Enhancing the Effectiveness of Team Science (2015) / Chapter Skim
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6 Team Science Leadership
6 Team Science Leadership
Pages 125-148
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From page 125... ...
We then discuss professional leadership development for team science leaders. We then use the research evidence as a guide to consider how leadership strategies can address the challenges for team science created by the seven features outlined in Chapter 1 and conclude with a conclusion and a recommendation for the future leadership of science teams and groups.
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From page 126... ...
This chapter will show that researchers have focused on many aspects of leadership, including specific leader behaviors, their interactions with followers, and contingent factors that guide how effective a leader is in a given situation. This general leadership theory and research can inform the emerging field of team leadership, yet it must be noted that leadership quality is very difficult to measure or evaluate; in the research to date, the most common criterion for leadership effectiveness is the subordinates' perception of the effectiveness of their leader, rather than direct measures of team performance.
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. Team outcomes have been found to be significantly correlated with both features, suggesting that this classic approach is potentially viable for team leadership as well (Judge, Piccolo, and Ilies, 2004)
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. Of direct relevance to science teams, recent research has demonstrated the multilevel and cross-level influences of transformational leadership on the effectiveness of innovation teams (Chen et al., 2013)
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It is also important to understand how shifts in leadership hierarchies occur in science teams and groups and how best to manage these shifts, depending on the stage of the research project or the expertise needed at different times. Research findings on team leadership The general leadership theories delineated in the previous section have useful, but only indirect, implications for team effectiveness (Kozlowski and Ilgen, 2006)
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From page 130... ...
found that when leaders provided pre-briefs describing appropriate strategies for carrying out team tasks, there were positive effects on team mental models, as well as team processes and performance. Other research has linked leader pre-briefs/ TABLE 6-1 Team Processes That Are Influenced by Leader Behaviors Process Leadership Behaviors That Influence the Process Team Mental Models • Providing pre-briefs describing appropriate strategies for carrying out team tasks and other planning strategies • Conducting debriefs and providing feedback Team Climate • Defining the mission, goals, and instrumentalities for teams • Considering effects on team climate of emphasis in communications to team members Psychological Safety • Coaching • Reducing power differentials • Encouraging inclusion Team Cohesion • Explicitly defining social structure • Promoting open communications • Modeling self-disclosure Team Efficacy • Creating mastery experiences that enable team members to build individual self-efficacy, then shifting the focus of team members toward the team • Providing task direction and socioemotional support Team Conflict • Anticipating conflict in advance and guiding team members through the process of resolving conflict by establishing cooperative norms, charters, or other structures (preemptive approach)
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From page 131... ...
. As discussed in Chapter 3, team conflict, particularly within diverse teams such as interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary science teams, may be inevitable.
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From page 132... ...
Given the dynamic nature of scientific research, leaders of science teams and groups may be more successful if they adopt a dynamic or functional leadership approach, are psychologically agile, and can use appropriate and varied modes of communication to engage with people from multiple generations, backgrounds, and disciplines. Researchers at the Center for Creative Leadership proposed an approach that might hold promise for effectively incorporating both hierarchical and shared forms of leadership as is necessary in interdependent science teams (Drath et al., 2008)
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Dynamic models of team leadership have two primary foci centered on task cycles or episodes, and the process of team skill acquisition and development. By harnessing cyclic variations in team task cycles to the regulatory processes of goal setting, monitoring/intervention, diagnosis, and feedback, the leader is able to guide team members in the development of targeted knowledge and skills -- the cognitive, motivational/affective, and behavioral capabilities that contribute to team effectiveness.
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. Dynamic models of team leadership can be conceptualized in contingency or contextual leadership terms, given that different actions or leadership functions are required in different phases of team performance.
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. Leadership and Team Faultlines One area of research that is highly relevant to team leadership for effective team functioning is the topic of faultlines.
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Research FINDINGS on team science LEADERSHIP In this section, we focus on the existing literature on science teams and larger groups and discuss the leadership challenges. Models of Team Science Leadership Because science teams and larger groups share many features with teams and groups in other contexts, their leaders can enhance effectiveness partly by facilitating the team processes shown to enhance effectiveness in other contexts, as shown in Table 6-1 above.
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From page 137... ...
This is consistent with the dynamic leadership processes described in the previous section. Similar to studies in other contexts showing a relationship between leader behaviors, team processes, and team effectiveness, a study of academic science teams in Europe found significant positive relationships between supervisory behavior, group climate (a team process)
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. Emerging Team Science Models and Leadership Implications The two models of team science described in Chapter 3 incorporate many of the leadership concepts discussed in this chapter, highlighting the potential value of professional development for team science leaders.
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Gray (2008) suggested that relevant scientific expertise is critical to the leadership behaviors of managing meaning and visioning in transdisciplinary science teams or larger groups.
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Of direct relevance to the seven key features that generate challenges for team science, some factors thought to be important in motivating different forms of multiteam leadership include the overall size of the multiteam system, the amount and kind of diversity, geographic dispersion, the level of interdependence among component teams, and power distribution among teams. More mature multiteam systems are reported to display greater levels of shared leadership than less mature multiteam systems, which makes sense given that shared leadership takes time to develop (DeRue, 2011)
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Here we discuss approaches to developing the skills and knowledge required for effective leadership of science teams and larger groups. Research conducted in contexts outside science has found that formal leadership development interventions can help leaders develop the capacity to foster positive team and organizational processes, thereby increasing team or organizational effectiveness (e.g., Avolio et al., 2009; Collins and Holton, 2004)
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For example, team cohesion and strong feelings of unique team identity may enhance team-level performance but compromise information-sharing across teams. The CMS experiment (Incandela, 2013)
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Countervailing forces sometimes emerge from strong identification with a subteam or subgroup, usually because an overly ambitious subteam leader has difficulty with collabora tive science. To address this, top leaders rotate subteam leaders every 2 years, often appoint two co-leaders, and, if there is potential danger to the entire experi ment (the system level)
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. Formal leadership training interventions may work to improve leadership styles and behaviors partly by fostering participants' sense of identity as a leader, and thus supporting experiential and self-directed learning.
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developed the LITeS Program in 2008 to strengthen participants' leadership, to foster team science through the establishment of a network of researchers who can support one another, and to increase opportunities for researchers to collaborate across disciplines. The program is provided annually to a cohort of both senior and developing leaders working in clinical and translational research at the University of Colorado, and is structured as a full-year experience that includes participation in small-group projects and four workshops covering a variety of topics relevant to science team leadership, as well as individual feedback and coaching (Colorado Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute, 2014)
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At the same time, an extensive body of research on organizational and team leadership in contexts outside of science has illuminated leadership styles and behaviors that foster positive interpersonal processes, thereby enhancing organizational and team performance. Extending and translating this research could inform the creation of research-based leadership development programs for leaders of science teams and groups.
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• Leadership training, developing integrative capacity (Salazar et al., 2012) : o Empowering leadership styles (Kumpfer et al., 1993)
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