Moderated paradoxical leadership: Resolving the innovation team leadership conundrum

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, benefits 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 deployment of both vertical and shared leadership, along with the short-run tandem moderation of vertical versus shared leadership, depending on the issues confronting the team, as the innovation process unfolds. We synthesize the literature surrounding this issue and articulate a model of moderated paradoxical leadership to guide future research into this space.