10 1111@peps 12409

Running head: Dynamics of Shared Leadership
Shared Leadership Development and Team Performance: A New Look at the
Dynamics of Shared Leadership
Natalia M. Lorinkova
Georgetown University1
McDonough School of Business
37th & O streets
Washington, DC 20057
E-mail: nataly.lorinkova@georgetown.edu
Kathryn M. Bartol
Univers of Maryland
Management & Organization Department
Robert H. Smith School of Business
4530 Van Munching Hall
College Park, MD 20742
E-mail: kbartol@rhsmith.umd.edu
1
ESADE Business School, Barcelona, Spain as of June 2021
Author’s Note: We would like to thank Patrick McKay and two anonymous reviewers for
their thoughtful insights during the review process. We are also grateful to Sara Jansen
Perry, Brooks Holtom, Nick Lovegrove, and Mincho Minev for help with the data
collection.
Abstract
The present study offers new theoretical insights into the dynamics of shared leadership.
Integrating arguments from shared leadership and team development theory, we examine how
shared leadership changes over the course of a project team’s life cycle and how this pattern
of change relates to team performance. Guided by shared leadership theory and project team
literature, we also explore team level factors, which may alter the pattern of shared leadership
development. In particular, we propose that in project teams shared leadership develops in a
non-uniform way, approximating an inverted U-shape pattern, increasing early in the team’s
This article has been accepted for publication and undergone full peer review but has not been
through the copyediting, typesetting, pagination and proofreading process, which may lead to
differences between this version and the Version of Record. Please cite this article as doi:
10.1111/peps.12409.
This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

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life cycle, peaking around the mid-point, and then decreasing in the later phase. In turn, this
development pattern relates positively to team performance. We also extend theory by
explaining how specific team characteristics influence the pattern of shared leadership
development. Using a three-study approach, we empirically examine the hypothesized
relationships and conclude with a general discussion of the theoretical and practical
implications of our findings.
Key Words: shared leadership, team development, project teams, team performance
Introduction
With the increased use of teams in organizations over the last three decades, a number
of researchers have shifted their focus from examining traditional forms of leadership to
investigating shared leadership, recognizing shared leadership as an important driver of team
effectiveness (Carson, Tesluk, & Marrone, 2007; D’Innocenco, Mathieu, & Kukenberger,
2016; Wang, Waldman, & Zhang, 2014). Burgeoning research demonstrates evidence for the
positive effects of shared leadership on a number of team outcomes (e.g., Hoch 2013;
McIntyre & Foti, 2013; Pearce & Sims, 2000; Pearce, Yoo, & Alavi, 2004;
Sivasubramaniam, Murry, Avolio, & Jung, 2002). This, coupled with evidence from three
recent meta-analyses (D’Innocenco et al., 2016; Nicolaides et al., 2014; Wang et al., 2014),
outlines an overall positive role of shared leadership in teams. Researchers, however, have
not always found evidence of the positive effects of shared leadership on final team outcomes
(e.g., Boies, Lvina, & Martens, 2010; Hmielski, Cole, & Baron, 2012; Serban & Roberts,
2016). This leaves important unanswered questions about the nature of shared leadership and
its role in teams.
Complicating matters further is a lack of in-depth theorizing about the dynamic nature
of shared leadership and its association with team outcomes, despite explicit definitions

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referring to shared leadership as a “dynamic, interactive influence process among individuals
in groups” (Pearce & Conger, 2003, p. 1). Instead, the vast majority of the literature has
adopted a static approach (e.g., Carson et al., 2007; Chiu, Owens, & Tesluk, 2016; Ensley,
Hmieleski, & Pearce, 2006), conceptualizing shared leadership as a one-time, static
antecedent to different team outcomes (Contractor, DeChurch, Carson, Carter, & Keegan,
2012; Pearce & Conger, 2003. Thus, scholarly understanding of the interplay between time
and shared leadership is still limited, despite recent work cautioning that shared leadership
may take time to develop (Barnett & Weidenfeller, 2016). In fact, in their review work,
Wassenaar and Pearce (2012) pose the question “… can a group develop shared leadership
from its inception?” (p. 379) and identify the “life-cycle of the group or the project” (p. 379)
as a potential factor influencing shared leadership. Unfortunately, theoretical
conceptualizations examining shared leadership development as a function of team
development are unavailable. As a result, conceptually, we still have unknowns not only
about the nature of shared leadership development, but also about the relationship between
the dynamic changes in shared leadership and team outcomes.
Ambiguous empirical evidence also exacerbates theoretical confusion on the interplay
between shared leadership and team development. On the one hand, Nicolaides and
colleagues (2014) found that team tenure negatively impacted the relationship between
shared leadership and team performance, and suggested that team members might be unable
to “sustain the sharing of leadership over a long period of time” (p. 935). In contrast, Wang et
al., (2014) proposed that passage of time might “enhance the sharedness of leadership in a
team” (p. 192). However, all agree that time plays an important role in the development of
shared leadership and call for “additional theoretical and empirical attention” in this direction
(Nicolaides et al., 2014, p. 935).

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Starting the conversation on the important issue of shared leadership development
over time, Drescher, Korsgaard, Welpe, and Picot (2014) theorized and found support for
positive changes in shared leadership being associated with positive changes in team
performance. However, despite acknowledging shared leadership as a dynamic phenomenon
that “may change over time in any number of ways” (p. 771), this study made the implicit
assumption that shared leadership in teams followed a similar, progressively linear pattern of
increase over time. This linear model, however, is somewhat inconsistent with the non-
sequential team development framework (Chang, Bordia, & Duck, 2003; Gersick, 1988,
1989), and especially with the well-known punctuated equilibrium model (PEM: Gersick,
1988; 1989) that argues for a non-uniform development of the different processes in project
teams, dependent upon the focal team’s development phase. The PEM (Gersick, 1988, 1989),
however, focused mainly on progress with the task itself and left unexplored the relational
development underlying leadership, particularly shared leadership. As such, it does not
directly address shared leadership development and, indeed, may mask how leadership might
be developing in teams.
Additionally, the progressively linear model of shared leadership development
(Drescher et al., 2014) indirectly endorses the idea that team processes, including shared
leadership, unfold similarly for all teams; an assumption challenged by shared leadership
theory (Sims & Pearce, 2000; Wassenaar & Pearce, 2012). Shared leadership theory
identifies a number of team-level factors that might be expected to moderate the emergence
and the effectiveness of shared leadership. Unfortunately, this work stops short of
conceptualizing and examining how these relevant factors might influence the development
of shared leadership.
As a result, further conceptualization is needed to explain how shared leadership
develops over the course of a team’s life cycle, and to shed light on the team-level factors that

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may qualify this development. This theorizing may be especially needed and relevant to self-
managed project teams (otherwise known as autonomous project teams: Bergman, Small,
Bergman, & Bowling, 2014), which, in response to fast-changing markets and dynamic
business environments, are becoming a growing phenomenon in organizations (Ilgen,
Hollenbeck, Johnson, & Jundt, 2005; Oh, 2012). Such teams face strict project deadlines and
do not have a formal, designated leader (Farh, Lee, & Farh, 2010; Knight, 2012; Langfred,
2004). Because these teams lack the guidance, role clarity, and physical and moral support
that come from a traditional vertical leader (e.g., Kozlowski, Gully, Nason, & Smith, 1999;
Lorinkova, Pearsall, & Sims, 2013), they have to develop their own mechanisms for
guidance, coordination, and, ultimately, for accomplishing the team task.
In response, we designed the current research to address the above-identified
theoretical voids. By doing so, we contribute to the shared leadership and project team
literature in several ways. First, we integrate arguments from the project team development
literature with reasoning from the shared leadership literature to conceptualize and explain
how shared leadership changes over the course of a project team’s life cycle. Recent
delineations of team development in project teams suggest two distinct phases that
characterize their life cycle (Farh et al., 2010; Ford & Sullivan, 2004; Knight, 2012), with
team needs and its members’ priorities changing accordingly. To foreshadow our theorizing,
we argue that, consistent with shared leadership theory (Pearce & Sims, 2000; Houghton,
Neck, & Manz, 2003; Wassenaar & Pearce, 2012), and in response to a team’s changing
needs and members’ priorities, shared leadership intensifies during the early phase of a
project team’s life cycle to peak at the middle, and then it diminishes in the later team
development phase. By conceptualizing a curvilinear, inverted U-shape pattern of shared
leadership development, we depart from the punctuated equilibrium model of (team)
development (Gersick, 1988, 1989), which considered task accomplishment and provided

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little insight into other aspects of team development. In fact, if applied to shared leadership
development, the punctuated model suggests that shared leadership remains almost static (not
very much changes) until the midpoint, and then beyond. Thus, by delineating a non-uniform
trajectory of shared leadership development approximating an inverted U-shape, we not only
illuminate how shared leadership develops, but we also clarify when a team most needs it. In
this way, we propose alternative insights about why some researchers may have failed to find
support for a positive relationship between shared leadership and group performance. Gully
(2000) suggests that, “…to fully understand work teams, researchers must investigate how
team dynamics develop and change over time” (p. 35). To answer this call, and as a second
contribution, we link shared leadership dynamics to final team performance. In this way, we
contribute to both shared leadership literature and that of more general (project) teams’
effectiveness, arguing for the need to consider the effectiveness of shared leadership as a
function of team development. Finally, guided by the intersection of shared leadership theory
(Pearce & Sims, 2000; Wassenaar & Pearce, 2012; Zhu, Liao, Yam, & Johnson, 2018) and
the project team literature (e.g., Akgün, Keskin, Byrne, & Imamoglu, 2007; Huckman &
Staats, 2011; Huckman, Staats, & Upton, 2009; Mueller, 2012), we conceptualize how three
team level factors moderate the pattern of shared leadership development. In this way, we
contribute to shared leadership theory and the project team development literature
(Okhyusen, 2002) by answering the question of why some teams undergo different shared
leadership development patterns.
Shared Leadership and Project Team Development
Unlike traditional vertical leadership, often defined as influencing others to achieve a
specific objective (Yukl, 1989), shared leadership is defined as “an emergent and dynamic
team phenomenon whereby leadership roles and influence are distributed among team
members” (D’Innocenzo et al., 2016, p. 1968). Because of its collective nature, shared

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leadership is often touted as especially suited to meet the needs of teams (Carson et al., 2007;
Carter, DeChurch, Braun, & Contractor, 2015). Researchers, however, have started to draw
attention to the inherently dynamic nature of shared leadership (e.g., Drescher et al., 2014)
and its potential implications. This, coupled with our focus on project teams and the notion
that team members’ interactions (which constitute the basis of shared leadership) tend to shift
over a team’s life cycle (Farh et al., 2010; Gerpott, Lehmann-Willenbrock, Voelpel, & van
Vugt, 2019; Marks, Mathieu, & Zaccaro, 2001), necessitates a closer look at the dynamics of
shared leadership as they relate to project team development, and ultimately performance.
Team development refers to the “the path a group takes over its life-span toward the
accomplishment of its main tasks” (Gersick, 1988, p. 9). Extending Gersick’s (non-
sequential) model of team development, more recent delineations of task progress in project
teams identify two phases, often referred to as Phase 1 (or early phase) and Phase 2 (or later
phase: Bergman et al., 2014; Farh et al., 2010; Ford & Sullivan, 2004), separated by a mid-
point (Knight, 2012). This also aligns with Marks et al., (2001) who point to transition and
action phases, and describe a team’s life cycle as action phases bifurcated by transition
phases. As Knight notes, “the literature on team pacing in the face of a deadline depicts two
phases of task progress, separated by the midpoint, that are characterized by two different
motivational frames” (2012, p. 102).
Gersick’s prominent work, however, argues further for particular scenarios associated
with the two phases and the midpoint. Accordingly, Phase 1, starting with the team’s first
meeting and continuing until the mid-point, is characterized by inertia, with initially
established behavioral and interactional patterns remaining relatively unchanged until the
team reaches a mid-point transition. During the transition, “in a concentrated burst of
activity” (Gersick, 1989, p. 278), groups revise their old patterns, adopt new perspectives and
establish their new approach to task accomplishment. Once the transition period is over,

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teams enter Phase 2, which the (punctuated equilibrium) model describes as a second period
of inertia.
One limitation of Gersick’s work for our purposes, however, is its exclusive focus on
task accomplishment. As a result, applying it directly to a conceptualization of the
development of interpersonal processes – such as shared leadership – might lead to faulty
conclusions. In fact, a direct application of the punctuated equilibrium model would suggest
that shared leadership changes in a non-uniform way, approximating an S-shape pattern,
rapidly intensifying predominantly during the transitional mid-point and remaining relatively
static (inert, in Gersick’s parlance) during Phase 1 and Phase 2. Applying arguments from the
shared leadership and project team literature, however, we posit a different model within the
overall two-phase and midpoint framework. Specifically, we argue for a U-shaped pattern of
shared leadership development, which consistent with the team’s changing needs increases
during the early project team life-cycle phase, peaks around the mid-point, and then decreases
in the later phase (Farh et al., 2010; Kozlowski et al., 1999; Pearce & Sims, 2002). Figure 1
summarizes our theoretical model.
--------------------------------
Insert Figure 1 about here
---------------------------------
To begin with, Phase 1, coinciding with what other researchers refer to as the project
formulation stage (Ford & Sullivan, 2004) or premature phase (Chang et al., 2003), is
characterized by relatively abundant time perceptions and unclearly defined tasks and
members’ roles (Chang et al., 2003; Knight, 2012). During this phase, the focus is on
gathering data, idea generation, and learning about the task (Ford & Sullivan, 2004; Gersick,
1989; Farh et al., 2010). To accomplish this, team members engage in increased levels of
interpersonal exchanges, aimed at role clarification (Ford & Sullivan, 2004). In addition,
Phase 1 is characterized by articulating a number of tentative solutions, as well as searching

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for useful information and engaging in strategy formulation. In traditional teams, early in
their development, vertical leadership is of primary importance, with members relying on the
leader for guidance and coordination (Chang et al., 2003; Kozlowski et al., 1999; Wheelan,
2009). In self-managed project teams, however, in the absence of a vertical leader, members
are likely to increasingly engage in exhibiting and attributing leadership influence over each
other in order to meet the team’s needs for coordination, work organization, and for
establishing the team’s social climate (Pearce & Conger, 2003). In addition, as noted by
Chang and colleagues (2003), during the early phase of team development, team members
“struggle with issues such as power, structure, and intimacy” (p. 108). In the absence of a
designated leader, members are likely to achieve higher role clarity and assert their claims for
power by more actively engaging in the social influence process of leadership. As a result, we
expect that shared leadership, exerted through reciprocal influence behaviors and attributions,
is likely to intensify as project teams progress with their development during Phase 1.
Once Phase 1 is completed, the PEM predicts that a transitional point occurs roughly
around the mid-point of the group’s allotted time (Chang et al., 2003; Gersick, 1988; 1989).
The project team literature asserts that during the transitional point, which separates Phase 1
and Phase 2, “team members’ interactions and priorities tend to shift drastically” (Farh et al.,
2010, p. 1173). With members’ focus and priorities shifting to the impending project
deadline, members need to formulate interactional strategies and establish behavioral patterns
that would enable the team to reach its goal (Gersick, 1988, 1999; Knight, 2012). The shared
leadership literature implies that, as a relational interaction structure, shared leadership is
likely to facilitate accomplishment of the team’s objective by influencing the team’s
motivation and its task accomplishment strategies (Carson et al., 2007; DeRue & Ashford,
2010). Thus, during the mid-point, consistent with feelings of time urgency and an increased
focus on the team’s task, members are likely to increase their attempts to influence team

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decisions, with the team experiencing a period of intense mutual influences – i.e., a high level
of shared leadership. This high level of shared leadership likely also facilitates a needed role
renegotiation, because members exert influence consistent with their abilities and motivation
to contribute to the team’s final performance goal. Additionally, through their engagement in
leadership, team members bring more resources to the task and share more information (Katz
& Kahn, 1978), which is crucial at this point of team development when the availability of
time and resources starts to diminish (Farh et al., 2010). Thus, through high levels of shared
leadership during the mid-point transitional period, teams meet their need to move toward a
workable team role structure and viable project completion strategies. This, we propose,
positively influences final team performance. In addition, a high level of shared leadership
suggests that team members interact, communicate, and exchange information and
knowledge intensely (Nicolaides et al., 2014), which allows the team to adjust its initially
chosen strategies to ones that are more appropriate for final task execution.
As the project team enters Phase 2 of its development, focus shifts toward “task
execution and strategic implementation in order to meet deadlines” (Farh et al., 2010, p.
1174). With the need for project completion intensifying and looming closer during this
phase, we expect that, for teams to be successful, members would need to focus their efforts
on executing their own assigned tasks. In support of our concept, Chang and colleagues
(2003) argue that at this point members tend to focus on “work.” Consequentially, we expect
that exerting leadership influences at this point is likely to interfere with the directions and
patterns of interactions established and agreed upon during the midpoint transition.
Advancing a similar rationale, Mathieu, Tannenbaum, Donsbach, and Miller (2014), suggest
that this later stage of the team’s development is more likely to be dominated by task-
execution activities, with personal task-related knowledge and abilities playing more
prominent roles in the team’s effectiveness. As individuals focus on executing their own

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tasks, following strategies already established during the transition point, members are likely
to decrease their engagement in and reliance on shared leadership. In addition, as power
struggles are already settled and team members’ roles have become more well-defined (Chant
et al., 2003), attempting to influence team members in these aspects is likely to distract from
the team’s focus on project completion. Thus, in a departure from what might be suggested
by the traditional punctuated model of team development, we propose that engagement in
shared leadership in project teams would decrease, rather than be sustained at a relatively
high level, during the later phase of team development.
Overall, we propose that the more shared leadership builds during the early phase of a
team’s lifecycle, the more members are able to exert leadership influence during the
transition mid-point, which then enables the team to arrive at reasonably optimal team level
structures, and to set forth successful task execution strategies. However, if members
continue to engage in leadership behaviors during the later phase (Phase 2) of team
development, this would likely divert resources from their individual task focus and the
team’s overall progress toward successful project completion. Supporting this reasoning,
Knight (2012) and Ford and Sullivan (2004) suggest that continued idea generation and novel
contributions during the later phase of a project team’s development negatively influence
team performance. Therefore, a sustained increase in shared leadership during the later team
development phase is likely to hurt the overall performance of the team, whereas an initial
increase, peak, and then decrease in shared leadership is likely to meet the team’s time-bound
needs and thus facilitate performance. Combining our arguments from above, we formally
hypothesize:

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Hypothesis 1. Shared leadership will change over time following a curvilinear
pattern, increasing during Phase 1 of project team development, peaking around the
mid-point, and decreasing during Phase 2 (H1a). This curvilinear pattern,
approximating an inverted U-shape, will relate positively to team performance (H1b).
Team Characteristics as Moderators of Shared Leadership Development
So far, we have examined the development of shared leadership over the course of a
team’s life cycle. In these arguments, however, one assumes that all teams undergo a similar
pattern of shared leadership development. In their review and expansion of shared leadership
theory, Wassenaar and Pearce (2012) point to the need for further research on several team
moderators of major theoretical interest that may meaningfully influence the emergence and
effectiveness of shared leadership. In parallel, and independent of the shared leadership
literature, project team literature has also earmarked three of these same moderator areas for
special concern (e.g., Akgün et al., 2007; Huckman & Staats, 2011; Huckman et al., 2009;
Mueller, 2012). Accordingly, in line with our theory building with respect to shared
leadership and project teams, we focus on these three theoretically relevant and important
boundary conditions, which have the potential to significantly influence the configuration of
shared leadership development in project teams: team size, team social support, and team
members’ familiarity. We elaborate on the theoretical importance of each of these below.
Team Size
Theoretical and practical evidence have long shown how group size affects group
social phenomena (Kozlowski & Bell, 2003), however, its role in the context of shared
leadership remains unclear (Conger & Pearce, 2003; Cox, Pearce, & Perry, 2003; Nicolaides
et al., 2014; Seers, Keller, & Wilkerson, 2003; Wassenaar & Pearce, 2012). As noted by
Nicolaides and colleagues, team size “can be both an asset and a liability for teams” (p. 926).

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For instance, larger groups enjoy a number of advantages: with the increase in the number of
team members, groups have more resources and capabilities to solve group tasks (e.g., Hill,
1982; Jackson, 1992), with more members able to offer leadership influence. This view is
consistent with the notion that "at a basic level, the resources available on a team result from
how many people are on it" (Hambrick & D’Aveni, 1992, p. 1449). Research focused on
project teams also identifies group size as an important compositional characteristic, which
may influence the effectiveness of these teams (e.g., Huckman & Staats, 2011; Mehta &
Bharadwaj, 2015; Mueller, 2012). For example, Hoegl (2005) argued that smaller project
teams performed better, whereas Klug and Bagrow (2016) found that larger teams were more
successful. This mixed evidence suggests there is theoretical and empirical ambiguity
surrounding the role of team size in project teams.
A major shortcoming of both streams of literature, which conceptualize group size as
an important boundary condition, is the static treatment of shared leadership. Thus,
Wassenaar and Pearce (2012) imply that group size may “facilitate” or “enable” shared
leadership in teams, but they stop short of theorizing how group size may influence the
development of shared leadership across a team’s life cycle. Similarly, in project team
literature, Mehta and Bharadwaj (2015) provide evidence to support the notion that team size
influences members’ interactions, but the authors do not explain how the configurational
development of these interactions might be influenced by group size. By examining group
size as a moderator of shared leadership development, our study offers an alternative to
understanding the role of team size; we argue that team size influences the time-bound
changes in members’ shared leadership interactions, and not merely the absolute level of
shared leadership or its effectiveness.
In the general team literature, researchers tend to agree that coordination and
communication problems are exacerbated when team size increases (Campion, Medsker, &

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Higgs, 1993; Hackman, 1987). In addition to the coordination and process loss associated
with higher team size, the so-called dilution effect perspective (Karau & Williams, 1993;
Kidwell & Bennett, 1993) argues that in larger teams, members consider their individual
contributions as less critical. Members are less motivated to contribute (Karau & Williams,
1993; Kidwell & Bennett, 1993) because individual efforts become less visible and the
monitoring of individual outputs becomes more difficult (Albanese & Van Fleet, 1985;
Alnuaimi, Robert, & Maruping, 2010).
Because by its essence shared leadership involves members’ engagement in different
leadership functions with the motivation to contribute to the team, our theorizing is consistent
with the dilution perspective. In self-managed project teams, members have limited time to
accomplish a specific purpose, and no formal guidance system (Langfred, 2004). This may
necessitate that members engage in higher levels of mutual influences to accomplish optimal
team planning and decision-making. We expect that as team size increases, members would
be less willing or less able to see the need to engage in mutual influences, and consequently
would tend to refrain from exercising leadership influence. As team size increases,
communication and collaboration within the team are also likely to deteriorate (Hambrick &
D’Aveni, 1992), which would additionally reduce the extent to which, and the intensity with
which, members take on leadership roles. As a result, and consistent with our predicted
curvilinear pattern of shared leadership development in project teams, we expect smaller
teams to reach their peaks in shared leadership (or the inflection point, at which shared
leadership starts to decrease) at a higher level than larger teams.
Hypothesis 2. Team size will moderate the curvilinear pattern of shared leadership
development in project teams, such that smaller teams will reach the inflection point
at a higher level of shared leadership.

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Team Social Support
A second potentially important moderator under investigation is social support
(Goodman & Leyden, 1991), or the extent to which members care for and encourage one
another (Marks et al., 2001). Both shared leadership (e.g., Carson et al., 2007; Zhu et al.,
2018) and project team literature (e.g., Demarco & Listen, 1987) target social support, or
“peopleware” (Akgün et al., 2007) as an important boundary condition to influence project
team processes and effectiveness. Practical evidence also identifies poor social relationships
as one of the barriers faced by project teams (SHRM, 2018). Research, however, has not
examined how social support may qualify the time-bound development of shared leadership,
despite having identified social relations as a potential “enabler” of shared leadership
(Wassenaar & Pearce, 2012).
Earlier in the team development, when team members do not have a clear
understanding of their roles and their power struggles are abundant, team members’ support
for one another is likely to create an environment in which members feel comfortable
claiming leadership roles for themselves and granting those roles to others. A positive,
supportive environment increases members’ commitment to their group (Chiaburu &
Harrison, 2008) and allows members the opportunity to exercise influence (e.g., offer
solutions or relevant strategies, distribute tasks among other members, influence the team’s
direction) without the fear of being rejected or embarrassed (Carmeli, 2007; May, Gilson, &
Harter, 2004; Roussin, 2008). Thus, when team members experience high levels of social
support (especially early in the team’s development), they are likely more comfortable with
engaging in leadership influences, which would enable the team as a whole to reach a higher
overall level of shared leadership. By contrast, in teams with lower levels of social support,
team members are likely cautious with their engagement in leadership, either out of fear of

16
repercussions or criticism, or because they are uncertain about the fruitfulness of their efforts
(May et al., 2004). In addition, when social support is low, team members are less likely to
grant leadership roles to other team members, as a way of protecting their own place on the
team. Hence, we formally hypothesize:
Hypothesis 3. Social support will moderate the curvilinear pattern of shared
leadership development, such that teams enjoying higher levels of social support will
reach the inflection point at a higher level of shared leadership.
Team members’ familiarity
Our third moderator of interest, team members’ familiarity, reflects the extent to
which members have prior interpersonal knowledge about other team members (Okhuysen,
2001). Despite the fact that, from its inception, shared leadership theory advocates that
“group member familiarity with one another should impact the display and form of shared
leadership” (Pearce & Sims, 2000, p. 129), the theoretical and empirical evidence
surrounding the role of familiarity in project teams remains ambiguous (Espinosa, Slaughter,
Kraut, & Herbsleb, 2007; Huckman et al., 2009; Gruenfeld, Mannix, Williams, & Neale,
1996; Kor, 2003; Zenger & Lawrence, 1989) . As noted by Harrison and colleagues “Perhaps
the most striking feature of the findings on familiarity is their inconsistency” (2003, p. 637).
For example, Jen and Shah (1997) found that familiarity positively influenced teams’
decision making, whereas Kim (1997) found the opposite effect. Shared leadership theory
and project teams’ research have conceptualized familiarity as a boundary condition, which
qualifies mostly the emergence or the effectiveness of static team processes (e.g., Akgün et
al., 2007; Wassenaar & Pearce, 2012) despite team development scholars explicitly arguing
that the value of familiarity might be time dependent (Guzzo & Dicksom, 1996; Harrison et
al., 2003). Therefore, additional research is needed to clarify how members’ familiarity
influences the pattern of shared leadership development in project teams.

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Arguments from the project team development literature suggest that members with
higher familiarity likely start (or quickly arrive) at higher levels of shared leadership earlier in
the team’s development than teams with lower familiarity. Past experiences facilitate team
coordination and communication in project teams (Akgün et al., 2007) and allow team
members to start work with lower levels of uncertainty and anxiety about social acceptance
(e.g., Hinds, Carley, Krackhardt, & Wholey, 2000). Members who are familiar with one
another tend not to waste time orienting themselves to a new project or task (Espinoza et al.,
2007; Katz, 1982). Instead, they dive right into soliciting ideas, generating solutions, and
discussing project execution strategies earlier in their team’s development. This would imply
that familiar team members engage in higher levels of shared leadership earlier in the team
development. Familiar members also do not need to establish themselves anew with the team,
and as a result, they likely more easily (in comparison to unfamiliar members) overcome the
power struggles and role clarification, which characterize Phase 1 of the project team
development. Familiar group members also rely more heavily on past experiences (Beckman,
2006). As a result, they find it easier to establish patterns of social interactions consistent
with these experiences, because, as Pearce and Sims note, they already have a “basis for
working together” (2000, p. 129), which they might be less willing to alter over time.
In contrast, unfamiliar team members are faced with the more challenging need to
familiarize themselves not only with the project requirements but also with one another’s
knowledge, abilities, and roles on the team. Thus, unfamiliar team members need more
mutual guidance and influence, which is likely accomplished by increased engagement in
shared leadership as the team progresses with its Phase 1 development. In addition, when the
team first gets together, team members’ unfamiliarity may limit the initial display of shared
leadership (Pearce & Sims, 2000); thus unfamiliar teams will start at a lower level of shared

18
leadership. This would make our conceptualized U-shaped pattern of shared leadership
development more pronounced in those teams.
Hypothesis 4. Team familiarity will moderate the pattern of shared leadership
development such that the curvilinear U-shaped pattern predicted in Hypothesis 1 will
be more pronounced in teams with less familiarity.
In what follows, we present the results of three studies in which we test our
hypotheses. In the first study, sampling master’s level students working in semester-long
project teams, we test Hypotheses 1, 2 and 3. In Study 2, sampling self-managed project
teams working in the IT sector, we assess Hypotheses 1 and 2. Finally, in Study 3 we test all
hypotheses.
Study 1: Methods, Results, and Discussion
Sample and Procedure
Participants in this study were students in an evening master’s-level human resource
management course in a large Midwestern University. After obtaining approval from the
affiliated Institutional Review Board (IRB #026812B3E, “Work, Leadership, and
Performance”), we collected data from four sections of the same course, taught over two
semesters by the same instructor who was blind to the study’s hypotheses. As a part of the
curriculum, participants were required to work on a team project. The project lasted 11
weeks, with participants randomly assigned to teams in week 4 of the respective 15-week-
long semesters. Each team consisted of 3 to 6 individuals, with an average of 5.35 members
per team. Our final sample included complete observations on 31 teams.
As part of the team project, participants were invited to complete online surveys four
times during the semester. Participation in the surveys was voluntary, but students who
completed all four surveys were awarded 2 % extra course credit. The first survey was
administered in week 5, shortly after students were assigned to teams, and the second survey

19
was administered in week 8. Survey 3 was administered in week 11; and the last, survey 4,
was administered in week 14, when team deliverables were due. 176 students completed
Survey 1, 173 Survey 2, 170 Survey 3, and 164 Survey 4. None of the 31 teams surveyed had
more than one team member who did not complete a survey at each time point.
For all four surveys, we used online data collection with a round-robin design in
which team members provided self-descriptive information and rated each other member
(Warner, Kenny, & Stoto, 1979) on the extent to which they engaged in shared leadership. To
incentivize individual team members to participate actively in the team project and the online
surveys, at the start of the project students were told that the last survey would contain a
confidential peer evaluation form, allowing students to recommend a grade reduction for
team members who failed to participate actively in the team project. As part of the last survey
(4), students were also given the opportunity to include open-ended comments about their
team experience. A few students (31 in total) shared some concerns about team members’
work quality, and 11 students recommended grade reductions for a team member.
The team project required students to develop a plan for a recruitment process (based
on a real job advertisement), role-play the recruitment and hiring process as an in-class
presentation, and prepare a written report with an analysis of the process and hiring
recommendations for the company. As a master’s level assignment, this project simulated a
realistic job recruitment. Students were expected to apply course material and concepts such
as HR planning and design, recruitment, assessment and compliance to develop appropriate
mechanisms for reaching out to potential applicants and conducting job interviews, while at
the same time complying with legal requirements for equal employment opportunity in the
work place. All team members were expected to participate in the presentation. All teams
received written instructions with a grading rubric, together with written comments on the
outline, which was due in week 10. Team performance accounted for 20 % of each member’s

20
final course grade. Final team performance was measured by a composite score, combining
grades on the teams’ presentations and written reports.
Measures
Shared leadership. In this study, we conceptualized shared leadership following the
social network approach (Carson et al., 2007; Mathieu, Kukenberger, D’Innocenzo, & Reilly,
2015) and measured it using social network density. Following extant work (Carson et al,
2007; Mathieu et al., 2015; Serban & Roberts, 2016) every team member rated each of
his/her individual peers (1 = not at all to 5 = to a very great extent) on the extent to which the
team relies on each of these specific individuals for leadership. Indexed in this way, shared
leadership reflects the total amount of leadership displayed by team members as perceived by
others on a team. To calculate the density shared leadership score for each team, we summed
all individual values (team members’ ratings of each other’s leadership) and divided the sum
by the total number of possible ties in a team (Carson et al., 2007; Mathieu et al., 2015).
Measured in this way, shared leadership ranges between .20 (all responses of “1”) to 1.00 (all
responses of “5”), with higher values indicating higher levels of shared leadership. Before
aggregating the leadership ratings across raters, we calculated the interrater agreement (i.e.,
intraclass correlation, ICC) for each measurement point (Bliese, 2000). For shared leadership
measured at Time 1, ICC(1) was 0.56 and ICC(2) was 0.87, for Time 2 0.52 and 0.85
respectively, for Time 3 ICC(1) was .52 and ICC(2) was .84, and for Time 4 ICC(1) was 0.54
and ICC(2) was 0.86.
Team size. Team size reflected the number of participants assigned to a team.
Social support. Social support was assessed at Time 2. Individual team members
indicated their agreement on a 4-item scale (1= “completely disagree, 5 = “completely
agree”) with three items borrowed from Carson and colleagues (2007, e.g., “The members of
my team talk enthusiastically about our team’s progress”) and one item added to the scale to

21
round out the construct coverage (“Members of my team know they can count on each
other”). Cronbach alpha was .87. Median rwg was estimated at .83, ICC(1) was of .11 and
ICC(2) was estimated at .39. These were viewed as acceptable levels of agreement to justify
aggregating team member scores. We did not anticipate large ICC(2) values because the
ICC(2) is a function of the number of team member scores and the ICC(1) value. Low ICC(2)
values suggest that it may be difficult to uncover emergent relationships using group means
(Bliese, 2000). Nevertheless, such circumstances should not preclude aggregation if it is
warranted by theory and substantiated by reasonably high rwg scores (Chen & Bliese, 2002;
Gelfand, Leslie, Keller, & de Dreu, 2012; Liao, Toya, Lepak, & Hong (2009). Therefore, we
proceeded with aggregating individual scores to the team level.
Team performance. Final team performance was calculated as the average of the
points teams received on their presentations and on their written reports. Team presentations
were evaluated by the instructor on an 8-point scale with points assigned for: introduction and
relevance (2 points maximum); content of the presentation (4 point maximum); and quality of
the presentation (2 points). Both the instructor and a teaching assistant (TA) independently
graded the written reports on an 8-point scale. The score for the written report was the
average of the instructor and the TA-assigned scores.
Analyses
To test our hypotheses, we utilized random coefficient growth modeling (RCM)
following the model estimation procedure of Bliese and Ployhart (2002), as also used by
Chen, Ployhart, Thomas, Anderson, and Bliese (2011) and Lorinkova, Pearsall and Sims
(2013). To test Hypotheses 2 and 4 we introduced the moderators to the specified equation.
When testing Hypothesis 1b we followed the procedure described by Chen and colleagues
(2011) -- namely, using slopes as predictors of the final outcome. In particular, based on the
findings in Hypothesis 1a, we treated the temporal change as a slope calculated across the

22
multiple measurement times. Then, we generated Bayesian slope estimates for each team
utilizing the random coefficient growth modeling procedure under the “nlme” package of R
3.6.1 and regressed the final team performance scores on the slope estimates in a separate
regression.
Before testing our hypotheses, we performed a multi-level confirmatory factor
analysis to establish the discriminant validity of the constructs assessed at the same time. In
particular, we included social support and shared leadership measured at T2, with social
support and shared leadership allowed to vary at Level 1 and team size introduced as an
observed variable at Level 2. Results revealed that the two-factor model fitted the data well
(χ2(4) = 4.03, p > .10; CFI = .98; TLI = .99; RMSEA = .02; SRMR = .02) and that participants
distinguished between the measured constructs. Therefore, we proceeded with hypotheses
testing.
Results
Table 1 presents the descriptive statistics of the variables used in Study 1.
--------------------------------
Insert Table 1 about here
--------------------------------
When testing Hypothesis 1, we started by estimating a model which included the
linear trend of time with random intercepts and fixed slopes (i.e., we regressed the respective
shared leadership scores on time, coded as 0, 1, 2, 3 for the four time periods respectively). In
this model the linear term was not significant (b = -.01, p > .1). At the next step of the model
building, we fitted a model with random intercepts and random slopes, and the result revealed
that the model with the random slopes was superior (L-ratio = 26.26, p < .01). In what
follows, we present the results from testing models with random intercepts and slopes. When
the quadratic term for time was introduced (Table 2, Model 2), it was negative and significant
(b2 =

23
-0.02, p < .05), while the linear term was positive (b = .05, p = .09). This provided initial
support for Hypothesis 1a. In addition, a log-likelihood comparison between the model with
the linear term only and the model containing both the linear and the quadratic term, revealed
a significant L-ratio (L = 8.05, p < .05). Figure 2 illustrates the plot for the pattern of change
of shared leadership. As seen from Figure 2, shared leadership changes over time following
an inverted U-shaped pattern, with shared leadership increasing initially and then decreasing
after a threshold (inflection) point. Visually, the inflection point appeared to be around the
mid-point of the team’s timeline. Using the formula for estimating the inflection point (where
B1 is the coefficient for the linear term of time, and B2 is the coefficient for the quadratic
term)
XInflection = -B1/ 2B2
(1) we estimated that the inflection occurred at 1.36, which corresponds to week 10.88 of the
semester, or week 6.09 of the 11-week long course. Thus, this finding supports Hypothesis
1a.
----------------------------------------------------------
Insert Table 2, Table 3, and Figure 2 about here
-----------------------------------------------------------
When testing Hypothesis 1b, we followed the procedure advocated by Chen and
colleagues (2011). Using ordinary least squares regression (OLS), we regressed final team
performance on the changes in the independent variable (represented by within-group slopes).
In addition to controlling for the average value of the independent variable, as a robustness
check (in separate models) we also controlled for the initial value of the independent variable
as well as for the value of the independent variable at Time 4. In all estimated models (see
Table 3), the quadratic change in shared leadership positively and significantly predicted final
team performance, supporting Hypothesis 1b.

24
Results from testing the effects of the moderators (Hypotheses 2 and 3) are presented
in Table 2. When testing the moderating hypotheses, we used RCM and the recommendations
of Le et al., (2011) for estimating moderated curvilinear relationships. In particular, a
moderated polynomial model can be represented with the following equation:
Y = B0+ B1X+ B2X2+ B3Z+ B4ZX + B5ZX2 + ε, (2)
In the equation above, Y represents shared leadership, B0 is the intercept (or the value
of shared leadership at Time 1), B1 is the linear term for time, B2 is the quadratic term for
time, and Z is the respective moderator. Thus, for the pattern of change of shared leadership
to be dependent on the value of the moderator (Z), we had to find that either B4 or B5 (or
both) were statistically significant in the estimated RCM model.
At the next step of our hypotheses testing, we included both team size and social
support in the equation to assess the role of the moderators. Table 2 presents the results. We
found that team size was a significant moderator (Model 7: b5 = -.03, p < .05) and the plot of
the relationship is presented in Figure 3. A seen from Figure 3, smaller teams not only
reached a higher level of shared leadership at the inflection point, but also sustained a higher
level of shared leadership throughout their lifecycle. Thus, Hypothesis 2 was supported.
Social support was also a significant moderator (Table 2, Model 7: b4a = .31, p <.01;
b5a = -.11, p < .01), and the plot is presented in Figure 4. As seen from Figure 4, an interesting
pattern of shared leadership development emerged; teams with higher social support
experienced the hypothesized U-shaped pattern of change, reaching an inflection point at
around .74-value of shared leadership. In contrast, in teams with lower levels of social
support, shared leadership appeared to remain relatively stable (and, in comparison to teams
with higher levels of social support, relatively low) across the team’s life cycle. Additional
calculations revealed that for teams with lower levels of social support, neither the linear term
for time, nor the quadratic term were significant (b2 = -.03, p > .1, and b3 = .01, p > .10),

25
which suggested that in these teams shared leadership changed little over time. Therefore,
Hypothesis 3 was supported.
-------------------------------------------------
Insert Figure 3 and Figure 4 about here
-------------------------------------------------
Study 1 Discussion
In this study, we found empirical support for a curvilinear, initially positive and then
negative (approximating an inverted U-shape) pattern of change in shared leadership, with
shared leadership reaching an inflection point around the mid-point of the project team’s
allotted time. This curvilinear pattern of change was, in turn, related to team performance.
These findings contribute to the shared leadership and project team literature by highlighting
the importance of the temporal dynamics of shared leadership. In fact, Table 1 shows that the
average level of shared leadership was not significantly related to team performance. Thus,
our findings constitute a novel conceptualization: understanding this curvilinear, almost
inverted U-shape pattern of shared leadership development; and incorporating the knowledge
that this pattern of change relates positively to team performance. This helps shed light on
some of the ambiguous findings in the shared leadership literature by considering not only the
level of shared leadership (at a certain point in time) but also its pattern of change over time.
In addition, basing our choice of moderators on the intersection of the shared
leadership theory and project team literature (Carson et al., 2007; Meindl et al., 2002; Pearce
& Sims, 2000; Waseenaar & Pearce, 2012; Zhu et al., 2018), we theoretically explain and
empirically examine different patterns of shared leadership development as qualified by team
size and social support. We offer evidence that smaller teams reached higher levels of shared
leadership at the inflection point and so, as predicted, did teams with higher levels of social
support. Interestingly, teams with lower levels of social support experienced relatively low

26
and stable shared leadership across the team’s life cycle; we expand upon this finding in the
general discussion.
However, despite providing empirical evidence consistent with our theoretical
reasoning, Study 1 has two notable disadvantages. First, the sample size in this study is
relatively small, which can cast doubt on the reliability of our results. Second, our study
could not address the generalizability of our results to project teams in ongoing organizations.
We address these issues in our next study, utilizing a field sample of project teams.
In this field study, after obtaining approval from our affiliated Institutional Review
Board (IRB #2018-1128 “Leadership in teams”), we surveyed self-managed project teams of
a mid-sized telecommunications and IT networking company in Eastern Europe.1 The
participating company offers comprehensive technology solutions to private and business
clients. It employs highly skilled engineers, who in teams of 3-6 members provide on-site
technology services to clients. Because of the nature of the business, the majority of the
employees have a high English proficiency, and 89% of the participants elected to complete
their surveys in English. The remaining 11% completed the surveys in their native language,
with surveys translated by local certified translators fluent in both languages.
Each team was responsible for a specific on-site project, with projects lasting between
3 and 17 days. Projects differed in complexity and tasks required, but they all necessitated
that team members work together and contribute to the technology solution. While working
on-site (on an assigned project) teams were responsible for the whole project from start to
finish, operating as self-managed units. Teams self-regulated all aspects of the projects,
1
The participating company operates in the territories of Greece, Bulgaria and Romania, with headquarters in
Bulgaria.

27
including but not limited to: assessing the situation, creating a plan of action, distributing
tasks among members, executing the tasks, routine maintenance and repair of their
equipment, and delivering a final report (completion ticket) to the organization. Overall,
teams had considerable autonomy to decide how to structure their collective work efforts to
provide the best possible service to the clients.
Teams worked without a designated field supervisor, and all members had similar
qualifications. The participating organization assigned senior engineers, “coordinators,” to
some of the projects, with responsibility for 4-7 projects at a time. Coordinators worked from
headquarters, almost never going on-site. Teams, however, did have access to their
coordinator for input on technical issues or similar concerns, but the coordinators were not
involved in the team’s day-to-day on-site work. Three teams from our sample worked without
a coordinator and reported directly to upper management. According to company policy, once
a project was completed, employees were assigned to a new project, not necessarily with the
same co-workers. Thus, a newly comprised project team (operating in the field and truly self-
managed) executed each separate on-site project.
In coordination with the participating organization, we e-mailed a link to the Time 1
survey to each team member who was starting a new project at the time of data collection.
We e-mailed a second survey (Time 2) at the mid-point of the project (project lengths were
estimated by the upper management before a project commenced based on written proposals,
which included billable hours). The final survey (Time 3) was distributed on the last day of
each project. After each team submitted its completion ticket, each coordinator was asked to
complete a short survey evaluating the work of the team on this project.
Our final sample includes data from 52 project teams. The mean project length was
10.02 days (4.29 SD), and the average project team size was 4.21 members.

28
Measures
Shared leadership. Similar to Study 1, and in order to allow for comparison between
our studies, we assessed shared leadership utilizing the same procedure and measure as in
Study 1. Team members rated each of their peers on the extent to which they relied on the
focal team member for leadership of the project team (1= “not at all”; 5 = “to a very great
extent”). Similar to Study 1, we computed the leadership density score by aggregating all of
the actual responses of the team members for each member, summing those, and then
dividing by the total possible responses (Carson et al., 2007; Chiu et al., 2016; Mathieu et al.,
2015).
Team size. The number of members assigned to an on-site project reflected team size.
Team performance. Team coordinators assessed team performance on a 10-Point
Likert-type scale. We encouraged team coordinators to communicate with the clients and get
the clients’ input before assessing team performance. Teams were rated on the following two
items: “The technical solution provided to the client on this project was …” (1 =
unacceptable; 5 = neutral, 10 = exceptional) and “The quality of the work on this project was
…“ (1 = unacceptable; 5 = neutral, 10 = exceptional). Reliability between the two items was
.94 and we averaged them to arrive at the final team performance score.
Controls. Because projects, and hence teams’ life cycles, differed in length, we used
the information obtained from the company management on project length and controlled for
it when testing our hypotheses.
Analyses and Results
Similar to Study 1, we utilized RCM under R 3.6.1 to test our hypotheses. A log-
likelihood comparison revealed that a model with random intercepts and slopes did not fit the
data significantly better than a model with random intercepts only (L-ratio = .92, p > .1).

29
Therefore, in what follows we present results from models with random intercepts and fixed
slopes. Table 4 includes means, standard deviations, and inter-correlations for our study
variables. As seen from Table 4, project length was significantly correlated with team
performance (r = .31, p < .05). We controlled for project length in subsequent analyses.
Before testing our hypotheses, we tested for multicollinearity among shared
leadership, team size, and project length (which we used as a control variable) by calculating
the variance inflation factor (VIF). We run three separate estimates for each measure of
shared leadership (Shared leadership T1, Shared Leadership T2, and Shared Leadership T3).
The VIF ranged between 1.01 and 1.08, which is below the recommended cutoff of 5 (Cohen,
Cohen, West, & Aiken, 2002), suggesting that multicollinearity among these variables was
not likely an issue.
Table 5 presents the results for testing Hypotheses 1a and 2. As seen from Table 5,
Model 1, the linear term involving time was positive and significant (b1 = .05, p < .001).
When the quadratic term was added to the equation, it was estimated to be negative and
significant (Table 5, Model 2, b2 = -.07, p < .001), which provided initial support for our first
hypothesis. Figure 5 illustrates the plot of the relationship and as seen, consistent with our
theorizing, shared leadership initially increases and then decreases. The inflection point for
the field project self-managed teams was estimated at 1.28, which is slightly after the
estimated project mid-point (Time coded as Time 1 = 0, Time 2 = 1, and Time 3 = 2). This
finding supports Hypothesis 1a.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Insert Table 4, Table 5, Figure 5, and Figure 6 about here
----------------------------------------------------------------------
In testing Hypothesis 1b, we followed the same procedure as in Study 1 and regressed
team performance on within-group slopes, representing the change in shared leadership. On
its own, average shared leadership was not significantly related to team performance (b = -

30
2.16, p >.1). However, when the change in shared leadership was added to the model, it
positively and significantly predicted team performance (b = 11.98, p < .05). In a similar
manner, estimated on its own, Time 1 shared leadership was not significantly related to team
performance (b = 3.43, p > .1), but when the quadratic change was added to the regression
equation, the coefficient for the change pattern was positive and marginally significant (b =
9.22, p = .09). Finally, the coefficient for the quadratic change, on its own, positively and
significantly (b = 10.81, p < .05) predicted team performance. We interpreted these results as
supportive of Hypothesis 1b.
Next, we tested Hypothesis 2, in which we predicted that smaller teams would reach
higher levels of shared leadership at the inflection point. As seen from Table 5, Model 3 the
interaction term involving time and team size was significant (b4 = -.06, p < .05). As seen
from Figure 6, which presents the plot of the relationships, smaller teams appear to reach
higher levels of shared leadership at the inflection point, which was estimated at .79 for
smaller teams and .72 for larger teams. Thus, Hypothesis 2 was supported.
Study 2 Discussion
Utilizing a field sample of self-managed project teams, we found support for the
predicted curvilinear pattern of change in shared leadership over time. In addition, team size
acted as a moderator, with smaller teams achieving higher levels of shared leadership.
Although our results were largely supportive of our theoretical reasoning and replicative of
the empirical findings of Study 1, the peak in shared leadership for the industry project teams
occurred slightly later than the initially expected project mid-point. We expand upon this
interesting finding in the discussion section. However, due to limitations in survey length we
were not able to further test the moderating role of team social support in Study 2.

31
Furthermore, participants in Study 2 were well familiar with one another,2 which prevented
us from examining the role of team familiarity in this study. We address these issues in Study
3.
For Study 3 we utilized a procedure similar to Study 1. Research participants were
undergraduate students organized in self-managing teams in business schools at a private
Mid-Atlantic university (1 course, 6 sections) and a private South-Central University (1
course, 2 sections). Students were assigned to teams and worked in them for 10 – 12 weeks to
complete a team project. Team projects required students to engage in a wide variety of tasks
with specific deliverables (written reports and presentations) pertaining to two courses taught
by three different instructors. All instructors were blind to the study hypotheses, and the study
was conducted with the approval of the affiliated IRB3. Teams were self-managing and had
complete discretion on how to approach and carry out their projects. In six of the
participating sections, the instructor randomly assigned students to teams. In the remaining
two sections, students were allowed to select their team members. Teams size was 3-6
members.
For our final sample, we had complete observations on 272 students in 65 teams. Data
from 53 teams were collected from a cohort of business students enrolled in a core
management class (sophomore and junior students) and students were awarded extra credit
for participation in the study. Data from the remaining 12 teams were collected from another
cohort of business students enrolled in an elective management class in a different university,
with survey completion considered part of class participation. There were no significant
2
The individual level mean for familiarity was 2.54/3 with .23 SD.
3
IRB #2018-1133 “Leadership in a Team's Life Cycle”

32
differences between the two cohorts of students on any variables, and the data collection
procedure and measures were identical for both cohorts. In order to increase our sample size
and hence statistical power, we combined the two samples into one dataset.
We used online data collection with three surveys administered to the students.
Survey 1 was administered approximately one week after teams were assigned, Survey 2
around the mid-point of the project length (with project length pre-determined by instructors),
and Survey 3 right after the final deliverables were submitted, but before team grades were
assigned.
Measures
Shared Leadership. We utilized the same network density procedure as in Studies 1
and 2, with participants assessing the shared leadership of their teammates with one item,
following the example of Carson and colleagues (2007), and Mathieu and colleagues (2015).
All ratings were summed and then divided by the number of total possible responses to arrive
at a final shared leadership score for the team.
Social support. To measure social support we used the three-item measure of Carson
et al. (2007). This variable was measured at Time 2 of the data collection on a 5-point Likert-
type scale (1 = “completely disagree” to 5 = “completely agree”). Before aggregating the
individual scores to the team level, we assessed whether aggregation was appropriate. The
within-team agreement statistics were estimated at .88 (rwg) and the ICC(l) of .37
demonstrated that team membership accounted for significant variance; the ICC(2) of .67
suggested reliability of the team level means. Therefore, we proceeded with aggregation to
the team level.
Team Familiarity. We collected data on students’ familiarity with one another at
Time 1 of data collection, reasoning that at this time team members’ familiarity might
influence leadership emergence (Pearce & Sims, 2000). We measured team familiarity with

33
one item, asking students to respond to the following question: “How familiar were you with
your team members before starting work on this project” (1 = I was not familiar with any of
my team members; 2 = I was somewhat familiar with some of my team members; 3 = I was
well familiar with my team members). We averaged team members’ responses to arrive at a
team score. However, consistent with Chan’s (1998) recommendations, we did not estimate
within-group agreement, as team familiarity represents an additive team-level construct, for
which the additive index is correctly represented by the group mean.
Team performance. Final team performance was calculated as the sum of the points
teams received on their presentations and on their written analyses. Team presentations were
evaluated on a 15-point scale with points assigned for: introduction and relevance (3 points
maximum); content of the presentation (9-point maximum); and quality of the presentation (3
points). Presentations were evaluated by all class members through an online survey
immediately after the presentation ended; each team’s final presentation score was calculated
based on the class average and the instructor score. For 53 of the teams, two independent
graders graded team written analyses (graduate-student teaching assistants) with a score
ranging between 0-5. In the cases of a higher-than-1-point discrepancy between the two
graders,4 the course instructor re-graded the written analysis and assigned a score. For the
remaining 12 teams, the instructor graded the written analysis.
Controls. We controlled for team size, because it was a significant correlate of shared
leadership in the first study. The number of students working on a team reflected team size.
Results
Table 6 presents the means, standard deviations, and zero-order correlations for Study
3 variables. As seen from the table, team size was significantly correlated with average
4
For 3 teams, for which there was more than a 1-point difference between the TA graders, the course instructor
regraded the assignment.

34
shared leadership and shared leadership measured at Time 3, which confirmed our intent to
include team size in the analyses as a control variable. Similar to Study 2, we estimated the
VIF for shared leadership (measured at Time 1 (T1), Time 2 (T2), and Time 3 (T3)), social
support, and team familiarity in three separate estimates. VIF ranged between 1.01 and 1.09
when shared leadership T1, social support and team familiarity were included; between 1.11
and 1.32 with shared leadership T2 included, and between 1.12 and 1.19 with shared
leadership T3. These results are well below the recommended cut-off of 5 (Cohen et al.,
2002), and suggested multicollinearity was likely not an issue. In addition, we ran a
multilevel CFA to make sure participants distinguished between social support and shared
leadership T2 (because both were measured at T2). A two-factor model (with social support
and shared leadership allowed to vary at Level 1 and team size controlled for at Level 2)
revealed a good fit of the data: (χ2(2) = 7.43, p < .05; CFI = .97; TLI = .94; RMSEA = .075;
SRMRwithin = .04, and confirmed the discriminant validity of the constructs.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Insert Table 6, Table 7, and Figure 7 about here
------------------------------------------------------------
Hypotheses 1a, 3 and 4 were tested through RCM under R 3.6.1. We started by
estimating model fit, and we discovered that a model with random intercepts and slopes fit
the data better than a model with random intercepts only (L-ratio = 12.83, p < .01). In what
follows, we present results from models allowing both the intercepts and the slopes to vary.
Table 7 presents the results for testing Hypotheses 1a, 3 and 4. Shared leadership
change did not follow a linear trend (Model 1: b1 = .01, p > .1). When the quadratic term was
added to the equation, it was estimated to be negative and significant (Model 2: b2 = -.04, p <
.05), with a positive linear term (b1 = .10, p < .01). Figure 7 presents the plot for the pattern
of change in shared leadership, and as seen from the figure shared leadership increases
initially, only to reach a peak and then decrease later in the team development. The inflection

35
point was estimated at 1.12, which is consistent with the chronological mid-point of team
development (based on three observations, at Time 1, Time 2 and Time 3, coded as 0, 1, and
2 for analytical purposes), thus supporting Hypothesis 1a.5
When testing Hypothesis 1b we used the same approach as in Study 1 and Study 2. In
particular, we regressed team performance on the estimated within-group slope coefficients.
The quadratic change in shared leadership positively and significantly predicted team
performance when controlling for the value of shared leadership at T3 (b = 8.67, p < .05). In
a similar manner, controlling for the average shared leadership, the quadratic change in
shared leadership positively and significantly predicted team performance (b = 9.29, p < .05).
These results indicated support for Hypothesis 1b.
---------------------------------------------------
Insert Figure 8 and Figure 9 about here
-----------------------------------------------------
Next, we tested Hypotheses 3 and 4, estimating the role of social support and team
familiarity as moderators. Table 7 presents the results. Hypothesis 3 was supported because
the interaction term involving time and social support was significant (Model 8: b4 = .14, p <
.05) and the plot of the interaction (presented in Figure 8) reveals results consistent with our
theorizing. Additional calculations revealed that teams with higher levels of social support
reached .77 value of shared leadership at the inflection point, whereas teams with lower
levels of social support reached only .64 value of shared leadership. When testing Hypothesis
4, the interaction between time and familiarity was marginally significant (Model 8: b4a = .14,
p = .051), whereas the interaction between the quadratic term of time and familiarity reached
5
To validate Hypothesis 1 further, and to offer a more rigorous empirical test of our theorized group dynamics,
we conducted additional data collection and performed additional analyses. See the Appendix for full details. In
short, we collected data from 27 student teams, which we surveyed 5 times over the course of a condensed 5-
week long semester. Results support the theorized curvilinear pattern of shared leadership development, with
shared leadership increasing earlier in the team development and decreasing during Phase 2. We estimated that
shared leadership peaked at week 2.67 (Xinflection = 2.67), which is consistent with our theoretically outlined peak
in shared leadership.

36
significance (b5a = -.08, p < .05). The plot, however, reveals surprising results. As seen in
Figure 9, teams in which members were relatively unfamiliar with one another experienced
almost no change in shared leadership over time, whereas in teams with higher familiarity
among members, shared leadership peaked around the mid-point at .73 value. Thus, in Study
3, we found support for Hypotheses 1 and 3, but the findings for Hypothesis 4 went in the
opposite direction. We expand upon these findings in the discussion section.
General Discussion
Based on three independent studies, we find evidence to suggest that shared
leadership changes over time in a curvilinear fashion with the pattern approximating an
inverted U-shape. In particular, over the course of a project team’s life cycle, shared
leadership increased during the early phase of team development (Phase 1), peaked around
the mid-point, and gradually decreased in the later phase (Phase 2). In turn, this pattern of
change related positively to team performance. The results also showed that team size, social
support, and team members’ familiarity, all of which were theoretically based on the shared
leadership and project team literature, acted as boundary conditions to influence the pattern of
shared leadership development. In particular, as we expected, smaller teams and teams
enjoying higher levels of social support reached higher levels of shared leadership across
their development. Somewhat surprisingly, we found that the curvilinear pattern of shared
leadership development was more pronounced in teams with higher familiarity, rather than in
teams with lower familiarity.
Theoretical Implications
Departing from previous research that has predominantly examined shared leadership
in a cross-sectional, static manner (e.g., Boies et al., 2010; Carson et al., 2007; Erkutlu, 2012;
Pearce et al., 2004), we have focused on the longitudinal development of shared leadership in
project teams. While theoretically positioning and empirically validating the pattern of shared

37
leadership development over time and offering insights into boundary conditions that
influence this pattern of development, we make several major contributions to relevant
literature.
First, in a departure from the traditional PEM (Chang et al., 2003; Gersick, 1988;
1989), which focuses predominantly on task execution and overlooks shared leadership
development, we describe how, in response to members’ changing needs and priorities,
shared leadership increases during Phase 1, peaks around the mid-point, and then diminishes
during Phase 2 of a project team’s life cycle. By conceptualizing this non-uniform,
curvilinear pattern of shared leadership development in project teams over time, we address
the question of how shared leadership develops and when project teams need it most. In this
way, we answer researchers’ calls for a better theoretical understanding of the role of time
(Nicolaides et al., 2014; Wang et al., 2014), and we offer an alternative explanation for
longstanding empirical confusion surrounding the role of time in shared leadership
development.
Second, our results demonstrate that teams which follow the curvilinear, inverted U-
shape shared leadership development enjoy higher levels of performance. This finding is in
line with our theorizing, extending shared leadership theory (Pearce & Sims, 2000; Pearce &
Conger, 2003), and it draws on arguments from the non-sequential team development
framework (e.g., Chang et al., 2003; Gersick, 1988, 1989) as applicable to self-managed
project teams. We argue that project teams need to develop shared leadership during the
earlier phase of team development to allow shared leadership to peak around the mid-point
(when the team needs it the most). It can then diminish during the later phase, when project
completion strategies and direction are already set. Our conceptualization of this
approximately inverted U-shape pattern of change in shared leadership also allows us to offer
a potential explanation for why some researchers (e.g., Boies et al., 2010; Hmieleski et al.,

38
2012; Serban & Roberts, 2016) might not have linked shared leadership to team performance.
In particular, we alert scholars to the value of paying attention not only to the level but also to
the changes in shared leadership over time, because team members’ priorities and needs
change during the course of a team’s life cycle.
Third, we identify critical boundary conditions, which help explain why some teams
experience different patterns of shared leadership development. In this way, we overcome the
limitation of assuming that all teams follow a similar pattern of shared leadership
development (e.g., Drescher et al, 2014). We also answer researchers’ calls to identify
boundary conditions that “remain to be clarified as research goes forward” (Wang et al.,
2014, p. 182). Past work has tended to treat shared leadership as similar to its counterpart –
vertical leadership – and examine it as a static input, remaining unchanged over the course of
the team’s life cycle (e.g., Chiu et al., 2016; Erkutlu, 2012), with its effects potentially
mediated through team processes (e.g., Hoch & Dulebohn, 2013). This treatment, however, is
inconsistent with shared leadership theory – which denotes a dynamic, interpersonal process
– and leaves open the question of whether and why some teams may experience different
patterns of shared leadership development. Accordingly, by grounding our inquiry in shared
leadership theory (Wassenaar & Pearce, 2012; see also Pearce & Sims, 2000, and Zhu et al.,
2018) and project team literature (e.g., Akgün et al., 2007; Huckman & Staats, 2011;
Huckman et al., 2009), we identified team size, team social support, and team members’
familiarity as important moderators of the configuration of shared leadership development in
project teams. In this way, our study advances a theoretical understanding of team-level
factors that serve as boundary conditions for shared leadership development in project teams.
For example, our finding that smaller teams reach higher levels of shared leadership during
the mid-point offers some theoretical and empirical insight into the existing dilemma
surrounding the role of team size for shared leadership development (Nicolaides et al., 2014).

39
In a similar manner, although our findings when social support was lower were slightly
different across Study 1 and Study 3, we found evidence that teams with higher levels of
social support consistently reached higher levels of shared leadership around the critical
midpoint. Thus, our work extends the applications of the more general team literature (e.g.,
LePine, Piccolo, Jackson, Mathieu, & Saul, 2008) to shared leadership development by
highlighting the importance of social support for project teams. Somewhat surprisingly, we
found that teams in which members were less familiar with one another experienced almost
no change in shared leadership over the course of the project team’s life cycle. By contrast, in
teams with higher familiarity, the U-shape pattern of change was well evident. A potential
explanation for this finding may lie in what Richard Hackman (2002) calls “newness as a
liability”, arguing that familiarity in teams is helpful for reaching optimal interpersonal
structures and, ultimately, performance.
Managerial Implications
This study demonstrates the role of shared leadership for project teams, and offers a
number of organizational implications. First, it is important for practicing managers and
organizational leaders to understand that shared leadership could be an important predictor of
project teams’ performance. With that in mind, managers should encourage its development
in self-managed teams. However, our findings caution that shared leadership appears to be
most important around the mid-point of the team’s life cycle (which, in practitioners’ terms,
might be approximately the halfway point toward specific deadlines that project teams have
to meet), and that an increase in shared leadership earlier in a team’s development facilitates
reaching the needed high level at the mid-point. Equipped with this knowledge, we advise
organizational leaders to monitor team progression through a project, and encourage team
members to build shared leadership during the early phases of team development so that team
members are able to exert necessary and significant shared leadership influence around the

40
mid-point of the team’s time-line. Past this mid-point, our study advises, team members
should focus on task execution and refrain from over-exerting leadership influence.
In addition to explaining better the role of time in shared leadership development, our
study also offers insights to organizational leaders about team characteristics that can help
autonomous project teams achieve the predicted curvilinear pattern of shared leadership
development -- with mid-point inflection – and, in turn, positively influence project
execution. In particular, our study warns managers about costs associated with increasing the
number of members on a team; larger teams tend to reach lower levels of shared leadership at
the mid-point of the team’s allotted time, when shared leadership is most beneficial to the
team. A practical solution here might be to facilitate and encourage team members to engage
in shared leadership influences during Phase 1 to effectively handle the transitional mid-
point. Alternatively, one could split a larger team into smaller groups able to target different
aspects of a project. In a similar manner, our findings illuminate the importance of team
members’ familiarity and social support. For example, based on our findings, we advise
organizations and practicing managers to avoid (if possible) assigning completely unfamiliar
team members to a new project, because unfamiliarity appears to be a liability that hinders
shared leadership development. Social support as a boundary condition facilitated shared
leadership development and we advise organizational leaders to promote a climate in which
team members encourage and care for one another.
Limitations and Directions for Future Research
This study has a number of limitations, which should be noted. First, despite its three-
study, different-settings approach, the scope of our work is limited to self-managed project
teams. Thus, the generalizability of our results to different types of teams remains to be
studied. For example, long-term production teams that have a relatively stable membership

41
and rely on complex equipment (Sundstrom, 1999) may reach a certain level of shared
leadership and maintain it for as long as the team operates.
Second, although we conceptualize shared leadership as evolving over multiple
phases of team development, we are not able to definitively identify the beginning or end of
each phase of team development. As noted by Kozlowski and colleagues, teams develop
through a “continuous series of phases, with partial overlap at transitions” (1999, p. 248). Our
empirical findings, which identify the peak of shared leadership around the mid-point of the
teams’ allotted time, extend the theoretical application of the episodic team development
perspective (Chang et al., 2003; Gersick, 1988, 1989; Marks et al., 2001), highlighting the
importance of the transitional mid-point. Interestingly for our industry project teams, the peak
in shared leadership appeared slightly after the chronological team project mid-point. We
interpreted this to mean that for these project teams the early phase of team development
(during which team members assess the situation, exchange ideas about approaches, and start
to distribute tasks) likely takes longer than for student teams (faced with more predictable
tasks). Therefore, future research could examine the changes in shared leadership over
different types of projects or series of tasks, for which the duration of each developmental
phase might be duly coded.
In addition, although our choice of moderators was grounded in the shared leadership
and project team literature, this work did not capture all potential factors that could exert
moderating influences on shared leadership development. For example, shared leadership
theory consistently advises that task interdependence may influence the role of shared
leadership in teams, hence team needs--and as a result members’ engagement in shared
leadership--may be influenced by task interdependence. Research suggests that when tasks
require intense collaboration, team members are more likely to accept role differentiation
(Stogdill, 1959), which, in shared leadership parlance, implies that members would be more

42
likely to grant leadership roles. Thus under higher task interdependence we might expect to
find higher levels of shared leadership. Our field study sample, which surveyed teams with
relatively high levels of task interdependence, ameliorates this issue to some extent; however,
future research could bring more contextual clarity to the issue of shared leadership
development over time.
Moreover, a future and specific examination of the nature of shared leadership at
different time points may help bring clarity to specific types of leadership influences that
might be relevant. In this study, we focused on the overall construct of shared leadership in
order to avoid conflation with, and limiting leadership to, specific functions in which team
members engage when influencing their teams. However, traditional leadership research has
long identified task- and relationship-oriented aspects of leadership (DeRue, Nahrgang,
Wellman, & Humphrey, 2011). Although shared leadership research has traditionally not
differentiated between these two aspects of leadership (Carson et al., 2007, Chiu et al., 2016;
Drescher et al., 2014), they might meet different team needs as the team progresses through
its life cycle. Clarifying these potentially different aspects of shared leadership and their role
over time might bring clarity to the questions of what exactly is shared (Barnett &
Weidenfeller, 2016).
Finally, there may also be some ambiguity as to what mediating mechanisms help
translate the effect of shared leadership to team performance. Although our results are
consistent with Carson and colleagues (2007) and Chiu and colleagues (2016), who link
shared leadership directly to team outcomes, emerging research in the area (e.g., Drescher et
al., 2014) underscores the need to clarify the role of team processes and states, viewing them
as “translators” of the effects of shared leadership development on final outcomes. Therefore,
future research should examine the interplay and mutual influence dynamics of shared

43
leadership, as well as other team processes and emergent states. We encourage researchers
interested in these issues to use our work as a starting point for this important conversation.
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Figure Legends
Figure 1. Proposed Theoretical Model

53
Figure 2. Shared Leadership Change over Time (Study 1).
Figure 3. Interaction between Shared Leadership Change and Team Size (Study 1).

54
Figure 4. Interaction between Shared Leadership Change and Social Support (Study 1).

55
Figure 6. Interaction between Shared Leadership Change and Team Size (Study 2).

56
Figure 8. Interaction between Shared Leadership Change and Social Support (Study 3).
Figure 9. Interaction between Shared Leadership Change and Team Familiarity (Study 3).

57
Table 1
Descriptive Statistics (Study 1)
Variables Me SD 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8
1. Shared Leadership T1 0.6
an 0.0 .
5 0.0
9 .21
7 0.0
8 .13
8 0.0
8 .71*
5. Average SL Leadership 0.6
9 0.0
9 .29* *.45* .83*
6. Team Size 5.3
7 0.6
7 - * .76
.55 - * *- *
.87 .86 - * -
7. Social Support Environment 4.2
5 0.2
6 .33 *.37*
*- * * * .23
.39 .66* .64* -
8. TeamPurpose
Shared Performance 6.4
7 0.9
7 -
.11 .50*
* .21 *-.01* *-
.51 .36* .04
* .04 - -
Note. N = 31; Average SL = Average6Shared
0 Leadership.
.07 * * .02 .29 .2
* **
p < .05. p <.01. 0
Table 2
Results from RCM predicting changes in Shared Leadership (Study 1)
Variable Model Model Model Model Model Model Model
Intercept .67*** .65*** .95*** .88*** .41* .81**
+ + +
Time (b1) 1-.01 2 .05 3 .05 4-.07 5.05 6-1.28** 7-1.43**
***
Time^2 (b2) -.02* -.02* .08 -.02* .45*** 1.07
.57**
Team Size (b3) -.06* -.04 -.05*
Social Support (b3a) .06 -.04 -.04
Time*Team Size (b4) .02 .03
+
Time^2*Team Size -.02 -.03*
Time*Social Support .31** .31**
(b5)
Time^2*Social -.11*** -.11**
2
(b 4a)
Pseudo R .03 .18 .15 .20 .03 .08 .25
Support
Note. (b5a) R2 is calculated as the proportional reduction of level 1 error variances resulting
Pseudo
from adding predictors (compared to a null-model with no predictors). Subscript notations are
consistent with equation 2.
+
p < .10; *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.
Table 3
Results from OLS Predicting Team Performance (Study 1)
Variable Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5 Model 6
Intercept 6.18** 8.15*** 6.91*** 7.39*** 6.58*** 9.26***
Average Shared Leadership .37 -2.05
Shared Leadership Time 1 -.72 -1.01
Shared Leadership Time 4 -.22 -3.44
(Quadratic) Slope of SL 18.40* 16.10 *
25.04**
2
R .01 .15 .01 .14 .00 .22
ΔR2 .14* .13* .20*
Note. N = 31.
*
p < .05; **p <.01; ***p < .001.

58
Table 4
Descriptive Statistics of Study Variables (Study 2)
Variables Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1. Project Length 10.02 4.29
2. Team Size 4.21 0.75 -0.07
3. Shared 0.65 0.09 0.22 0.08
Leadership T1
4. Shared 0.76 0.10 - -0.23 0.35*
Leadership T2 0.03
5. Shared 0.74 0.08 -0.01 -0.24 0.26
Leadership T3 0.59*
*
6. Average SL 0.72 0.07 0.07 -0.18

0.69* 0.85* 0.79*
* * *
7. Performance 7.86 1.45 0.32* 0.08 0.21 -0.07 - -0.09 -

0.28*
Note. N = 52; Average SL = Average Shared Leadership.
*
p < .05. **p < .01.
Table 5
Variable Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
Intercept .66*** .64*** .60***
Project Length .00 .00 .00
*** **
Time (b1) .05 .17 .44**
***
Time^2 (b2) -.07 -.16*
Team Size (b3) .01
Time*Team Size (b4) -.06*
Time^2*Team Size (b5) .02
2
Pseudo R .14 .22 .25
2
Note. Pseudo R is calculated as the proportional reduction of level 1 error variances resulting
from adding predictors (compared to a null-model with no predictors).
*
p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.

59
Table 6
Descriptive Statistics of Study Variables (Study 3)
Variables Mea SD 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
n
1. Team Size 0.7
4.18 3
2. Shared 0.1 -
Leadership T1 0.64 6 0.19
3. Shared 0.1 0.06 -
Leadership T2 0.66 8 0.12
4. Shared 0.1 -
Leadership T3 0.70 6 0.49* 0.26* 0.48*
* *
5. Average SL 0.1 -
0.67 2 0.29* 0.54* 0.68* 0.84*
* * * *
*
6. Social Support 0.4 - - 0.41
3.87 9 0.04 0.07 0.34* 0.33
*
7. Team 0.5 - - 0.02

Familiarity 1.62 0 0.21 0.07 0.24+ 0.09 0.29
*
8. Team 18.2 1.0 0.13 - 0.08 - - 0.02 0.02 -

Performance 8 2 0.25+ 0.14 0.15
Note. N = 65; Average SL = Average Shared Leadership.
+
p < .10. *p < .05. **p <.01.
Table 7
Variable Mode Mode Mode Mode Mode Mode Mode Mode
Intercept .85*** .59*** .96***
Time (b1) l 1.01 l 2.10* l 3.10* l 4-.60* 5*
l.10 l-.20
6 l7 l 8*
-.66
*** **** **** *** ***
Time^2 (b2) .87 .86
-.04 .57
-.04 .93.14 -.04* .92
.09+ -.04* .18
** * * * * * ** *
Team Size (b3) -.05 -.05 -.05 -.04 -.05 -.05 .10-.05 -.05*
Social Support .07* -.03 -.01
*
Time*Social Support .18 .14*
Time^2*Social -.05 .07** -.03
(b4)
Familiarity (b3a) .00 -.04 -.02 -.03
*
Support (b )
Time*Familiarity(b
5 4a .18 .14+
Time^2*Familiarity -.08* -.08*
2
)Pseudo R .04 .07 .14 .15 .06 .07 .11 .17
(b5a)
Note. Pseudo R2 is calculated as the proportional reduction of level 1 error variances resulting
from adding predictors (compared to a null-model with no predictors).
+
p < .10; *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.

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Running head: Dynamics of Shared Leadership

Shared Leadership Development and Team Performance: A New Look at the

Dynamics of Shared Leadership

development. In particular, we propose that in project teams shared leadership develops in a

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

development pattern relates positively to team performance. We also extend theory by

development. Using a three-study approach, we empirically examine the hypothesized

implications of our findings.

investigating shared leadership, recognizing shared leadership as an important driver of team

its role in teams.

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

referring to shared leadership as a “dynamic, interactive influence process among individuals

Hmieleski, & Pearce, 2006), conceptualizing shared leadership as a one-time, static

as a potential factor influencing shared leadership. Unfortunately, theoretical

conceptualizations examining shared leadership development as a function of team

the dynamic changes in shared leadership and team outcomes.

Ambiguous empirical evidence also exacerbates theoretical confusion on the interplay

(Nicolaides et al., 2014, p. 935).

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Starting the conversation on the important issue of shared leadership development

performance. However, despite acknowledging shared leadership as a dynamic phenomenon

development underlying leadership, particularly shared leadership. As such, it does not

Additionally, the progressively linear model of shared leadership development

As a result, further conceptualization is needed to explain how shared leadership

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business environments, are becoming a growing phenomenon in organizations (Ilgen,

guidance, coordination, and, ultimately, for accomplishing the team task.

In response, we designed the current research to address the above-identified

development phase. By conceptualizing a curvilinear, inverted U-shape pattern of shared

leadership development, we depart from the punctuated equilibrium model of (team)

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

trajectory of shared leadership development approximating an inverted U-shape, we not only

leadership development patterns.

Shared Leadership and Project Team Development

Unlike traditional vertical leadership, often defined as influencing others to achieve a

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

motivational frames” (2012, p. 102).

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task accomplishment. As a result, applying it directly to a conceptualization of the

development of interpersonal processes – such as shared leadership – might lead to faulty

that shared leadership changes in a non-uniform way, approximating an S-shape pattern,

summarizes our theoretical model.

Phase 1 is characterized by articulating a number of tentative solutions, as well as searching

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leadership literature implies that, as a relational interaction structure, shared leadership is

likely to facilitate accomplishment of the team’s objective by influencing the team’s

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

to decrease their engagement in and reliance on shared leadership. In addition, as power

by the traditional punctuated model of team development, we propose that engagement in

high level, during the later phase of team development.

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Hypothesis 1. Shared leadership will change over time following a curvilinear

mid-point, and decreasing during Phase 2 (H1a). This curvilinear pattern,

approximating an inverted U-shape, will relate positively to team performance (H1b).

Team Characteristics as Moderators of Shared Leadership Development

effectiveness of shared leadership. In parallel, and independent of the shared leadership

members’ familiarity. We elaborate on the theoretical importance of each of these below.

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

surrounding the role of team size in project teams.

A major shortcoming of both streams of literature, which conceptualize group size as

an important boundary condition, is the static treatment of shared leadership. Thus,

development of these interactions might be influenced by group size. By examining group