Received: 1 December 2023 Accepted: 1 December 2023

DOI: 10.1111/jpim.12713

CATALYST

Moderated paradoxical leadership: Resolving

the innovation team leadership conundrum

Craig L. Pearce 1 | Daan van Knippenberg 2

1
Pennsylvania State University, University
Park, Pennsylvania, USA
2
Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of
Business, Rice University, Houston,
Texas, USA
Correspondence
Craig L. Pearce, Brova Family Professor of
Leadership, Pennsylvania State
University, University Park, Pennsylvania,
USA.
Email: craig.l.pearce@gmail.com
Abstract
Most discussions of innovation leadership focus on the role of the top leader.
Such leaders are advised to be visionary, to control and coordinate the efforts
of those below them, and to empower subordinates to engage in innovation
activities. Most innovation efforts, however, also require teamwork, bringing
together diverse individuals to combine divergent talents to develop novel
solutions to complex problems. Leadership of such teams, research shows, ben-
efits from shared leadership (e.g., Wassenaar & Pearce. 2018. The Nature of
Leadership, 167–88). The rub is that these two sources of leadership are often
seen as polar opposites and that the presence of the one negates the use of the
other. We contend, however, that to realize the true potential of innovation
teams requires the long-run paradoxical integration and simultaneous deploy-
ment of both vertical and shared leadership, along with the short-run tandem
moderation of vertical versus shared leadership, depending on the issues con-
fronting the team, as the innovation process unfolds. We synthesize the litera-
ture surrounding this issue and articulate a model of moderated paradoxical
leadership to guide future research into this space.

KEYWORDS
innovation, leadership, paradoxical leadership, shared leadership, teams

1 | INTRODUCTION importance of top leaders in bringing about innovation

Innovation requires leadership—of this there is no doubt.
Most discussions of innovation focus on the role of the
top leader as the prime mover in the development and
realization of innovation. Ray Kroc of McDonalds, for
instance, is credited with the innovations that led to the
fast-food industry. In chemical engineering, the company
W. L. Gore certainly stands out. Most credit Wilbert (Bill)
L. Gore, the namesake of the company, as the motive
force for the inventions of the company. The scientific
research on innovation leadership certainly bears out the
(e.g., Acar et al., 2019; Caridi-Zahavi et al., 2016;
Eisenbeiss et al., 2008; Slater et al., 2014). With that said,
innovation often requires a team effort, bringing together
diverse individuals for collective effort.
The reality of McDonalds' success is that it was based
upon the team of Ray Kroc and Harry Sonneborn, the
financial genius. Together, as a leadership team, Kroc
and Sonneborn, along with other key players, created
what we now recognize as the model for large, multi-
unit, franchise chains. Similarly, innovation at Gore was
founded on teamwork. One of the key team leaders was

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4 JOURNAL OF PRODUCT INNOVATION MANAGEMENT
Robert W. Gore but others were also instrumental. In
fact, at one point, 13 of the original 16 employees lived in
the same house, dedicated to creating the innovations
that launched the firm as an innovation powerhouse.
While top leaders are nearly always of paramount import,
the reality behind their success is generally a bit more
nuanced. A similar story exists in many innovative com-
panies, where the credit is focused on one person, while
the behind-the-scenes story reveals the importance of a
team of leaders.
Research on the leadership of innovation, nonethe-
less, is overwhelmingly focused on what hierarchical,
vertical leaders do, or do not do, to facilitate the realiza-
tion of innovation. Based on this research, considerable
advice has been advocated for such leaders. Innovation,
however, is also a team affair, where diverse individuals
are brought together to address complex issues. Leading
such teams is challenging and has become an increasing
focus of both innovation and leadership research
(Pearce et al., 2023; van Knippenberg, 2017). As such,
we believe that the key to innovation team leadership
success is integrating top-down, vertical leadership and
team-based, shared leadership. But what do we really
know, from scientific studies, about the leadership of
innovation? Below we provide a brief review (represen-
tative, not comprehensive) of leadership of team innova-
tion, organized by source of leadership (vertical versus
shared).
2 | VERTICAL L EADERSHIP
AND I NNOV ATI ON
The vast majority of research on leadership of innovation is
focused on hierarchical, vertical leadership (e.g., Carmeli
et al., 2010; Hughes et al., 2018). Significant research
has focused on innovation in research and development
(R&D) departments and the new product development
(NPD) process. For instance, in a study of 33 R&D
teams, transformational leadership was positively asso-
ciated with team climate, which was subsequently
linked to team innovation (Eisenbeiss et al., 2008), while
a study of R&D departments in 43 software development
firms found transformational leadership to contribute to
innovation (Gumusluoglu & Ilsev, 2009) (but see van
Knippenberg & Sitkin, 2013 for a critical discussion of
the transformational leadership literature). Relatedly,
in a study of 64 NPD teams, team leader participative
management and initiation of goal structure were posi-
tively associated with functional conflict resolution, col-
laboration and communication quality, and negatively
associated with the occurrence of dysfunctional conflict
resolution (Sarin & O'Connor, 2009).
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Practitioner points
• Innovation teams need strong vertical
leadership—leadership from a formal team
leader—especially regarding vision, direction,
and empowerment.
• Innovation teams require robust shared
leadership—a dynamic process in which team
members take on leadership roles to lead the
team collectively.
• Innovation teams, in the long-run, must
engage in paradoxical leadership—strive for
two things that are to some extent in
opposition—by integrating and simultaneously
engaging in vertical and shared leadership.
• Innovation teams, to achieve the highest levels
of performance, not only must engage in the
long-run integration vertical and shared lead-
ership, but also must place greater emphasis
on either vertical or shared leadership, in the
short-run, depending upon the unfolding
demands confronting the team in any given
moment.
Others have focused more broadly on innovation
within organizations. For example, utilizing two samples
(84 technical teams and 83 financial service teams),
empowering leadership was predictive of team innova-
tion (Tang et al., 2020). In two studies in China and one
in the West, vertical leader display of paradoxical leader-
ship was related to higher levels of team innovation,
through the mediating effects of team ambidexterity, and
vertical leader vision was found to moderate this effect
(Zhang et al., 2022).
Some research has focused on organization-level inno-
vation. For instance, in a study of 69 hi-tech ventures,
CEO visionary leadership was predictive of multiple
innovation measures (Caridi-Zahavi et al., 2016). Fur-
ther, in a study of 93 international strategic alliances,
contextual leadership (directing attention on pattern
recognition and encouraging networking behavior) pre-
dicted alliance innovation performance (Osborn &
Marion, 2009). Finally, in a study of 66 entrepreneurial
firms, CEO transformational leadership positively
predicted new venture growth rates (Ensley, Pearce, &
Hmieleski, 2006).
Much of this research (see Table 1), and concomitant
advice, is focused on what formal, vertical leaders should
do to enable innovation success. This advice centers upon
a couple of key issues: provide vision; exert control; coor-
dinate activities; encourage empowerment.
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PEARCE and VAN KNIPPENBERG 5

TABLE 1 Representative studies and findings on vertical leadership and innovation.

Authors Journal Key findings

Caridi-Zahavi, Carmeli, and
Arazy
Ensley, Pearce, and Hmieleski
Gumusluoglu and Ilsev
Kearney, Shemla, van
Knippenberg, and Scholz
Osborn and Marion
Sarin and O'Connor
Tang, Chen, van Knippenberg,
and Yu
Zhang, Zhang, and Law
Journal of Product Innovation
Management
Journal of Business Venturing
Journal of Product Innovation
Management
Organizational Behavior and Human
Decision Processes
Leadership Quarterly
Journal of Product Innovation
Management
Journal of Organizational Behavior
Academy of Management Journal
CEO visionary leadership is positively linked to multiple
measures of innovation success
CEO transformational leadership is related to new venture
growth rates
Transformational leadership is predictive of innovation
outcomes in software development efforts
Empowering and visionary leadership work together to
predict team effectiveness
Contextual leadership (directing attention on pattern
recognition and encouraging networking behavior) is
positively related to international strategic alliance
innovation performance
Team leader participative management and initiation of goal
structure positively influence functional conflict resolution,
collaboration and communication quality, while decreasing
dysfunctional conflict resolution
Empowering leadership is predictive of team innovation
Paradoxical leadership is positively related to innovation and
visionary leadership enhances the effect

3 | SHARED LEADERSHIP AND leadership were found to be more important as teams

INNOVATION
An alternative stream of research has explored informal,
shared leadership (e.g., Wassenaar & Pearce, 2018),
which entails dynamic shifts of leadership and follower-
ship among team members involved in innovation activi-
ties. Far less empirical research exists in this space than
in the vertical leadership space. Nonetheless, the empiri-
cal research that does exist is rather compelling. For
example, in a study of 71 product and process innovation
teams (PPITs), shared visionary leadership was predictive
of a number of innovation team outcomes, including
affective, cognitive, behavioral, and effectiveness out-
comes (Pearce & Ensley, 2004).
Relatedly, across 336 small and medium enterprises
(SMEs), shared leadership in top management teams
was associated with greater organizational innovation
capability, and in turn to better firm performance (Singh
et al., 2019). In a comparative case study of health care
innovation over a 3-year time period, shared leader-
ship was linked to diffusion of innovation (Currie &
Spyridonidis, 2019). In a similar vein, utilizing 44 semi-
structured interviews with team members and team
leaders, empowerment processes emanating from team
members were linked to team adaptability and continuous
team innovation (Grass et al., 2020), while in a study of
145 NPD teams, teamwork processes related to shared
become dispersed (Hoegl et al., 2007).
In a qualitative study of extremely high-performing
research scientist laboratories, flow, creativity, and
shared leadership were found to be inextricably linked
(Hooker & Csikszentmihalyi, 2003). This study suggests
that even when it comes to the most brilliant minds in
the research firmament, shared leadership is a critical
ingredient in the discovery of new knowledge. Finally,
controlling for the effects of vertical leadership, shared
leadership was found to be a strong predictor of entrepre-
neurial team success (Hoegl et al., 2007). This study sug-
gests that shared leadership is more important than
vertical leadership, when it comes to innovation. The
findings and advice from this stream of literature (see
Table 2 for a summary) advance the notion of having
teams lead themselves, through shared leadership, in the
innovation process.
4 | T H E C R U X O F TH E
CONUNDRUM
Both streams of literature we briefly reviewed above only
reveal part of the story but miss the mark on an alterna-
tive crucial aspect of innovation leadership, namely the
interface of vertical leadership and shared leadership in
innovation teams. As a result, they do not address the
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6 JOURNAL OF PRODUCT INNOVATION MANAGEMENT

TABLE 2 Representative studies and findings on shared leadership and innovation.

Authors Journal Key findings

Currie and Human Relations Shared leadership is instrumental to the diffusion of innovation in
Spyridonidis health care
Ensley, Hmielski, Leadership Quarterly Shared leadership, controlling for the effects of vertical leadership, is
and Pearce linked to entrepreneurial venture growth
Grass, Backmann, Journal of Product Innovation Empowerment dynamics that emanate from team members are critical
and Hoegl Management to creating the conditions for team adaptability and long-term team
innovation
Hoegl, Ernst, and Journal of Product Innovation Teamwork processes related to shared leadership become more
Proserpio Management important as team dispersion increases
Hooker and Shared Leadership: Reframing the Shared leadership is a core explanatory process in the success of
Csikszentmihalyi Hows and Whys of Leadership extremely high-performing research scientist laboratories
(book)
Pearce and Ensley Journal of Organizational Behavior Shared visionary leadership is linked to multiple cognitive, behavioral,
and performance outcomes in innovation teams
Singh, Del Giudice, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Shared leadership in top management teams affects firm performance
Tarba, and De Management through the mediating effects of innovation capability
Bernardi

innovation team leadership conundrum—that vertical
and shared leadership are often viewed, by researchers
(and concomitantly in the advice they provide practi-
tioners), as diametrical opposites such that the display of
one negates the possibility of the other. If vertical leaders
dominate the team, so the logic goes, there is no room for
the team to lead itself via shared leadership. The converse
logic is that the only way to have fully engaged shared
leadership is for the vertical leader to hand over control
of the team to the team members. Such surface-level logic
obviates the possibility of combining vertical and shared
leadership.
For innovation teams, however, it is not a binary
choice between strong vertical leadership or robust shared
leadership. As such, research that only focuses on either
vertical or shared leadership is invariably missing half the
picture. Now, it is time for the next steps in innovation
team leadership research and bridge these two streams of
research. Accordingly, perhaps the conundrum of innova-
tion team leadership can be best addressed through the
engagement of a paradoxical approach to leadership:
simultaneously engaging both vertical and shared leadership
even when they seem in opposition.
5 | PARADOXICAL LEADERSHIP
AND I NNOVATION TEAMS
Emerging research in paradoxical leadership (e.g., Kearney
et al., 2019; Owens et al., 2015; Pearce et al., 2019; Zhang
et al., 2015) sheds light on the leadership equation in
the innovation team space. The essence of paradoxical lead-
ership is a “both/and” approach: faced with opposing
demands, focusing on achieving both simultaneously rather
than prioritizing one over the other (i.e., an “either/or”
approach). While the paradoxical nature of opposing
demands means that their simultaneous pursuit will always
be under tension and cannot be achieved perfectly, there is
growing evidence that the pursuit of paradoxical demands
leads to better outcomes than prioritizing the one over the
other (Schad et al., 2016).
While there may be a paradoxical tension between
vertical and shared leadership (Pearce et al., 2019), the
extant evidence suggests that taking a paradoxical lead-
ership approach of pursuing both simultaneously may
be the better way of leading team innovation. Findings
regarding vertical and shared leadership clearly identify
both as important predictors of team innovation. There-
fore, the answer to the innovation team leadership
conundrum may be paradoxical: simultaneously engag-
ing both vertical and shared leadership. The research
we advocate in this regard does not involve examining
vertical and shared leadership independently (such
research already exists), but studying how they can
effectively work in conjunction—how innovation team
leadership can simultaneously leverage vertical and
shared leadership. This is a new direction for innova-
tion team leadership research and one with particular
promise.
However, no matter the importance of taking a
both/and approach, there are always likely to be short-
term tradeoffs between vertical and shared leadership

PEARCE and VAN KNIPPENBERG
when it comes to real-world innovation efforts. Vertical
leadership, on occasion, will trump shared leadership
and the reverse will hold on other occasions. For
instance, early in the life of an innovation team it seems
that the influence of the team leader is more important
in establishing the team than is the opportunity for all
team members to exert influence via shared leadership.
The conclusion as we see it is that to understand how
pursuing both vertical and shared leadership in innova-
tion team leadership can be effective, a first step we need
is a tandem moderation approach to determine when an
emphasis on vertical leadership or on shared leadership
is more effective.
6 | TANDEM MOD E R AT I ON
OF VERTICAL A ND SHARED
LEADERS HIP AND
INNOVATION TEAMS
A first—but not sufficient—step forward is for research
to explore the moderators of both vertical and shared
leadership, in tandem, in innovation teams. While this
certainly adds complexity to research designs, it more
closely reflects the reality of innovation in organiza-
tions. In other words, there will be conditions that
favor vertical leadership, while other conditions favor
shared leadership in the realization of innovation team
outcomes. For example, certain cultures might moder-
ate the relative importance of vertical versus shared
leadership (Pearce & Wassenaar, 2014). Collectivistic
cultures might enjoy greater efficacy of shared leader-
ship relative to vertical leadership, whereas high power
distance cultures might benefit more prodigiously from
greater emphasis on vertical leadership relative to
shared leadership. There are a host of other potential
moderators that play into this dynamic (e.g., diversity
of team members; creativity requirements; knowledge,
skills and ability levels of team members; organiza-
tional factors; time pressure). The point here is that
tandem moderation effects, capturing when an empha-
sis on either vertical or shared leadership benefits team
innovation more, needs much more attention in future
research.
However, the addition of tandem moderation effects
to vertical versus shared leadership in innovation team
efforts does not go far enough. If we would stop here, this
would only be an incremental improvement over the cur-
rent state of affairs in research. After all, current research
does not rule out the notion that simultaneously enacting
both vertical and shared leadership might prove even
more efficacious than either source of leadership inde-
pendently. As such, we advocate the combination of
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7
tandem moderation and paradoxical approaches to more
significantly advance our understanding of the innova-
tion team leadership conundrum.
7 | MODERATED PARADOXICAL
LEADERSHIP IN
INNOVATION TEAMS
We contend that integrating the tandem moderation and
paradoxical approaches is key to addressing the innovation
team leadership conundrum, what we call the moderated
paradoxical leadership perspective. This fundamentally
involves the simultaneous long-term engagement in both
vertical and shared leadership, with greater emphasis on
one source or the other, depending on the short-term
demands of the situation, as the team goes through the
innovation process.
This moderated paradoxical leadership approach offers
much promise for the study of innovation team leadership.
Figure 1 provides a simplified view of moderated paradoxi-
cal leadership and its relationship to team innovation out-
comes. Research questions that need to drive future
research on the leadership of innovation teams need to
focus upon how vertical and shared leadership might com-
plement one another; how they might influence each
other; how they might augment one another; and how
they are related to innovation team outcomes.
These are important issues to unpack and doing so
inherently requires longitudinal research—research
assessing the same variables repeatedly over time to cap-
ture mutual and changing influences. Such research
can, for instance, address questions like what the rela-
tive importance is of vertical versus shared leadership at
different stages of the innovation team life cycle. Draw-
ing on research by Lorinkova et al. (2013), we might
speculate that vertical leadership is more important
than shared leadership in early team life, but that
shared leadership becomes far more important as the
team matures. Such research may also capture how ver-
tical leadership plays a role in developing shared leader-
ship, and how shared leadership in return changes
vertical leadership as team needs for vertical leadership
change over time.
The upshot is that future research needs to be truly
longitudinal to capture such dynamic issues. While
much research utilizes data collected at multiple points
in time, this is mostly done to address common method
variance concerns. Truly longitudinal data is needed to
illuminate the paradoxical integration of vertical and
shared leadership and to test their short-term tandem
moderation effects, in the team innovation leadership
equation.
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8 JOURNAL OF PRODUCT INNOVATION MANAGEMENT

Paradoxical Leadership Innovation Team Outcomes

Vertical Shared Idea Idea

Leadership Leadership Implementation
Development

Tandem Moderation
Short-term
Simultaneous Emphasis on both Vertical Teams can be focused upon Idea Development
and Shared Leadership and/or Idea Implementation

Tandem Moderation of
Vertical and Shared Leadership
Short-term Relative Emphasis on either Vertical or Shared Leadership
Task Related Team Related Context Related
Moderators: Moderators: Moderators:

• Time pressure • Knowledge, skills and • Cultural factors

• Degree of creativity abilities • Organizational
required • Team life cycle factors
• Other • Team diversity • Other
• Other

F I G U R E 1 Moderated paradoxical leadership—long-term engagement in paradoxical leadership (simultaneous engagement in both

vertical and shared leadership) with short-term relative emphasis on either vertical or shared leadership, to enable innovation team outcomes.

Moderated
Organizational Reality

Paradoxical
Paradoxical
Leadership
Leadership
(Vertical and
Tandem (Vertical and
Shared)
Moderated Shared)
Leadership
Moderated (Vertical and
Leadership Shared)
(Vertical or
Shared)
Shared
Leadership
Vertical
Leadership
Priority for Future Research

FIGURE 2 Matching organizational realities of team-based innovation to research design and priorities for future research.

8 | SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE leadership. Here, we prioritize these issues according to

RESEARCH the potential insight such research designs are likely
to yield, when it comes to team-based innovation. Natu-
Our discussion, thus far, has identified many potentially rally, research that just focuses on either vertical or
fruitful paths for future research into innovation team shared leadership in the explanation of team innovation

PEARCE and VAN KNIPPENBERG
outcomes is still likely to provide insight into innovation
teams. This is especially true for studies of shared lead-
ership and for studies that look at moderation effects of
either vertical or shared leadership, as there is relatively
less research in these areas. We would characterize such
research as important, but as relatively lower-yield
when compared with more complex research designs.
More complex designs, which match more closely to
organizational realities of team-based innovation are
likely to yield greater insight. Figure 2 graphically
depicts the relationship between the organizational real-
ities of team-based innovation and the priorities for
future research.
Accordingly, we advocate, as the next step for future
research, studies that capture tandem moderation effects
for vertical and shared leadership, in the explanation of
team innovation outcomes. While previous studies have
examined moderation effects for vertical leadership
(e.g., Zhang et al., 2022) or for shared leadership
(e.g., Hoch et al., 2010), much of this research exists out-
side the domain of innovation. Thus, the next big step is
to examine tandem moderation of vertical and shared
leadership—moderation effects that identify when
greater emphasis on either vertical leadership or shared
leadership is linked to innovation outcomes. We articu-
lated three broad categories of potential tandem moder-
ators of vertical and shared leadership: task-related
moderators; team-related moderators; and context-
related moderators. Under the category of task-related
moderators, for instance, we might speculate that the
need for creativity would tip the scale toward greater
benefit from enhanced focus on shared leadership rela-
tive to vertical leadership. Conversely, under the cate-
gory of team-related moderators, we might speculate
that when the vertical leader has far greater knowledge,
skills, and abilities than the team members that greater
benefit might be realized from enhanced focus on verti-
cal leadership relative to shared leadership. Nonethe-
less, future research is needed to examine these, and
other, potential tandem moderators of vertical and
shared leadership. This is an area ripe for future studies
into the innovation team leadership equation.
Another promising avenue for future research regard-
ing the leadership of innovation teams is studying the
combined effects of vertical and shared leadership, that
is, paradoxical leadership, on innovation outcomes. We
view this as a step beyond the study of tandem modera-
tion effects. Importantly, by paradoxical leadership, we
do not mean simply studying the independent effects of
vertical and shared leadership in the same study, as this
has been done before (e.g., Ensley, Hmieleski, &
Pearce, 2006; Pearce & Sims, 2002). By examining the
dynamic interplay of vertical and shared leadership we
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9
will gain deeper insight into the development of true team
leadership (Pearce et al., 2023), which is essential to the
realization of innovation efforts. This, of course, will ulti-
mately require longitudinal research, not just multi-wave
research that is used to address common method variance.
In other words, to capture the dynamic influence of verti-
cal leadership on shared leadership and vice versa, we
need elongated temporal designs that enable the assess-
ment of both sources of leadership across multiple time
periods to ascertain the unfolding relationships between
them and their subsequent effects on innovation out-
comes, at various stages of the innovation process. These
types of studies would yield significant insight into innova-
tion team leadership.
While studies of the tandem moderation of vertical
and shared leadership, and studies of the paradoxical
integration of vertical and shared leadership would cer-
tainly move the needle on the understanding of innova-
tion team leadership, the next giant leap for innovation
team leadership research is the study of moderated para-
doxical leadership, which combines the notions of the
paradoxical integration of vertical and shared leadership
with the tandem moderation of vertical and shared lead-
ership. We believe the greatest advances in the under-
standing of innovation leadership will be realized by
investigating the confluence of both/and leadership
effects concomitantly with either/or leadership effects
(Pearce et al., 2019). This is an ambitious undertaking
but it has the foremost potential for insight into innova-
tion team leadership.
While all of the paths for future research we identi-
fied would benefit from longitudinal designs, longitudi-
nal data is essential for understanding the complex
interplay of vertical and shared leadership. Nonetheless,
beyond such quantitative methods, we also advocate for
additional, diverse methodological modalities in the
exploration of innovation team leadership. For instance,
focused ethnographic investigations of moderated para-
doxical leadership in the innovation ken seem to be an
especially important tool to employ. We suspect that such
qualitative studies will yield nuanced insights that can
subsequently inform follow-on quantitative studies into
the complex realities of innovation team leadership. In
the end, however, we simply encourage future research
that more closely matches the organizational realties,
as specified in Figure 2, of team-based innovation.
9 | I M P L I C A TI O N S FO R
PRA CTIC E
What does all of this mean for practice? First, formal, ver-
tical leadership, is essential for innovation team success.

10
Beyond the standard advice for providing vision, as well
as controlling and coordinating team activity, vertical
leaders need to give special attention to empowering
leadership, as it is key to unleashing shared leadership.
Second, innovation team leadership is, itself, a team
activity, as illustrated in our two opening examples
involving McDonalds and W. L. Gore. In other words, it
is much more than just top-down, vertical leadership:
It requires the long-term integration and simultaneous
deployment of both vertical and shared leadership. Team
leaders must rely upon team members, in a dynamic
social process, for the leadership of innovation teams.
This paradoxical process is at the core of innovation team
leadership.
Moreover, innovation team leadership must respond
to evolving conditions. For instance, leadership impera-
tives early in team life likely become secondary, or even
potentially harmful, as the team develops. As such, inno-
vation team leadership requires dynamic responses to
changing conditions, with greater or lesser short-term
emphasis on vertical versus shared leadership, depending
on such conditions.
In sum, we advocate the paradoxical, simultaneous
engagement in both vertical and shared leadership as the
“go-to” approach for innovation team leadership. With
that said, there are a host of contextual, team and task
considerations that temper this approach toward a rela-
tive emphasis on either vertical or shared leadership in
the short-run. The key for such dynamic responses to
leadership is keen awareness, combined with healthy
egos: It is certainly good to grab the brass ring of leader-
ship, but it is equally important to share it.
1 0 | SUMMING I T UP
We have made tremendous strides on both the research
front and in terms of the practice of team innovation. We
have learned that both vertical leadership from above, as
well as shared leadership from within teams, facilitate
innovation team effectiveness. Now it is time for the
next important stage in innovation team leadership
research—to investigate moderated paradoxical leader-
ship. No matter what, we need to move well beyond our
preoccupation with incremental, more-of-the-same,
research, and innovate the way we research the team
innovation process. Is moderated paradoxical leadership
the answer? Perhaps, but this is a question for future
research.
FUNDING INFORMATION
The authors declare that no specific funding was received
in support the research.
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JOURNAL OF PRODUCT INNOVATION MANAGEMENT
C O N F L I C T O F I N T E R E S T S T A TE M E N T
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
ET HI CS S TA TE MEN T
The authors have read and agreed to the Committee on
Publication Ethics (COPE) international standards for
authors.
ORCID
Craig L. Pearce https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8887-8886
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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIES
Craig L. Pearce, is the Brova Family Professor of
Leadership at the School of Labor and Employment
Relations at Pennsylvania State University. He
received his PhD from the University of Maryland—
College Park. His areas of expertise include leader-
ship, teams, and innovation. He is especially known
for shared leadership theory.
Daan van Knippenberg, is Houston Endowment
Professor of Management at the Jones Graduate
School of Business, Rice University. He received his
PhD from Leiden University. His areas of expertise
include leadership, diversity and inclusion, team per-
formance, and creativity and innovation.
How to cite this article: Pearce, Craig L., and
Daan van Knippenberg. 2024. “Moderated
Paradoxical Leadership: Resolving the Innovation
Team Leadership Conundrum.” Journal of Product
Innovation Management 41(1): 3–11. https://doi.
org/10.1111/jpim.12713