Abstract

The importance of leadership for a variety of desirable outcomes in organizations is well established in the literature. However, the working context has changed dramatically over the last 50 years, resulting in a widespread use of team structures (Carson, Tesluk, & Marrone, 2007; Morgeson, DeRue, & Karam, 2009; Zaccaro, Rittman, & Marks, 2001). In this context, leadership continues to be considered one of the most discerning factors predicting team performance (Day, Gronn, & Salas, 2004; Morgeson et al., 2009; Wang, Waldman, & Zhang, 2014; Yammarino, Salas, Serban, Shirreffs, & Shuffler, 2012; Zaccaro et al., 2001). However, such teams function in a context of growing complexity, continual transformation of technology and processes, globalized world competitiveness, and increased liabilities involved in decision-making (Yammarino et al., 2012). These characteristics of the current work environment restrict the capacity of the traditional perspective in which one leader satisfies all team needs, and instead prompt a shift toward a collective approach to team leadership (Cullen-Lester & Yammarino, 2016; Yammarino et al., 2012). One approach to studying collective leadership in teams is shared leadership. Shared leadership – also referred to as distributed leadership – has been defined as an emergent phenomenon in which leadership is performed collectively by multiple members of a team (Carson et al., 2007; Nicolaides et al., 2014; Paunova, 2015). This type of leadership has shown a consistent relationship with team performance, attitudes, behavioral processes, and emergent states as identified by recent meta-analyses and studies (D’Innocenzo, Mathieu, & Kukenberger, 2014; Drescher & Garbers, 2016; Nicolaides et al., 2014; Wang et al., 2014). Indicative of the increasing interest of scholars and practitioners alike is the steep growth in publications in the area of shared leadership, which have doubled since 2008 (SCOPUS, 2016), and the recently published special issue of Leadership Quarterly (2016, vol. 27) dedicated to the collective leadership phenomenon (Cullen-Lester & Yammarino, 2016). However, significant questions remain unanswered regarding not only the antecedents of shared leadership but also the mechanisms and boundary conditions under which it is most effective (Bolden, 2011; Drescher & Garbers, 2016; Paunova, 2015; Wang et al., 2014). To date, most research on the antecedents of shared leadership on team characteristics as well as contextual characteristics. Team characteristics such as the level of trust consistently relate to shared leadership and, in combination with group-level collective values, has been shown to increase correlation with shared leadership over time (Small & Rentsch, 2011). Carson et al. (2007) identified team environment to be associated with shared leadership emergence, and they further found that vertical leadership substitutes for the lack of any of the aspects of a team environment. Looking at task characteristic as well, Serban and Roberts (2016) have found that internal team environment and task cohesion—but not task ambiguity—predict shared leadership. Research has also looked at individual level variables in their role enhancing shared leadership emergence. For example, the values held by team members, socio-demographic characteristics between others are individual variables studied in relation to shared leadership (Carson et al., 2007; Friedrich, Vessey, Schuelke, Ruark, & Mumford, 2009; Muethel, Gehrlein, & Hoegl, 2012). However, these studies look at individual characteristics exploring the team level and controlling only for individual level variance (e.g.Chrobot-Mason, Gerbasi, & Cullen-Lester, 2016) only theorizing around team level effect. Indeed, to my knowledge, no research has attempted to theorize and test the different but related processes occurring at the individual and team levels that prompt the emergence of shared leadership. Day and Dragoni (2015) emphasize the importance of exploring the processes occurring at both levels to obtain a more complete and accurate understanding of how the leader and leader development processes influence the leadership and development of leadership (i.e., shared leadership). Thus, despite the progress made the actual theorizing of shared leadership until now, the investigation of team members’ characteristics at the individual level and the subsequent underlying processes allowing shared leadership emergence remain understudied. One critical individual characteristic relevant for the emergence of shared leadership is identity. It is unique of shared leadership that members taking leader roles also take follower roles at some stage while working with their teams (DeRue & Ashford, 2010). If we need individuals to emerge (or have the potential to emerge) as leaders, it seems only logical to draw on the appropriate leadership literature. For instance, leadership scholars argue that the presence of a leader identity makes an individual more likely to emerge as a leader (Day, 2000; DeRue & Ashford, 2010; Ibarra, Wittman, Petriglieri, & Day, 2014). However, leader emergence only becomes leadership when someone fulfills the role of a follower (Day, 2000; Gerstner & Day, 1997; Lord, Brown, & Freiberg, 1999). Therefore, in the context of shared leadership, the roles of leader and follower are exchanged between team members to achieve team and organizational outcomes. On a recent review Epitropaki, Kark, Mainemelis, and Lord (2016) explain the dynamics of leader and follower identity salience at the individual level, where the context will help make salient one of them over the other. Taking a different perspective, Chrobot-Mason et al. (2016) investigated identities and collective leadership. They found support for their theorized relationship between an individual’s identification with the organization but not with the team, predicting the reciprocation of a leadership relationship. Thus, some indications of the relevance that identity at the individual level has for shared leadership exist; however, this relationship appears more complex than anticipated. This paper seeks to address the lack of theory and empirical research examining the interplay between leader and follower identity at the individual level in order to help elucidate the processes underpinning the emergence of shared leadership at the team level. More specifically, this presentation will present a conceptual model and propositions addressing the individual level antecedents of shared leadership, more specifically will focus on the complexity of leader and follower self-concept as well as the dynamics of these identities salience for the emergence of shared leadership at the team level. Based upon the presented conceptual model, discussion points and implications for both shared leadership theory and practice will be provided.