Emergent Leadership in Self-Managing Groups: Contributing Factors and Its Consequences

Abstract

This study examined the concept of emergent leadership in self-managing groups through behaviors and perceptions of leadership. Communicative behaviors and perceptions of leadership in groups were conceptualized as unique forms of leadership in self-managing groups. The concept of emergent leadership was examined, adopting both self-reports and observational ratings in order to gain convergent validity through comprehensive measures. By adopting a statistical method called latent profile analysis (LPA), experimental self-managing groups were classified into distinguishable clusters. Then, group and individual level of antecedents and consequences of emergent leadership were examined in order to test the effectiveness of emergent leadership in self-managing groups. First, conceptualization of emergent leadership was crucial because there were no comprehensive concepts appropriate to the context of self-managing groups. Understanding the spontaneous meetings self-managing groups hold, the current study adopted multiple approaches to examine emergent leadership behaviors and perception of leadership. Leadership behaviors that were observable regardless of designated leaders or members of the group were adopted. Interaction in small groups that occurred while solving certain tasks was assumed to be either task or relational communicative behavior. In addition, perceptions about how collectively leadership emerged in the group were conceptualized. Second, in order to examine the emergence of leadership in these small spontaneous groups, an experiment was conducted by randomly assigning 116 participants to 31 groups. Interactions of group members were analyzed based on behaviors and perception of leadership using survey and video recordings. Two out-group observers rated behaviors of individuals based on recordings. On the other hand, perceptual aspects of emergent leadership were measured and rated by participants based on their experiences of group interactions. Third, classifying leadership behavior and perception resulted in three distinct clusters of self-managing groups according to a statistical method of LPA. The clusters were named Cluster 1: Medium Level of Leadership, Cluster 2: High Level of Leadership, and Cluster 3: Low Level of Leadership. Three clusters of self-managing groups show how leadership can vary according to group context. Clusters were distinguishable mainly based on the degree and amount of leadership behavior and perception. Specifically, Cluster 2 had the highest amount of leadership behavior as well as the most positive perceptions of how well leadership was shared among members, whereas Cluster 3 had the lowest amount of leadership behavior as well as the least positive perceptions of collective leadership. Cluster 1 marked a medium level on most measures. Fourth, in order to understand leadership of self-managing groups based on distinctive profiles of each cluster, various antecedents and consequences related to leadership were adopted for examination. Antecedents of emergent leadership included communicative competence, while consequences of emergent leadership were used to show how successful collaborative groups function in terms of performance, cohesion and belongingness, and communication satisfaction. As a result, the current study found that communicatively competent people do not always make the most brilliant teams

rather, the behaviors and perceptions that are made within groups make qualitative group outcomes more outstanding. It has been proven that better teams are made with effort and behaviors that are elicited during interaction among team members, being less dependent on individual competencies. Therefore, implications are discussed in terms of the importance of leadership behaviors and perceptions of self-managing groups in organizations. Finally, the present study suggests that individuals are strongly affected by group contexts of being self-managed. When individuals were situated in leaderless groups where fewer leadership behaviors are performed and roles do not seem to be shared collectively, they are likely to be discouraged to perform more leadership behaviors than other clusters of groups that have a high degree of leadership behaviors. Therefore, the well-known notion that communication competence contributes to group performance can be interpreted quite differently. In terms of group consequences, three distinctive clusters showed differences in group cohesion, showing that relational leadership behaviors positively affected social cohesion in groups. In addition, significant differences in group performance were not shown among groups

however, individual feelings of belongingness and communication satisfaction were affected by their perception of leadership in the group. Results suggest that in self-managing groups, leadership behaviors are affected by group characteristics of leadership, whereas group cohesion is affected by those leadership behaviors that occur in groups. Overall, group characteristics influence individuals significantly when they are in leaderless self-managing groups.