Future Focus Required
One of the criticisms of research on shared leadership
involves the lack of agreement on its defi-
nition (Carson et al. 2007). For example, should
there be a generic definition of shared leadership
that is qualified by such terms as transactional
or transformational shared leadership?
Other potential areas that have yet to be
explored involve certain boundary conditions,
mediators, and moderators that have been recommended
as a focus for future research. For
example, Pearce & Conger (2003) noted that
future research was needed to examine potential
moderators such as the distribution of cultural values, task interdependence, task competence,
task complexity, and the team life cycle.
Carson et al. (2007) proposed that greater attention
be paid to levels of task competence in
the team, complexity of tasks, and task interdependence
in terms of examining how teams
function when using shared leadership. These
authors have also recommended that future research
focus on the team’s life cycle.
Another area that has not received much research
attention involves the environment in
which teams function. For example, Carson
et al. (2007) proposed that future research examine
the type of team environment that enables
shared leadership, suggesting that the environment
consists of three “highly interrelated
and mutually reinforcing” dimensions: shared
purpose, social support, and voice. These authors
described several organizational climate
factors that could potentially support more
shared leadership in teams, including (a) shared
purpose, which “exists when team members
have similar understandings of their team’s primary
objectives and take steps to ensure a focus
on collective goals”; (b) social support, described
as “team members’ efforts to provide
emotional and psychological strength to one
another. This helps to create an environment
where team members feel their input is valued
and appreciated”; and (c) voice, which is “the degree
to which a team’s members have input into
how the team carries out its purpose” (p. 1222).
Future research also needs to examine how
external team leaders affect the team’s ability
and motivation to be self-directed and share
in leadership (Carson et al. 2007). Hackman &
Wageman (2005) suggest that an external leader
to the team can “help team members make coordinated
and task-appropriate use of their collective
resources in accomplishing the team’s task”
(p. 269).
In a nutshell, the time for examining shared
leadership may be upon us to the extent that organizations
are moving into a knowledge driven
era where firms are distributed across cultures.
This suggests that individual-based “heroic”
models of leadership may not be sustainable in
and of themselves (Pearce 2004).