The Journal of applied psychology
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A growing number of studies have examined the "sharedness" of leadership processes in teams (i.e., shared leadership, collective leadership, and distributed leadership). We meta-analytically cumulated 42 independent samples of shared leadership and examined its relationship to team effectiveness. Our findings reveal an overall positive relationship (ρ = .34). ⋯ Moreover, the effects of shared leadership are stronger when the work of team members is more complex. Our findings further suggest that the referent used in measuring shared leadership does not influence its relationship with team effectiveness and that compared with vertical leadership, shared leadership shows unique effects in relation to team performance. In total, our study not only cumulates extant research on shared leadership but also provides directions for future research to move forward in the study of plural forms of leadership.
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External leaders continue to be an important source of influence even when teams are empowered, but it is not always clear how they do so. Extending research on structurally empowered teams, we recognize that teams' external leaders are often responsible for multiple teams. We adopt a multilevel approach to model external leader influences at both the team level and the external leader level of analysis. ⋯ Additionally, relative external leadership exhibited a significant direct positive influence on member job satisfaction as anticipated, whereas average external leadership did not. These findings attest to the value in distinguishing external leaders' behaviors that are exhibited consistently versus differentially across empowered teams. Implications and future directions for the study and management of external leaders overseeing multiple teams are discussed.