Vertical Versus Shared Leadership as Predictors of the Effectiveness of Change Management Teams: An Examination of Aversive, Directive, Transactional, Transformational, and Empowering Leader Behaviors

Original publication by Craig L. Pearce and Henry P. Sims Jr.
In Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, Educational Publishing Foundation, 2002 Volume 6, No. 2, 172-197
Synopsis by Barbara Ascher, Leadership Review Editor

Teams have become an increasingly important component of organizational life. With this mounting emphasis on teams, we need to question whether our traditional models of leadership (from the top-down leadership paradigm) are well suited to this new team-based environment. In other words, which type of leadership, vertical or shared, is most effective in a team-based environment?

Craig L. Pearce and Henry P. Sims Jr. address this issue, particularly in regard to the effectiveness of change management teams (CMTs). As such, the results of their study of the efficacy of team leadership behaviors, while not generalizable across all types of teams, are illustrative of high-autonomy teams that engage in complex tasks in times of organizational transition.

Pearce and Sims begin with an incisive review of theoretical development in the field of leadership, as they explain how they incorporated earlier streams of research into building their model. Anyone wishing to familiarize himself with theoretical antecedents in leadership studies will value Table 1, which lists leader behavioral types (i.e., Aversive, Directive, Transactional, Transformational, and Empowering) along with the major theorists associated with these themes, and behaviors that represent these behavioral characterizations.

While Aversive, Directive, Transactional, Transformational, and Empowering leadership behaviors have generally been studied in hierarchical or vertical relationships, Pearce and Sims offer an alternate source of team influence that they call shared leadership and examine these same behaviors from a different perspective. They note that in shared leadership contexts:

• "The agents of influence are often peers of the targets of influence."
• "...the concept of shared leadership might be thought of as 'serial emergence' of multiple leaders over the life of the team."
• "...shared leadership may serve as a substitute for more formal appointed leadership."

Using 71 CMTs at an automotive manufacturing firm, confidential questionnaires were administered to the team members, the managers, and the internal customers of the team output. Seven a priori variables were used to assess team effectiveness: "(a) output effectiveness, (b) quality effectiveness, (c) change effectiveness, (d) organizing and planning effectiveness, (e) interpersonal effectiveness, (f) value effectiveness, and (g) overall effectiveness."

Among the conclusions reported is the fact that vertical leadership and shared leadership were positively associated, that they were not mutually exclusive, that shared leadership accounted for more variance in ratings of team effectiveness than did vertical leadership, and that aversive and directive leadership behaviors were negative in effect, while transformational and empowering leadership behaviors were positive in effect. Training in leadership skills would prove valuable in both vertical and shared leadership roles.