Cognition-Based and Affect-Based Trust as Mediators of Leader Behavior Influences on Team Performance

Transcription

1 Journal of Applied Psychology 2011 American Psychological Association 2011, Vol. 96, No. 4, /11/$12.00 DOI: /a RESEARCH REPORT Cognition-Based and Affect-Based Trust as Mediators of Leader Behavior Influences on Performance John Schaubroeck Michigan State University Simon S. K. Lam University of Hong Kong Ann Chunyan Peng Michigan State University We develop a model in which cognitive and affective trust in the leader mediate the relationship between leader behavior and team psychological states that, in turn, drive team performance. The model is tested on a sample of 191 financial services teams in Hong Kong and the U.S. Servant leadership influenced team performance through affect-based trust and team psychological safety. Transformational leadership influenced team performance indirectly through cognition-based trust. Cognition-based trust directly influenced team potency and indirectly (through affect-based trust) influenced team psychological safety. The effects of leader behavior on team performance were fully mediated through the trust in leader variables and the team psychological states. Servant leadership explained an additional 10% of the variance in team performance beyond the effect of transformational leadership. We discuss implications of these results for research on the relationship between leader behavior and team performance, and for efforts to enhance leader development by combining knowledge from different leadership theories. Keywords: servant leadership, transformational leadership, team performance, team processes, trust This article was published Online First February 7, John Schaubroeck, Department of Psychology and Department of Management, Michigan State University; Simon S. K. Lam, School of Business, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region of the People s Republic of China; Ann Chunyan Peng, Department of Management, Michigan State University. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to John Schaubroeck, Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI schaubro@msu.edu Considerable knowledge has accumulated concerning the correlates of trust in leadership. Nevertheless, as noted by Burke, Sims, Lazzarra, and Salas (2007), research that has addressed the factors that foster trust in leaders and the outcomes of this trust have been disjointed (p. 607). Burke et al. pointed to the need for empirical research that integrates knowledge from these two areas and that moves away from the dyadic emphasis of previous trust research and toward understanding relationships between leader behavior, trust in the leader, and performance in team contexts. More broadly, Morgeson, DeRue, and Karam (2010) noted that There is little research, however, that directly assesses the meditational mechanisms through which team leadership affects team outcomes (p. 29). In view of relatively recent findings suggesting that different dimensions of trust in the leader, including affectbased and cognition-based trust, are differentially associated with outcomes (see Yang & Mossholder, 2010), a model of team leadership that incorporates trust should seek to match the different postulated psychological processes with the appropriate trust dimensions. We heeded recent calls and developed and tested a model in which different facets of trust in the leader mediate the influence of established leader behavior constructs on team psychological states that, in turn, promote team performance. In examining leader behaviors that influence team performance, scholars have used either a functional approach that seeks to define specific leader behaviors that should promote desirable team behaviors (e.g., Hackman, 2002) or they have focused upon dimensions of leader behavior that are examined in the broader leadership literature (e.g., Pillai, Schriesheim, & Williams, 1999). We argue that trust in the leader is critical to linking leader behaviors and team performance, and that transformational leadership and servant leadership represent general tendencies of leaders to engage in behaviors that inspire their followers trust. We argue that these leader behavior constructs complement one another in ways that influence team performance, and their respective influences are mediated by different dimensions of trust in the leader. This study makes three contributions to the literature on teams and leadership. First, our model develops the cognitive and affective dimensions of trust as factors that separately influence team psychological states and team performance. We further integrate leader behavior constructs as antecedents of these dimensions of trust in the leader, suggesting that distinguishing dimensions of trust enables a richer understanding of the linkages between leader behavior constructs and team outcomes. Secondly, we add to the emerging literature on team leadership evidence that constructs from different theories of leadership, specifically servant leadership and transformational leadership, can be incorporated in the 863

2 864 SCHAUBROECK, LAM, AND PENG same model to more fully understand how leadership influences team outcomes. Finally, servant leadership has been the focus of research in recent years (e.g., Neubert, Kacmar, Carlson, Chonko, & Roberts, 2008; Walumbwa, Hartnell, & Oke, 2010). Because it is conceptualized to be oriented both to groups and to individuals, servant leadership is seen to be especially relevant to team contexts (Greenleaf, 1977; Smith, Montagno, & Kuzmenko, 2004). Thus, our third contribution is to provide a first test of the influence of servant leadership on team performance. Cognition-Based and Affect-Based Trust in the Leader Few published studies have examined the effect of trust in the leader on team performance, but the published studies suggest there is a reliable positive relationship between these constructs (see the review by Burke et al., 2007). McAllister (1995) developed a conceptual framework that distinguishes two types of trust: affect-based trust and cognition-based trust. Affect-based trust refers to the emotional bonds between individuals that are grounded upon expressions of genuine care and concern for the welfare of the other party (McAllister, 1995, p. 26). It emphasizes empathy, affiliation, and rapport on the basis of shared regard for the other person. Cognition-based trust refers to trust that is based on performance-relevant cognitions such as competence, responsibility, reliability, and dependability. McAllister argued that when a baseline level of cognition-based trust is met, people more readily form the kinds of emotional attachments with a coworker that affect-based trust represents. He therefore suggested that cognition-based trust positively influences affect-based trust. On the basis of a meta-analysis of studies of postulated antecedents and consequences, Dirks and Ferrin (2002) concluded that measures of trust in the leader that combine cognitive and affective components are differentially associated with outcomes when compared with strictly cognitive measures (see also Yang & Mossholder, 2010). They urged researchers examining trust in the leader as a mediating variable to include multiple dimensions (affective and cognitive) within a single study and attempt to distinguish between the processes involved (Dirks & Ferrin, 2002, p. 623). It is important to distinguish between affective and cognitive dimensions of trust when examining factors that potentially mediate relationships between leader behaviors and team outcomes because, as explained below, these trust dimensions are associated with different psychological processes. Cognition-Based Trust and Potency Members beliefs about the leader s competence are seen as the primary element of cognition-based trust in the leader. Such beliefs in competent leadership are also seen as a key antecedent of group and team potency (Guzzo, Yost, Campbell, & Shea, 1993). potency is defined as members generalized beliefs about the capabilities of the team across tasks and contexts (Gully, Incalcaterra, Joshi, & Beaubien, 2002, p. 820). When team members perceive that they are pursuing meaningful, shared objectives through clear processes that have been outlined by the leader, they are more likely to develop high cognition-based trust in the leader, and this should enhance team potency. potency, in turn, is a plausible mediating path through which cognition-based trust in the leader influences team performance. A meta-analysis conducted by Gully et al. (2002) supported a reliable connection between group potency and group performance in 29 studies. As summarized by Hackman and Wageman (2005), the key group processes that appear to contribute to team task performance include the level of effort mobilized by team members, the performance strategies employed by the team, and the knowledge and skill that members employ on the task. High team potency means that members see their capabilities and strategies as being very strong, and this enhances members motivation because it creates a high expectancy that exerting extra effort will result in higher performance. Hypothesis 1: Cognition-based trust is positively related to team performance through the mediating influence of team potency. Affect-Based Trust and Psychological Safety psychological safety is defined as a shared belief that the team is a safe environment for interpersonal risk taking (Edmondson, 1999). Edmondson (2004) noted that it is especially relevant at the group level of analysis (p. 240). Psychologically safe teams are characterized by interpersonal trust, respect for the competence of all team members, and care and concern about members as people. Psychological safety has been found to promote team learning behavior and team performance in qualitative studies of highly interdependent teams (see the review by Edmondson, 2004), and to improve organizational goal achievement and return on assets (Baer & Frese, 2003). High team psychological safety can improve team members engagement at work because it means that members believe they can participate openly and actively without fear of suffering adverse personal consequences, such as being derogated for their ideas and observations or for the manner by which they express them. Psychological safety enhances members willingness to share their knowledge and skills, and as a result, they are not only better able to identify and utilize more effective performance strategies but members also tend to become more psychologically engaged in team tasks than are members of teams with lower psychological safety (Edmondson, 1999). Thus, the team s level of psychological safety may contribute to team performance over and above the effects of team potency. potency reflects members common expectations concerning team adaptation and performance. However, highly confident teams do not all have psychologically safe climates. A high potency team may potentially have a climate that resists inputs that are perceived to run counter to the team s prevailing positive self-image, such as when a member expresses concerns about potential latent problems (Goncalo, Polman, & Maslach, 2010). Confident teams also are not necessarily open to input from members who deviate from team norms in various ways, such as when their opinions and ideas are expressed in unique ways. Psychological safety reflects the perceived capacity of the team to keep all members fully engaged as contributors to the team by being open to the challenges posed by minority opinions and unique forms of expression. Thus, we anticipate that team potency and team psychological safety have additive effects on team performance. A process of social exchange develops psychological safety in work groups. Affect-based trust in the leader is more closely linked

3 LEADER BEHAVIOR AND TEAM PERFORMANCE 865 to social exchange formulations than is cognition-based trust (Yang, Mossholder, & Peng, 2009). Edmondson (2004) noted that the trust exhibited by team members toward the leader that is needed to develop psychological safety is not related to rational expectations (as characterizes cognition-based trust), but rather such trust is conceived in a relational way in which choices are more affective and intuitive rather than calculative (p. 243). When members have a strong and favorable emotional connection with the leader, as characterizes high affect-based trust, this positively influences the team s performance through the mediating influence of team psychological safety. Such trust is associated with the expectation that the leader supports a team context of respect that allows members to speak up without fear of recriminations from each other or the leader. When individuals trust in the leader rises to a level of being emotionally connected, they can then be open in sharing information with other team members in a way that promotes team performance. Hypothesis 2: Affect-based trust in the leader is positively related to team performance through the mediating influence of team psychological safety. The indirect effect of cognition-based trust in the leader through team potency (Hypothesis 1) represents an influence of cognitionbased trust on team performance that is unrelated to affect-based trust in the leader. Thus, whereas cognition-based trust may influence team psychological safety and team performance indirectly through affect-based trust, it also influences team performance through a path that is distinct from affect-based trust. Leadership Influences Through Trust Leadership variables have been postulated as antecedents of trust in team settings, promoting both trust among members and trust between members and the leader (Burke et al., 2007; Dirks & Ferrin, 2002). We argue that two prominent leader behavior patterns examined in the broader leadership literature transformational leadership and servant leadership differentially influence affect-based and cognition-based trust in the leader and the key team psychological states we discussed above. We further suggest that trust constructs and team psychological states mediate the effects of these leader behavior patterns on team performance. Transformational Leadership Hackman (2002) argued that team members perceive their leader as being highly competent when he or she cultivates and maintains a compelling agenda and provides a clear structure that facilitates team members pursuit of this agenda. The leader behavior pattern that most closely represents these foci is transformational leadership. Bass (1985) developed the construct of transformational leadership to refer to leader behaviors and communications that elevate followers interest in furthering the collective purposes of groups and organizations. Leaders do this by encouraging an externally focused sense of purpose, inspiring workers to pursue innovative solutions to problems, and focusing on collective goals. Scholars have previously observed that transformational leadership builds trust, and studies have found that a measure of trust in the leader at least partially mediated the linkage between transformational leadership and individual follower attitude and organizational citizenship behaviors (Pillai et al., 1999; Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Moorman, & Fetter, 1990). However, the potential mediating role of trust in the leader has not been examined in relation to team outcomes, and it has not distinguished dimensions of trust, such as cognitionbased and affect-based trust in the leader. We suggest that part of the influence of transformational leadership on team performance is conveyed directly through cognition-based trust, which, as argued above concerning Hypothesis 1, influences team performance through the mediating effect of team potency. Previous research has supported the mediating influence of team potency in the relationship between transformational leadership and team performance (e.g., Bass, Avolio, Jung, & Bergson, 2003). Transformational leadership gives the team confidence that all of its members know what the team needs to do to be successful. We extend the existing logic by predicting that the transformational leadership exhibited by a team leader will tend to promote team potency to the extent that members trust that they are competently led through this form of behavior. Hypothesis 3: Transformational leadership is positively related to team potency through the mediating influence of cognition-based trust in the leader. Servant Leadership We further argue that when servant leadership is included in the analysis, transformational leadership may be expected to influence affect-based trust (and in turn psychological safety) only indirectly through cognition-based trust. Servant leadership was conceived as a group-oriented approach to leadership that emphasizes serving others, building a sense of community, emphasizing teamwork, and sharing power (Greenleaf, 1977; Walumbwa et al., 2010). Transformational leadership and servant leadership differ in their primary aims and the psychological states they seek to activate among followers. Leaders who exhibit high transformational leadership are seen to develop employees in ways needed to accomplish collective goals. Transformational leadership seeks to align followers interests with a collective agenda, thereby developing cognition-based trust. Conversely, servant leadership behavior emphasizes promoting the welfare of others by conveying support to individual group members, minimizing negative relationship conflicts, and nurturing the broader potential of individual members and a sense of community within the work group. After accounting for the influence of transformational leadership, a pattern of behavior that is widely endorsed as reflecting competent leadership, servant leadership should not be expected to further influence member s beliefs in the leader s competencies in a way that influences cognition-based trust. However, we expect that servant leadership directly influences affect-based trust and, in turn, team psychological safety. As summarized by Yang et al. (2009), cognition-based trust is most relevant for task-oriented processes, whereas affect-based trust is more salient for relational aspects of supervisor-subordinate interactions (p. 144). Servant leadership focuses on positive relations between the leader and individual team members, as well as on nurturing positive relationships between team members. The expectation that another person will behave in a caring and altruistic manner toward oneself promotes

4 866 SCHAUBROECK, LAM, AND PENG affect-based trust in him or her (McAllister, 1995), and building such expectations is the essence of servant leadership. Although studies have examined the effects of unit aggregated servant leadership on unit aggregated individual organizational citizenship behavior (Ehrhart, 2004; Liden, Wayne, Zhao, & Henderson, 2008; Walumbwa et al., 2010), no research has tested linkages between servant leadership and team outcomes such as team performance. As noted by Edmondson (2004), a team s leader is pivotal for creating a safe environment that encourages team members to speak their minds and to express their concerns. If the leader is supportive, is community-oriented, and shows nondefensive responses to questions and challenges, members tend to infer that the team constitutes a psychologically safe environment. Servant leadership fits Edmondson s description of the kinds of leader behavior that best promote such affect-based trust and, in turn, team psychological safety. Leaders who exhibit high transformational leadership are clearly seen as competent and focused on the group s collective goals, but they do not necessarily also seek to establish community, develop personal rapport with followers, or engage in benevolent exchange relationships. Thus, just as transformational leadership may quite fully account for the extent to which leader behavior influences members cognitionbased trust in the leader, servant leadership may directly explain variance in affect-based trust that remains after accounting for the influence of cognition-based trust. Hypothesis 4: Controlling for transformational leadership, servant leadership is positively related to team psychological safety through the mediating influence of team members affect-based trust in the leader. Leader Behavior and Performance Smith et al. (2004) noted that leaders can be flexible enough to match their transformational and servant-oriented behaviors to specific contexts. A leader can be an agenda-focused pragmatist when that is appropriate and a benevolent humanist at other times. We therefore expect that both leadership behavior patterns provide additive contributions to team performance. As formulated above, team psychological safety provides a plausible mechanism through which affect-based trust in the leader, driven directly by servant leadership, influences team performance. Transformational leadership is expected to influence team performance partly through cognition-based trust and team potency, and it is also expected to indirectly influence affect-based trust and, in turn, team psychological safety. However, this latter indirect effect of transformational leadership is expected to be smaller in magnitude, as it is also mediated by cognition-based trust. Hypothesis 5: Servant leadership and transformational leadership are both positively and independently related to team performance. Figure 1 depicts all the hypothesized relationships. Sample and Procedures Method We sampled participants from the same multinational bank studied by Schaubroeck, Lam, and Cha (2007) approximately 3 years after the data were collected for that study. As with that study, we surveyed employees from Hong Kong and U.S. branches of the bank. The participants were recruited from 300 financial services teams, of which 191 provided complete data from 60% or more of the team members. A total of 999 participants provided complete data that were aggregated to team level. The response rate was 59% among the Hong Kong branches and 68% among the U.S. branches. The final analysis sample consisted of 89 teams Transformational Leadership.67*** Cognitionbased Trust in Leader (CTL).62*** Potency.24**.45***.01 Performance.47*** Servant Leadership.46*** Affectbased Trust in Leader (ATL).58*** Psychological Safety.44*** Figure 1. Hypothesized model of affect-based and cognition-based trust in the leader mediating effects of leader behavior on team performance (with standardized path coefficients). p.01. p.001.

5 LEADER BEHAVIOR AND TEAM PERFORMANCE 867 from the Hong Kong branches and 102 teams from the U.S. branches. s differed in that some were composed of bank tellers, others were composed of relationship managers and financial product salespersons, and others sold and managed personal and commercial loans. Following the framework of Morgeson et al. (2010), the leaders of these teams would be characterized as formal, external leaders because they were leaders by virtue of their position and did not share the regular duties of other team members. Respondents and nonrespondents did not differ on age, education, gender, or tenure. There were also no significant differences found between the two subsamples from Hong Kong and the United States on these variables. Among the Hong Kong respondents, 73% were women, compared with 72% of the U.S. sample. In the overall sample, the size of the teams ranged from four to seven members (M 5.2, SD 0.56), and the sample had a mean age and organization tenure of 32.5 years (SD 5.31) and 5.3 years (SD 2.8), respectively. Measures Trust. Affect-based trust and cognition-based trust were adapted from the scale developed by McAllister (1995). Three items measured affect-based trust. A sample item is We would both feel a sense of loss if our team leader was transferred and we could no longer work together. Three items measured cognition-based trust (.90). A sample item is Given my team leader s track record, I see no reason to doubt his/her competence. psychological safety and team potency. We adapted a measure of team members psychological safety by using seven items (.92) from an instrument developed by Edmondson (1999). potency was measured using the seven-item (.92) Collective Efficacy Beliefs Scale (Riggs, Warka, Babasa, Betancourt, & Hooker, 1994). Transformational leadership. Transformational leadership was measured using the 23-item instrument developed by Podsakoff et al. (1990). We used the grand mean of its six subscales to index transformational leadership (.88). Servant leadership. Our measure of servant leadership was taken from Liden et al. (2008), with minor adaptations made to make specific reference to the respondent s team leader rather than manager. Seven servant leadership dimensions are measured using this 28-item scale. The alpha reliability for a composite scale was.88. performance. The measure of team performance was collected 3 weeks after we collected subordinate reports of the antecedent constructs. Solely for the purpose of this study, we asked the immediate supervisor of each team to provide team effectiveness ratings using the same items (.93) as those used by Schaubroeck et al. (2007). Control variables. We included team size, team members age and organization tenure, and the society in which the data were collected (Hong Kong vs. United States) as control variables in the regression analyses examining the incremental effect of servant leadership in predicting performance (Hypothesis 5). Results Measurement Models and Aggregation Tests We first tested confirmatory factor models of the servant leadership items using LISREL 8.1 (Jöreskog & Sörbom, 1993). These analyses were conducted at the individual level. Details concerning model fit are available from the second author. The seven-factor model of servant leadership was compared with (a) an alternative model with two lower order factors distinguishing servant leadership behaviors that are subordinate-directed from behaviors directed toward broader constituencies in the organization, and (b) a model in which all seven factors loaded on one higher order factor. The superior fit of the single higher order confirmatory factor analysis, in conjunction with past practices (Ehrhart, 2004; Neubert et al., 2008; Walumbwa et al., 2010), led us to represent servant leadership as a composite index, which is the grand mean of the seven subcomponents of Liden et al. s (2008) instrument. We also tested for measurement model equivalence between the Hong Kong and U.S. subsamples using individual item-level responses across all six self-report measures. These tests revealed good fit for the overall measurement model, and there was no deterioration in fit when factor covariances and item loadings onto corresponding latent variables were constrained to be equal across the subsamples or when random error variances were constrained to be equal. We examined intraclass correlations (ICCs; James, 1982) to assess member agreement and homogeneity. Across the six independent variables, the ICC(1) values range from.34 (servant leadership [SL] and affect-based trust [ATrust]) to.38 (transformational leadership [TL]). The ICC(2) values range from.81 (ATrust and cognition-based trust [CTrust]) to.88 ( Potency). Within-team agreement was estimated using r wg statistics as developed by James, Demaree, and Wolf (1993). The mean r wg statistics for the analyzed constructs range from.80 to.88. These ICC and r wg statistics support aggregating individual scores to the team level. Hypothesis Tests With the exception of Hypothesis 5, we tested the hypotheses using structural equation modeling with LISREL 8.1 (Jöreskog & Sörbom, 1993). Means, standard deviations, and correlations among all the study variables aggregated to the team level are shown in Table 1. We used the scale composites (means) as observed variables in the structural equation analyses. To compensate for measurement error, we fixed the random error variance of each variable to equal the quantity one minus the scale s coefficient alpha reliability, multiplied by the scale variance (Jöreskog & Sörbom, 1982). The model fit indices for the structural equation analyses are presented in Table 2. The hypothesized model (Model 1) fits the data well, and each of the path coefficients is significant and in the predicted direction. To fully test mediation, however, we sought to determine whether there were additional direct effects of either leadership variable or from the trust in leader variables. We first compared the fit statistics of the hypothesized model specifying full mediation with an alternative model that added direct paths from both SL and TL to team potency (TPotency). This model (Model

6 868 SCHAUBROECK, LAM, AND PENG Table 1 Construct Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations Among Study Variables Variable M SD mean age organization tenure position tenure size Servant leadership (.88) 6. Transformational leadership (.88) 7. Affect-based trust (.88) 8. Cognition-based trust (.90) 9. psychological safety (.92) 10. potency (.92) 11. performance (.93) Note. n 191 teams. Coefficient alpha reliabilities are shown in parentheses on the diagonal. r.15, p.05; r.19, p.01. 2) does not significantly improve the overall model chi-square or change the other fit indices relative to Model 1, and the coefficients for both paths are not statistically significant. The next model added to Model 1 direct paths from both SL and TL to team psychological safety (TSafety) (Model 3). The fit indices for this model also do not differ appreciably from Model 1, and both new path coefficients are not statistically significant. The next model (Model 4) added to Model 1 direct paths from ATrust and CTrust to team performance. This improves the various fit indices an average of just over a.01 unit change and produces a significant decrease in chi-square, 2 (2) 8.72, p.05. Again, however, both of the added path coefficients are not significant. Next, we estimated a model that included effects of CTrust on TSafety and ATrust on TPotency. The fit of this model (Model 5) is not an improvement over Model 1. The final model added direct paths from SL to CTrust and from TL to ATrust. This model produces small increases in the fit indices, ranging from.004 (for Comparative Fit Index) to.006 (for Normed Fit Index). However, neither the effect of SL on CTrust nor the direct effect of TL on ATrust is significant. On the basis of Model 1 s superior parsimony relative to the alternative models and because all of its paths are supported, we accept this model as the best supported model (see Figure 1). Model 1 supports each of Hypotheses 1 4. Specifically, the hypothesized indirect effects on team performance are all significant at p.001. This includes the indirect effect of CTrust on team performance through TPotency (Hypothesis 1) and the indirect effect of ATrust on team performance through TSafety (Hypothesis 2). Notably, the total effects of ATrust and CTrust on performance are similar (.26 and.28, respectively), but 100% of the total effect of ATrust on performance is indirect through TSafety, and 56% of the total effect of CTrust on performance is through TPotency. In addition, the indirect effect of TL on TPotency through CTrust (Hypothesis 3) and the indirect effect of SL on TSafety through ATrust (Hypothesis 4) are also significant, thus supporting these hypotheses. Notably, the effect of SL is not mediated through CTrust and TPotency; its effect is fully mediated through ATtrust and TSafety. TSafety accounts for 65% of the combined effects of TPotency and TSafety on team performance. TL accounts for 60% of the combined effects on TL and SL on team performance. This larger effect of TL can be attributed to its having a distinct path through CTrust in conjunction with an indirect effect through CTrust, ATrust, and TSafety. 1 To test Hypothesis 5, which concerns the overall incremental variance explained by SL above TL, we first entered the control variables and TL. As in prior studies (e.g., Schaubroeck et al., 2007), TL was quite strongly and positively related to team performance (p.001). As shown in Table 3, SL was entered at the next step. It also had a positive effect and explained an additional 10% of the variance in team performance (p.001). This supports Hypothesis 5. Research Implications Discussion Whereas some studies have examined leadership antecedents of trust in the leader and others have examined the outcomes of such trust, there has been little consideration of the mediating role of trust in the leader in research on individual or team performance. Considering the different potential dimensions of trust in the leader demonstrates the potential of trust as an explanatory mechanism linking antecedents associated with leadership to important team psychological states and team performance. Our findings suggest that affect-based and cognition-based trust in the team leader may help unlock the potential of teams by giving them more confidence in their abilities to perform very effectively, as reflected by the relationship between team potency and team performance, and to create conditions in which members feel comfortable expressing differences in a way that enables the team to better learn from experience and to identify more creative task strategies, as reflected by the relationship between team psychological safety and team performance. Psychological safety mediated the effects of affect-based trust in the leader on team performance. psychological safety ex- 1 We examined whether potential common sampling of participants from Schaubroeck et al. s (2007) studies affected the findings. The subsample for which we are certain there is no overlap in participants with the previously published sample contained 107 teams with complete data. The same results in testing the various models were found using this sample.

7 LEADER BEHAVIOR AND TEAM PERFORMANCE 869 Table 2 Goodness-of-Fit Indices for Structural Equation Models Model comparison test Model 2 (df) CFI NFI GFI RMSR 2 df Model 1 Hypothesized model (12) Model 2 Added direct effects of SL and TL on team potency (10) Model 3 Added direct effects of SL and TL on team psychological safety 22.21(10) Model 4 Added direct effects of CTL and ATL on team performance (10) Model 5 Added effects of CTL on team psychological safety and ATL on team potency (10) Model 6 Added effects of SL on CTL and TL on ATL (10) Note. CFI Comparative Fit Index; NFI Normed Fit Index; GFI Goodness of Fit Index; RMSR root-mean-squared residual; SL servant leadership; TL transformational leadership; CTL cognition-based trust in leader; ATL affect-based trust in leader. p.05. plained nearly twice the variance in team performance as team potency. Through their joint influence on affect-based trust, transformational leadership and servant leadership may help to liberate members to act in ways that are beneficial to the team s performance, such as by seeking help and feedback from others, proposing innovative solutions to problems, engaging in boundary spanning behavior on behalf of the team, and speaking up about concerns before they develop into crises. potency and team psychological safety may help to bridge the emerging literature concerning leader behavior and team performance with the broader group performance literature that often does not articulate a very precise role for leader behavior. Servant leadership explained an additional 10% of the variance in team performance above transformational leadership, and to date transformational leadership is arguably the most reliable and potent mainstream leadership behavior variable for predicting team performance. To this point, research has focused mainly on how servant leadership influences individual employees job satisfaction, citizenship behaviors, individual performance, creative behavior, and organizational commitment. These variables have been analyzed at the individual level or aggregated to work unit levels (Ehrhart, 2004; Liden et al., 2008; Neubert et al., 2008; Walumbwa et al., 2010). Notably, none of the previous studies of servant leadership has examined a distinctly group-level outcome such as team performance. Such attention is warranted because servant leadership is conceptualized to be relevant both to groups and to individuals. Servant leadership focuses on promoting integration among unit members by fostering community. Nevertheless, when researchers develop and test theoretical models that focus on relatively new leadership constructs, such as servant leadership, there is a need to demonstrate that they predict meaningful incremental variance in follower outcomes such as individual or team performance. Measures of ostensibly different leadership approaches tend to exhibit high correlations, and they compete for variance in outcomes, as demonstrated in a recent meta-analysis (DeRue, Nahrgang, Wellman, & Humphrey, in press). By examining transformational leadership, an established antecedent of team performance, in the same analyses, we can be more certain that the effects of servant leadership on team performance are not redundant with other prominent leader behaviors that have been linked to team performance. Nevertheless, functional theories of team performance (e.g., Hackman, 2002; Morgeson et al., 2010) suggest more specific behaviors in which leaders Table 3 Hierarchical Regression Analysis Results Dependent variables Independent variables performance performance Affect-based trust Affect-based trust Cognition-based trust Cognition-based trust Society (Hong Kong 1; United States 0) mean organization tenure mean position tenure size Transformational leadership Servant leadership R Total R Note. N 191 teams. R 2 denotes the additional variance in the dependent variable explained by adding servant leadership (when predicting team performance and affect-based trust) or transformational leadership (when predicting cognition-based trust). p.01.

8 870 SCHAUBROECK, LAM, AND PENG can engage to promote team performance, and measures of such behaviors warrant attention in future studies. Considering the joint additive effects of servant leadership and transformational leadership may provide more precision concerning other mediating psychological states linking leader behavior to individual and team performance. For example, scholars have noted how transformational leadership arouses positive emotions in followers and that this promotes liking of the leader (e.g., Brown & Keeping, 2005). Our study found that the effect of transformational leadership on affect-based trust is indirect after accounting for the influence of servant leadership and cognition-based trust. Researchers may wish to incorporate other leader behaviors, such as those represented by servant leadership, when investigating hypotheses relating transformational leadership to individual affect and variables such as liking of the leader. Affect-based trust should be more strongly related to such outcomes, and our findings indicate that it is more directly determined by servant leadership. Procedural justice has been suggested to mediate the effects of servant leadership and transformational leadership on individual performance outcomes (e.g., Ehrhart, 2004; Kirkman, Chen, Farh, Chen, & Lowe, 2009; Walumbwa et al., 2010). The authors have commonly referenced followers trust in the leader as a basis for these effects. We suggest that when researchers postulate trustrelated processes to explain the mediating effects of other variables, such as procedural justice, they should directly measure trust in the leader to determine whether it better accounts for the influence of leader behavior on performance. Practical Implications This study has practical implications for how leaders may develop more confident and psychologically safe teams. The behavioral domains of servant leadership and transformational leadership do not conflict. Leaders can engage in each type of behavior as the situation warrants (Humphreys, 2005; Smith et al., 2004). The behaviors associated with servant leadership can be particularly useful for leaders to break down the barriers between members and to build a climate of psychological safety. However, high levels of psychological safety are not always useful for group performance, particularly when group members do not share clear and compelling goals (Edmondson, 2004). Leaders need to inspire and support employees individually and in groups in ways that advance organizational objectives, as with transformational leadership. At other times, however, the same leader can help employees to develop themselves as workers in a way that is independent of the organization s cornerstone agendas, and build affect-based trust by conveying support for their well-being as individuals and as group members. Smith et al. (2004) argued that leaders who engage in servant leadership behaviors are most helpful for individuals and groups facing environments characterized by stability and munificence, whereas transformational leadership behaviors are most effective when groups face uncertainty and rapid change. Most groups life cycles are characterized by both static and dynamic periods, and thus leaders who can recognize when these different forms of behavior are needed, and also implement them effectively, may be more likely to develop and sustain effective groups. Leader development programs may be improved by seeking to enhance the behavioral flexibility of leaders in this way. The challenge for organizations is to cultivate an ability among their leaders to identify the conditions in which sensitivity to member needs and building community should receive priority over efforts to promote high performance expectations and build shared purpose. Limitations Among the limitations of the current study, the present sample was limited to a single type of organizational unit within a single organization, and this might have restricted the ranges of the variables and also may have affected the generalizability of the findings. We also studied the same multinational bank that was investigated by Schaubroeck et al. (2007). There may be some idiosyncratic characteristics of the organization that influenced relationships between the variables. We encourage future studies to include occupationally diverse teams and to sample teams from different organizations. Such research may identify moderators of effects examined in this study. In addition, as suggested by Morgeson et al. (2010), the role of team leadership may change depending on the unique needs of teams. It is possible that teams with different needs and different types of team leader roles will exhibit different patterns concerning the effects of the leadership variables we examined. This study was cross-sectional in nature, and thus we must be cautious about causal inferences. We especially recommend more research to establish whether cognition-based trust precedes affectbased trust in the causal order. Finally, although a majority of the total effects of servant leadership and transformational leadership on team performance was mediated by different variables, the paths identified in this study were not completely orthogonal. Researchers should strive for parsimony in building models of leadership and team performance. Parsimony is facilitated by identifying precise and distinct causal paths. Conclusions Members trust in their leaders is critical for effective team performance, and team potency and team psychological safety appear to mediate the effects of this trust. 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