Switching gears: How teams co-construct adaptive leadership style transitions in dynamic contexts

Abstract

Despite agreement among leadership scholars that the effectiveness of a leadership style is situationally dependent, little is known about the process of effectively switching among different leadership styles as situations unexpectedly change. Organizations rely heavily on teams to quickly and accurately adapt in dynamic contexts, and we focus here on clarifying the process of adaptive leadership style transitions in teams as they cope with situations unexpectedly shifting from requiring process efficiency to requiring collective sensemaking. We review and build on pertinent literature to develop a process model depicting switching among leadership styles not as an isolated act of a team leader, but as interdependent behaviors of a leader and team members in co-constructing the adaptive switching process. We offer testable propositions derived from the model that delineate variables influencing the adaptive leadership process and team adaptive performance. Finally, we discuss future research and practical implications based on the model's exploration.