The Interactive Effects of Motives and Task Coordination on Leadership Emergence

摘要

Within self-managing teams, do prosocial or impression management motives matter for leadership emergence? Although previous research has acknowledged the importance of prosocial and impression management motives across various interpersonal contexts, such motives have received little attention within the context of self-managing teams and could provide insights into the drivers of leadership emergence. The current research examines individual prosocial and impression management motives as predictors of leadership emergence, considering individual task coordination behavior-a group-serving behavior critical for leadership emergence—as a key moderator of the relationships between motives and leadership emergence. Drawing on insights from social psychology, we hypothesized that prosocial motivation would be positively related to leadership emergence regardless of the amount of task coordination behavior performed, whereas impression management motives would only predict leadership emergence when coupled with high levels of individual task coordination behavior. Hypotheses were tested and supported using a sample of 49 leaderless teams within an assessment center context. Our results help to clarify if and when prosocial and impression management motives matter for leadership emergence.