contrary to the raw materials which will lose the usage value in the -2991-
production process, knowledge workers are value-added resource due to their creativity through practice. Drucker argued that the most important contribution that management should make in the 21st century was to increase the productivity of the knowledge worker, which was the intangible asset of the enterprise. [3] The autonomy. The crucial question of knowledge-worker productivity is “what is the task”, as compare to that of the manual workers who care about “how the work should be done” [3]. This indicates the autonomy of the knowledge worker. Once confirming the task, they have the initiative to finish the job step by step. They desire self-actualization rather than just a paycheck. [11] The status of knowledge worker. Grant deduced that the theoretical foundation of the shareholder value approach was challenged, if the primary resource of the firm was knowledge which was owned and exercised by employees. [7] The knowledge workers should have the decision right and ownership of the enterprise. Drucker indicated that the organization would depend on the workers in knowledge work era, as contrary to the manual work era when the workers depended on the organization. [3] The Characteristics of the Knowledge Tasks Complexity. Knowledge work is complex due to multidisciplinary knowledge integration as well as large amounts of vague and conflicting decision information. This increases the difficulty for a leader to make highly effective decision solely. Interdependence. The creative knowledge work, by its nature, generally requires interdependence of multiple individuals [11] because it is difficult for a single person to master all the knowledge, skills and abilities that the tasks require. A case in point is that 77% of the 195 articles in a volume of Science were published by three or more co-authors. [11] This indicates that teamwork is a dominating organization pattern in the cutting-edge scientific discovery. Response speed. Moore’s law reflects the fast-pace of technology upgrade, which pushes the response speed of organization. A correct decision is implemented slowly only means losing advantage against other organizations. Quick response demands flexible workforce which shortens the hierarchy of organization and delegates the authority to subordinate in order to speed up the process from decision to action. The Gap between Leadership and the Situation According to the transformation of task from routine and repetitive work to complex and interdependent knowledge work, the expertise of formal leader represents only one of the numerous specialties in the organization. It is more and more difficult for the centralized single leader to make highly effective decisions in a fast-changing and complex knowledge world by oneself. The leader is therefore highly dependent on the expertise of team members. This is true in a wide variety of contexts ranging from cross-functional task forces, to R&D labs, and to the executive suite. [11] The shift situation pushes researchers to question the traditional leadership and promote the urgency to understand the dynamics of shared leadership, which is concerned about the cooperation of collective leadership. [12]
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THE CHARACTERISTICS OF SHARED LEADERSHIP In the past few years, shared leadership (or named distributed leadership) is emerging to challenge the traditional centralized leadership. [2] [7] [9] [11] [12] The Definition Up to now, a number of definitions of shared leadership have come up. Basically, they could be classified into two perspectives: accumulative perspective and interactive point of view. Accumulative point of view. Gibb first stated that “leadership is probably best conceived as a group quality, as a set of functions which must be carried out by the group. This concept of ‘distributed leadership’ is an important one”. [5] Carson et al. followed this definition in order to operationalize the quantitative research. They defined shared leadership as an emergent team property that resulted from the distribution of leadership influence across multiple team members. [2] Dynamic interactive point of view. Gronn divided distributed leadership into two types: numerical action and concertive action. [7] The former regarded distributed leadership as aggregated leadership that dispersed among some, many, or maybe all of the members. The latter was characterized as spontaneous collaboration, intuitive working relations and institutionalized practices. Gronn pushed forward the definition of distributed leadership from the quantity of leader number to the quality of leadership behaviors. Pearce & Conger defined shared leadership “as a dynamic, interactive influence process among individuals in groups for which the objective is to lead one another to the achievement of group or organizational goals or both. This influence process often involves peer, or lateral influence and at other times involves upward or downward hierarchical influence”. [12] Mintzberg emphasized the dynamic roles rotation in the distributed leadership process. He defined distributed leadership as a series of roles which was fluid, shared by various people in a group according to their capabilities as conditions change. [10] Integrated definition. Most of the researchers prefer the definition on the dynamic interaction perspective, such as Gronn’s concertive action, Pearce & Conger’s dynamic, interactive influence, and Mintzberg’s fluid roles, because it is better to discover the cooperative nature of shared leadership. However, Gibb’s accumulative perspective could distinguish shared leadership from vertical leadership easily and benefit to empirical study. Combining the merits of these two perspectives together, we integrate shared leadership as a dynamic, interactive influence process among several individuals of a group according to their capabilities and task requirement. The Coordination Pattern of Shared Leadership The nature of shared leadership is dynamic coordination. Shard leadership abandons “the individual achievement and meritocracy” [4] and values group problem solving and decision making, which is one of the coordination forms that integrate the knowledge. [6] It is a collective, interdependent, and mutual trust process. Trust. Trust is the foremost factor in shard leadership implementation, which is an interactive process that “members both lead and follow one another at a given time”. [2] Trust among individuals in shared leadership represents the willingness to follow the leadership provided -2993-
by others in different period of task development. Accepting leadership from others is an especially difficult psychological shift for a designated leader. But it is the beginning of trust in leadership. As Darin Drabing, CEO of Forest Lawn Memorial Parks and Mortuaries, which had moved slowly toward a model of shared leadership, indicated “it is about trust. And it starts at the top”. [11] Initiative. While trust guarantees members respond to the leadership provided by others, initiative encourages members providing leadership with their specialty due to the task requirement. Initiative means members are willing to guide their team fellows in an effort to maximize the potential of the team as a whole. [11] Carson et al. concluded from empirical study that the external team leader played an important role in building shared commitment and encouraging the initiative of team members to take the leadership responsibilities if team members could not build up a cooperative environment. [2] However, not all individuals are talent leaders. Therefore, training is necessary to motivate the initiative to be leaders. Pearce suggested three fundamental areas in shared leadership training: (1) how to engage in responsible and constructive leadership; (2) how to accept influence; (3) basic teamwork skills (e.g., goal setting, status reporting, citizenship behavior). [11] Shared Vision. Shared vision that creates compelling images of the future of the organization is necessary to promote shared leadership. People are motivated by self-purpose. A shared vision that combines the organizational objective and individual purpose will benefit to integrate the effort of all the members. With the shared vision, team members are more likely to facilitate both goal-oriented and work-directive leadership behaviors, as well as a collective direction to team activities. [2] Moreover, the shared vision is not static, but dynamic and collaborative to articulate what the members want to create together [1]. Open Communication. Shared leadership requires more personal and intensive communication to cooperate. Open communication could help in developing a deep discussion when the team face a tough situation. When a member makes mistakes during taking the responsibility to be a leader, open communication will alleviate the resent or misunderstanding, reduce vicious conflict, and stimulate morale in the team. Shared leadership is such a process that driven by the shared vision, trust among team members, initiative to offer leadership and willingness to accept leadership, and open communication to face the complex circumstance of knowledge work. Based on the attributes of coordination in the shared leadership model above, shared leadership is a dynamic rotation process in which team members both offering and accepting of active leadership roles dynamically to achieve flexible coordination. RESEARCH FRAMEWORK OF SHARED LEADERSHIP IN SOCIAL NETWORK ANALYSIS Social network analysis provides a conceptual framework and methodological tool to study the relational structure of shared leadership influence. [2] [9] First, the nature of shared leadership relies on interdependent and reciprocal relation of influence. Relation is the basic unit of analysis in social network approach. Second, the concepts and measures of social network could be applied to describe and analyze the properties and structure of shared leadership network. For example, the directive diagram is a appropriate tool to describe of the source, structure and strength of leadership network. -2994-
Operational Framework Operation process. First, develop the questionnaire that covers leadership behaviors of team members. This could be gathered from the interviews with team members or literatures. Second, circulate the questionnaires to all of the team members. Below each question, there is a name list for respondents to choose the extent (e.g., from 1, “not at all” to 5, “to a very great extent”) to which the peers’ leadership is perceived by the respondents. Third, translate the raw data to n*n squared matrices. The row total indicates the total amount of leadership influence of each member perceived by his or her peers. [9] Fourth, dichotomize the data. Fifth, construct a directive network from the dichotomized matrices. B
A
Fig.1. Centralized leadership
Fig.2. Shared leadership (Maximum density)
Fig.3. Shared leadership (Moderate density)
Directive diagrams construction. Directive diagrams are helpful in studying the perceptive relationships of leadership roles. [2] [9] The circles are nodes representing team members. [2] The links/ties among them mean influence interactions. [9] The arrows represent leadership relations: an arrow pointing from member A to B means that member B is perceived as a source of leadership by member A (see Fig. 1). Two headed arrows mean that two individuals perceive each other as the source of leadership. [2] The total network refers to the influence perception among members. The properties of leadership network. Mayo et al. suggested two indicators: strength and symmetry. Strength represents the frequency of information exchange or influence between two individuals. Symmetry refers to whether the relationship is bidirectional. [9] Carson et al. used density as a measure of the total amount of leadership displayed by team members. Density is the score of the total existing ties divided by the potential ties. [2] The higher the density, the more team members rate their peers as leaders. The density of Fig.1 is lower than that of Fig. 2. Fig. 1 represents centralized leadership, whereas Fig. 2 represents the maximum density of shared leadership, a fully distribution of leadership among all members. Mayo et al. suggested centrality as an individual network measure. Centrality describes the distribution of network ties and whether these links are aggregated around a focal member. [9] Egalitarian shared leadership like Fig. 2 is rare, in which every member has the same and maximum influence on the others. The network ties of leadership network like Fig. 3, which is a moderation of Fig. 1 and Fig. 2, is common. The Deficit of Social Network Analysis Aggregate point of view. Leadership network describes the leadership of peers perceived by each member in a team. It aggregates the density, strength, or centrality of relationships. But it cannot reflect the concertive interaction of leadership influences among members. Static point of view. The difficulties to develop shared leadership include how team members take the responsibilities of leaders, how to switch from leadership to subordinate dynamically, and how to cooperate seamlessly. Leadership network diagram just gives the result of the relationship, not the dynamic cooperation process of the leadership. -2995-
Difficulty to comparison. The measures of leadership diagram are appropriate to describe the leadership influence distribution in a team. However, it is difficult to compare leadership network of different teams. For example, is it true that the higher the density the more effective the performance of team? We cannot draw such a conclusion from the perceived practice because the more distribution of leadership amongst a team, the higher the cost of communication and the possibility of conflict due to different opinions, which may be harmful. The effect of density on performance may be related with the nature of a task. CONCLUSION This paper promotes the research of shared leadership in knowledge-based teams. First, give an integrated definition of shared leadership. Second, analyze the attributes of coordination to develop shared leadership. Third, give the deficit of social network analysis to study dynamic relationship of shared leadership. Our study has several limitations that need to be addressed in future research. First, the effective of shared leadership on organization performance should be tested by investigation and survey. Second, it needs to find out the substitute tools to make up the deficit of social network analysis. Further research could integrate the measures of leadership network with the characteristics of shared leadership (e.g. trust, communication) to delineate the dynamic coordination with mathematical model. Simulation with Arena is another research method to discover the dynamic of shared leadership. For example, model the demographic of the team and task attribute and compare the efficiency of different leadership roles combination. Acknowledgements: This research is granted by China Scholarship Council. REFERENCE [1] Ancona, D., Malone, T. W., Orlikowski, W. J., Senge, P. M. In the Praise of the Incomplete Leader. Harvard Business Review. 2007, Feb., 92-100 [2] Carson, J. B., Tesluk, P. E., Marrone, J. A. Shared Leadership in Teams: An Investigation of Antecedent Conditions and Performance. Academy of Management Journal. 2007, 50 (5), 1217-1234 [3] Drucker, P. F.: Management challenges for the 21st century. Beijing: China Machine Press. 2006, 267-271 (bilingual) [4] Fletcher, J. K., Käufer, K. Shared Leadership: Paradox and Possibility. In Pearce, C. L., Conger, J. A. (Eds). Shared leadership: Reframing the Hows and Whys of Leadership. Thousand Oaks, Ca: Sage, 2003, 21-46 [5] Gibb, C. A. Leadership. In G. Lindzey (Ed.). Handbook of Social Psychology. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. 1954, Vol. 2, 877-917 [6] Grant. R. M. Toward a Knowledge-Based Theory of the Firm. Strategic Management Journal, 1996, winter special issue, 109-122 [7] Gronn, P.:Distributed Leadership as a Unit of Analysis. The Leadership Quarterly, 2002, 13, 423-451 [8] Klein, K. J., Ziegert, J. C., Knight, A. P., Xiao, Y. Dynamic Delegation: Shared, Hierarchical, and Deindividualized Leadership in Extreme Action Teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 2006, 51, 590-621 [9] Mayo, J., Meindl, J. R., Pastor J. Shared Leadership in Work Teams: A Social Network Approach. In Pearce, C. L., Conger, J. A. (Eds). Shared Leadership: Reframing the Hows and Whys of Leadership. Thousand Oaks, Ca: Sage, 2003, 193-214. [10] Mintzberg, H. The Leadership Debate with Henry mintzberg: Communityship is the Answer. Financial Times. London. Oct 23, 2006, http://www.ft.com [11] Pearce, C. L. The Future of Leadership: Combining Vertical and Shared Leadership to Transform Knowledge Work. Academy of Management Executive, 2004, 18(1), 47-57 [12] Pearce, C. L., Conger, J. A. All Those Years Ago: The Historical Underpinnings of Shared Leadership. In Pearce, C. L., Conger, J. A.(Eds). Shared Leadership: Reframing the Hows and Whys of Leadership. Thousand Oaks, Ca: Sage, 2003, 1-18 -2996-
