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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2014.03.014

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00401625

http://isiarticles.com/article/42686

Facilitating team learning through transformational leadership

Elisabeth Raes • Stefan Decuyper • Bart Lismont • Piet Van den Bossche •

Eva Kyndt • Sybille Demeyere • Filip Dochy

Received: 2 July 2009 / Accepted: 12 April 2012 / Published online: 4 May 2012 � Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012

Abstract This article investigates when and how teams engage in team learning behaviours (TLB). More specifically, it looks into how different leadership styles facilitate

TLB by influencing the social conditions that proceed them. 498 healthcare workers from

28 nursery teams filled out a questionnaire measuring the concepts leadership style, TLB,

social cohesion and team psychological safety. Analysis was performed using structural

equation modelling. The results of this cross-sectional study show that transformational

leadership predicts TLB better then laissez-faire leadership, because transformational

leadership is primarily related to team psychological safety and only secondarily to social

cohesion while for laissez-faire leadership it works the other way around. Transformational

leadership matters because it facilitates psychological safety in the team.

Keywords Team learning � Team psychological safety � Social cohesion � Transformational leadership � Laissez-faire leadership

Introduction

A limited but growing body of empirical research confirms Peter Senge’s statement that

‘‘unless teams can learn, the organization cannot learn’’ (1990, p. 11). Compared to individual learning, team learning bears the potential for learning outcomes with a higher

level of quality and a higher level of social acceptance (Decuyper et al. 2010), which are

both important ingredients for effective organizational change. Many organisations face

an ever-growing stream of information and innovations, but only the ones who enable

E. Raes (&) � S. Decuyper � B. Lismont � E. Kyndt � S. Demeyere � F. Dochy Centre for Research on Lifelong Learning and Participation in Organisations, University of Leuven, Dekenstraat 2, 3000 Leuven, Belgium e-mail: [email protected]

P. Van den Bossche Department of Educational Research & Educational Development, University of Maastricht, Maastricht, The Netherlands

123

Instr Sci (2013) 41:287–305 DOI 10.1007/s11251-012-9228-3

themselves to learn continuously can keep up with the changing environment and the

competition (Lee and Foo 1995).

Recent research has shown that team learning is a crucial variable in becoming an

effective team (Decuyper et al. 2010; Kozlowski and Bell 2008; Sessa and London 2008).

Unfortunately, both practice and empirical research demonstrate that effective team

learning is not easily implemented in the dynamic complexity of real-world situations.

Often teams do not learn well because of ‘‘overdependence on a dominant leader (Edmondson et al. 2001a), the tendency to conform known as ‘‘groupthink’’ (Janis 1972), overcommitment to goals (Staw 1982), diffusion of responsibility (Wallach et al. 1964), a tendency to make risky or more conservative decisions than individuals acting alone (Clarke 1971), social loafing (Latané et al. 1979), and the Abilene paradox (Harvey 1988), in which groups take action that most members disagree with because they fail to express their true feelings’’ (Kayes et al. 2005, p. 331). It is important to understand how leadership can overcome these problems and promote team learning. In the current study we answer

this challenge by examining how and why transformative and laissez-faire leadership have

a different effect on team learning.

There is a solid and growing body of research on how leaders can facilitate creativity

and learning of individuals (e.g. Amabile et al. 2004; Baer et al. 2003; Elkins and Keller

2003; Hunt et al. 2004; Krause 2004; Mumford et al. 2003; Mumford and Licuanan 2004;

Yukl 2009). These studies illustrate the crucial role of leadership for an individual’s

learning. As a consequence, since the learning of individuals is shown to be a condition for

team learning (Zaccaro et al. 2008), it can be assumed that leadership could also play a

crucial role in the learning of teams. However, research on the subject of facilitating team

learning is still scarce (Edmondson et al. 2001b; Homan 2001; Zaccaro et al. 2001).

A meta-analysis of Burke et al. (2006) found only two studies to report the effects of

leadership behaviour on team learning. First, Edmondson (1999) showed that leaders who

coach team members and help to resolve problems, effect team norms, stimulate team

communication and enhance team learning. Team psychological safety significantly

mediated the effect of leadership on team learning. Second, Hirst et al. (2004) conducted

a longitudinal study and found that leaders facilitate team reflexivity while learning how

to lead. Their experience of actually leading a team, solving complex problems and

challenging work of team members enhances team learning.

Our study aims to extend the knowledge on the relationship between leadership and

team learning, by focusing on two specific team leadership styles (namely transformational

and laissez-faire leadership) and taking the variables psychological safety and social

cohesion into account when investigating the relationship between the leadership styles

and team learning. Prior research of Van den Bossche et al. (2006), Decuyper et al. (2010)

and Sessa and London (2008) showed that these variables are strong predictors of team

learning.

The scarce literature that has examined the relationship between leadership and team

learning so far (Edmondson 1999; Hirst et al. 2004; Kirkman and Rosen 1999), has focused

on one leadership style: empowering leadership (Burke et al. 2006). Leadership literature

reveals, however, the existence of many different leadership styles (transformative lead-

ership, transactive leadership, laissez-faire leadership, task oriented leadership, charismatic

leadership, authentic leadership, creative leadership, etc.). Therefore, in this article we ask

ourselves the question how different leadership styles relate differently to team learning

behaviour (TLB). More specifically, we choose to compare two well-documented

extremes: transformative and laissez-faire leadership (Avolio et al. 1999; Burns 1978;

Elkins and Keller 2003; Howell and Avolio 1993; Hunt and Conger 1999; Jung et al.

288 E. Raes et al.

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2008). Moreover, we also wonder to what extent different effects of leadership style on

team learning are explainable by how different leadership styles relate differently to

conditions that do or do not improve team learning. After all, ‘‘One of the greatest chal- lenges for leadership at all levels in organizations is how to create the type of conditions that encourage, facilitate, and sustain a favourable level of innovation and collective learning’’ (Yukl 2009, p. 50). An extensive body of leadership research shows that lead- ership can affect the work climate and people’s perceptions of the work environment

(Amabile et al. 2004; Bass and Avolio 1993; Hackman and Wageman 2005; Elkins and

Keller 2003; Krause 2004; Mumford et al. 2003; West et al. 2003; Zaccaro et al. 2001), and

different leadership styles produce different effects (Avolio et al. 1999; Burns 1978; Elkins

and Keller 2003; Howell and Avolio 1993; Hunt and Conger 1999; Jung et al. 2008). In

this article we focus on how the effect of leadership style on team learning is mediated by

(1) team psychological safety and (2) social cohesion.

(1) On the one hand team learning research of Edmondson (1999, 2002, 2004) and

Edmondson et al. (2001b) showed that team psychological safety is an important if

not the most important condition for team learning. They define it as ‘‘the shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking’’. (Edmondson 1999, p. 354). Edmondson et al. (2001b) explain that the variable team psychological safety has a

facilitating character when it comes to team learning because of its potential to

alleviate excessive concern about others’ reactions to potentially embarrassing or

threatening learning behaviours.

(2) On the other hand we focus on the variable ‘social cohesion’. Van den Bossche et al.

(2006) cross-validated the results of Edmondson and involved besides team

psychological safety four other variables: task cohesion, social cohesion, interde-

pendence and group potency. These variables were found to be related positively to

TLB, except for social cohesion, which did not correlate significantly. Van den

Bossche et al. (2006) explained this result by stating that the relationship between

social cohesion and TLB is rather complex. ‘‘On the one hand it promotes learning behaviour because it increases the willingness to help each other, while on the other hand high social cohesion could lead to uncritical acceptance of solutions’’ (Van den Bossche et al. 2006, p. 500). Although evidence clearly indicates that task cohesion is

more important for work performance than social cohesion, scientific literature,

popular management literature and a large number of team building practices

stimulate leaders to be concerned about the social cohesion in their teams (Mullen

and Copper 1994; Zaccaro et al. 2001).

Below we derive six hypotheses from reviewing the concepts team learning, leadership

style, team psychological safety and social cohesion. Subsequently we summarise the

formulated hypotheses in a research model. Then, we present our methodology and results.

Finally, we conclude this article by reflecting on our results and presenting some sug-

gestions for future research.

Team learning

It is not possible to clarify how we understand team learning without defining what we

mean by the central concept ‘team’. This concept has been defined in many ways (Kat-

zenbach and Smith 1993; Leliveld and Vink 2000), but we follow the definition of Cohen

and Bailey (1997, p. 241): ‘‘A team is a collection of individuals who are interdependent in

Facilitating team learning through transformational leadership 289

123

their tasks, who share responsibility for outcomes, who see themselves and who are seen by others as an intact social entity embedded in one or more larger social systems’’.

The key building blocks of team learning are communicative behaviours of team

members such as seeking feedback, sharing information, asking for help, confronting,

experimenting, etc. that allow the team to process data in such a way that the team can

adapt or transform (Edmondson 1999). All these different types of dialogical behaviours

have been categorised before by prominent researchers in the field (London et al. 2005;

Van den Bossche 2006) into two central team learning processes: ‘co-construction’ and

‘constructive conflict’. Co-construction is the mutual process of building meaning by

refining, building on, or modifying an original offer in some way (Baker 1994 in Van den

Bossche 2006, p. 65) or the common quest for and confirmation of interpersonal con-

gruence (London et al. 2005). Constructive conflicts are conflicts or elaborated discussions

that stem from diversity and open communication, and lead to further communication and

some kind of temporary agreement (Van den Bossche 2006).

Notwithstanding its relative newness, the concept ‘team learning’ has already been

defined in many ways as well (Edmondson 1999; Ellis et al. 2003; Homan 2001; Senge

1990; Yorks et al. 2003). In an integrative literature study we proposed a definition that

exceeds the boundaries of disciplines: ‘‘Team learning is an active, reflexive and boundary crossing process of balancing ‘co-construction’ and ‘constructive conflict’ between team members and between team members and team external stakeholders. Effective co-con- struction and constructive conflicts are directed by team reflexivity, coordinated team activity and boundary crossing communication towards both conceptual and performance improvements at the level of the team (on both the task- and the relationship-dimension)’’ (Decuyper et al. 2010).

Leadership style and team learning

From our perspective, leadership is not about manipulating the behaviour of followers, but

about being responsible for ensuring certain vital functions such as direction, alignment

and empowerment in the team (Drath et al. 2008). Leaders with different leadership styles

will address their leadership role in different ways. In this article we compare the effect of

transformational and laissez-faire leadership on team learning.

Transformational leadership and team learning

Transformational leadership tries to empower the team members, and to move them

beyond immediate self-interest by providing idealised influence or charisma, individua-

lised consideration, intellectual stimulation, and inspirational motivation (Eagly and Joh-

annesen-Schmidt 2003). Idealised influence refers to the demonstration of qualities that motivate respect and pride from association with the leader. Individualised consideration refers to a particular focus on the development and the mentoring of team members that

attends to their individual needs. Intellectual stimulation is the degree to which the leader challenges assumptions, takes risks and solicits team members’ ideas. Leaders with this

trait stimulate and encourage creativity. Finally, inspirational motivation is the degree to which the leader articulates or facilitates a vision that is appealing and inspiring to the team

members. For transformational leaders this visionary aspect is supported by communica-

tion skills that allow the leader to articulate values, purpose and importance of the orga-

nisation’s mission with precision and power in a compelling and persuasive way. Leaders

290 E. Raes et al.

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with inspirational motivation challenge team members with high standards, communicate

optimism about future goals, and provide meaning for the task at hand. When placed in

former categorisations, such as the one of Fiedler (1967), task oriented versus relation

oriented leadership, transformational leaders tend to score high on both dimensions.

Generally, it is stated that transformational leadership is likely to have a positive impact

on learning processes that take place in a group (Hannah and Lester 2009; West 1999). On

the other hand, some have also found indications of a positive influence of transformational

leadership on the learning of teams. According to Vera and Crossan (2004) and Jansen

et al. (2009), transformational leaders are very well-suited to support exploratory inno-

vations, because they serve as a role model when it comes to learning, they invite members

to share their insights and question assumptions, and they encourage their colleagues or

subordinates to think ‘‘out of the box’’. Transformational leaders make their team members

feel safe and free (Zaccaro et al. 2008). Elkin and Keller’s (2003) research showed that

transformational leadership has a positive effect on innovative performance of teams

engaged in both exploratory and exploitative R&D projects. Furthermore, Hannah and

Lester (2009) also report that transformational leadership is related to more effective

brainstorming and the exploration of new knowledge. Finally, Burke et al. (2006) showed

in their meta-analysis that person-focused team empowerment, which is an element of

transformational leadership, accounts for 31 % of the variance in team learning.

Hypothesis 1 Transformational leadership has a positive relationship with the occurrence of TLB.

Laissez-faire leadership and team learning

Laissez-faire leadership avoids making decisions and using authority, often abdicating

responsibility. It is generally weak on both task orientation and relationship orientation.

Laissez-faire leadership is, therefore, essentially the absence of leadership or a non-

response to situations that may merit attention. In contrast to transformational leadership,

it is a passive form of leadership (Den Hartog et al. 1997). Also Bass (1990a) shows that

laissez-faire leadership usually correlates negatively (-0.30 to -0.60) with other more

(pro-) active leadership styles. However, as confirmed by e.g. the study of Moss (1992 in

Bass and Riggio 2006, p. 96) laissez-faire leadership and transformational leadership

should not be considered as two ends of one continuum, they form two separate continua.

Much has been learned about the positive relationships of transformational leadership,

but far less attention has been paid to laissez-faire leadership (Hinkin and Schriesheim

2008). Recently, some studies have been looking at ‘‘non-leadership’’ or ‘‘passive lead-

ership’’ by combining the Management by exception (passive) and the laissez-faire scales

of the MLQ (Bass et al. 2003). However, these studies focused primarily on the factor-

structure of the MLQ rather than investigate the relationship between laissez-faire lead-

ership and specific outcome variables. From the scarce empirical research that is available,

we derive that passive forms of leadership generally tend to have negative consequences

for organizations (Hinkin and Schriesheim 2008). A meta-analysis of Dumdum et al. (2002

in Hinkin and Schriesheim 2008) found that management by exception and laissez-faire

leadership have negative relationships with effectiveness and satisfaction, -0.46 and

-0.38, respectively. Bass (1990b) indicates that there is a negative relationship between

laissez-faire leadership and a variety of other outcomes too, such as subordinate perfor-

mance, effort and attitudinal indicators.

Facilitating team learning through transformational leadership 291

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Hypothesis 2 Laissez-faire leadership has a negative relationship with the occurrence of TLB.

Team psychological safety

Team psychological safety is defined as ‘‘a shared belief that the team is safe for inter- personal risk taking. (…) The term is meant to suggest neither a careless sense of per- missiveness nor an unrelenting positive affect but rather a sense of confidence that the team will not embarrass, reject, or punish someone for speaking up’’ (Edmondson 1999, p. 354). We introduce this variable in our research model because many field researchers

show that a lack of team psychological safety inhibits TLBs (Bain 1998; Brousseau 1997;

Day et al. 2004; Edmondson et al. 2001b; Kayes et al. 2005; Van den Bossche et al. 2006;

West 1999). Andrews (1967 in Hannah and Lester 2009) found that creative potential was

only related to innovation when workers attributed their environment to be safe and

encouraging. In the same sense, Nemanich and Vera (2009) pointed out that cultures

promoting learning and offering team psychological safety promote both exploration of

new knowledge and refinement of existing knowledge. Edmondson (1999) showed that

team psychological safety has a positive and crucial influence on TLB. Team psycho-

logical safety is a great strength for teams because it erases the worry of what other

members will think of one if they speak openly. The results of Edmondson were recently

reconfirmed by Van den Bossche et al. (2006), who also demonstrated more specifically

that team psychological safety has a strong correlation with the emergence of constructive

conflicts in teams.

As hypothesised (H1), we think transformational leadership has a direct relationship

with the collective learning process (e.g. Jansen et al. 2009; Vera and Crossan 2004), but

we argue that it also affects this learning process indirectly, by implementing or facil-

itating team psychological safety. Edmondson (1999) and Edmondson et al. (2001b)

emphasised that leaders can create a context of team psychological safety when they

admit their own shortcomings, demonstrating it is safe to admit or discuss errors made.

We hypothesise transformational leaders, being high on both the relational and the task

dimension, to do so. However, there is not much empirical research to underpin the

statement that transformational leadership increases team psychological safety. A small

but growing body of empirical work is beginning to study the assumption that trans-

formational leadership may promote a learning culture in teams (Nemanich and Vera

2009). Hannah and Lester (2009) showed how transformational leadership promotes such

a learning culture by employing greater levels of individual consideration. Bass et al.

(2003) showed contingently that transformational leadership is best suited to implement

psychologically safe learning cultures. Also Shin and Zhou (2003 in Nemanich and Vera

2009) described how especially individualised consideration leads to respect, which is

necessary to support team psychological safety. Finally, Nemanich and Vera (2009)

found that transformational leadership behaviours and cultures encompassing psycho-

logical safety, openness to diverse opinions, and participation in decision making, sup-

port ambidexterity in acquisition. Moreover, they showed how it is related to the valuing

of learning cultures.

Hypothesis 3 Team psychological safety partially mediates the influence of transfor- mational leadership on TLB.

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In order to affect team psychological safety leaders need to take up an active role

(Edmondson et al. 2001a, 2001b; Edmondson 2002). They have to model the risky learning

behaviours of admitting or pointing out mistakes. These active leadership behaviours are

not demonstrated by laissez-faire leaders (Den Hartog et al. 1997).

Hypothesis 4 Laissez-faire leadership is negatively related to team psychological safety.

Social cohesion

Social cohesion ‘‘refers to the nature and quality of the emotional bonds of friendship such as liking, caring and closeness among group members’’ (Van den Bossche et al. 2006, p. 499). It is theoretically seen as a dimension of the broader concept ‘cohesion’, which

refers to ‘‘the resultant of all the forces acting on all the members to remain in the group’’ (Festinger 1950, p. 274). Social cohesion has long been considered as the foundation of

social processes in the field of group dynamics (Friedkin 2004). Empirical research did

indeed show some beneficial effects on group functioning. Barrick et al. (1998) showed for

example how team viability is higher in teams with a higher level of social cohesion. As

such, social cohesion shows to be an important issue in teams; teams with a higher social

cohesion tend to stay together for longer periods. However, both Edmondson (1999) and

Van den Bossche et al. (2006) found social cohesion not to be related to ‘TLBs’. Nev-

ertheless, due to the importance of team viability, both scientific literature and popular

management literature stimulate leaders to be concerned about the social cohesion in their

teams (Mullen and Copper 1994; Zaccaro et al. 2001). Consequently, leaders often try to

foster group performance by enhancing interpersonal attraction or social cohesion.

According to Spink (2001) leaders can indeed enhance social cohesion. He showed how

team leadership accounts for 21 % of the variance in social cohesion. Moreover, trans-

formational leadership is theorised to influence both social and task cohesion in the team

(Nemanich and Vera 2009). The transformational culture is described as one in which there

is both a sense of purpose and a feeling of family (Bass and Avolio 1993).

Hypothesis 5 Transformational leadership correlates positively with social cohesion, but social cohesion does not mediate the effect of transformational leadership on TLB.

Contrary to the facilitation of team psychological safety, there is no evidence that it is

necessary for leaders to take up an active role in order to promote social cohesion in their

team. Empirical research on this subject is scarce, but literature suggests that social

cohesion is often increased due to freedom and autonomy (LaFasto and Larson 1989). Also

laissez-faire leadership facilitates freedom to the extreme (Bass and Riggio 2006).

Therefore, when leadership is lacking, team members depend on and turn to each other.

Hypothesis 6 Laissez-faire leadership facilitates social cohesion.

Research model

This article is focusing on the relationship of transformational leadership and laissez-faire

leadership with team learning. We also try to explain differences by exploring to what

extent different leadership styles facilitate team psychological safety and social cohesion

differently. In Fig. 1 we summarise the hypothesised relationships.

Facilitating team learning through transformational leadership 293

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Methodology

Sample

Our sample consisted of 28 divisional nursery teams, selected at random within a uni-

versity hospital in Flanders. For the selection of team members, each of the 28 team leaders

was asked to identify the people who belonged to his or her team, which resulted in a

sample of 605 team members. Due to missing data 79 % (498) of the team members were

used in our analysis. Females were more represented than males, with only 84 respondents

self-identifying as male and 414 as female. This is however representative for nursery

teams in Belgium, in which 94.6 % of the nurses are female (National Institute of Statistics

2006). At the moment of the investigation 23 % of the participants were aged between 20

and 29, 23 % was aged between 30 and 39, 40.6 % was aged between 40 and 49, and

13.4 % was older than 50. 10 participants had been working at the hospital for less than

6 months, the others had been working there for a longer period of time. Also this dis-

tribution where most nurses are over 40 years old, is a representative picture of the current

nursing power in hospitals (National Institute of Statistics 2006). Finally, except for the 28

participants who occupied a leadership position, seven occupied an administrative position,

11 occupied a (para)medical position, 37 were logistic workers, and a large majority of 445

participants held a position as nurse.

Procedures and measures

The constructs in our research model were measured with a questionnaire composed of five

different sub-questionnaires, all using a 7-point likert scale: Transformational and laissez-

faire leadership style (short version of the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire or MLQ-

short—based on Bass and Avolio 1994); social cohesion, team psychological safety and

TLB (Team Learning Beliefs & Behaviours Questionnaire or TLB & B-Q—based on Van

den Bossche et al. 2006). The most important criterion for choosing these instruments was

that they measure the constructs as they were conceptually defined in our research model

(American Statistical Association 1997). To encourage truthful responses in light of many

questions’ sensitive nature (e.g., leadership behaviours, team psychological safety, social

cohesion) we guaranteed strict confidentiality and anonymity. Assessment of the psycho-

metric properties of our questionnaire was carried out through a confirmatory factor

Hypothesized research model

Positive relationship

Transformational leadership

Team psychological

safety

Team learning

Laissez-faire leadership

Social cohesion

Negative relationship

Fig. 1 Hypothesized research model

294 E. Raes et al.

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analysis (CFA) of the different subscales (see Table 1), the completely standardized factor

loadings ranged from good (0.50) to excellent (0.90). The comparative fit index

(CFI = 0.96) and the non-normed fit index (NNFI = 0.96) of the CFA were both excel-

lent, and the standardized root mean square residual was good as well (SRMR = 0.051).

Additionally, the internal consistency/reliability of the scales (Cronbach’s alpha) was

calculated. These analyses were executed using the individual participant’s responses

(Nunally and Bernstein 1994). Below, the different sub-questionnaires are described in

terms of their scales, their psychometric properties and their intercorrelations/internal

consistencies.

Leadership style

To measure transformational leadership and laissez-faire leadership the MLQ-short

(comprising 12 items) was used. Three items measured laissez-faire leadership and eight

Table 1 Five factor CFA: completely standardized solutions of transformational leadership, TLB, social cohesion, team psychological safety and Laissez-faire leadership

Component

Transform TLB Social coh Psych saf LF

Transform1 0.87 – – – –

Transform2 0.86 – – – –

Transform3 0.85 – – – –

Transform4 0.83 – – – –

Transform5 0.80 – – – –

Transform6 0.76 – – – –

Transform7 0.60 – – – –

Transform8 0.57 – – – –

TLB1 – 0.87 – – –

TLB2 – 0.84 – – –

TLB3 – 0.83 – – –

TLB4 – 0.81 – – –

TLB5 – 0.77 – – –

TLB6 – 0.54 – – –

Socialcohes1 – – 0.86 – –

Socialcohes2 – – 0.83 – –

Socialcohes3 – – 0.77 – –

Socialcohes4 – – 0.64 – –

Psychsaf1 – – – 0.68 –

Psychsaf2 – – – 0.66 –

Psychsaf3 – – – 0.55 –

Psychsaf4 – – – 0.51 –

Psychsaf5 – – – 0.50 –

Laissezf1 – – – – 0.90

Laissezf2 – – – – 0.62

Laissezf3 – – – – 0.58

Facilitating team learning through transformational leadership 295

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items measured transformational leadership. Examples of items that measured transfor-

mational leadership are ‘our team leader enables me to think about old problems in new

ways’ and ‘our team leader finds out what I want and tries to help me get it’. An example of

an item that measured laissez-faire leadership is ‘our team leader takes no action even

when problems become chronic’. The CFA clearly distinguished a transformational

leadership factor and a laissez-faire factor (see Table 1, respectively component 1 and

component 5), with items loading between 0.87 and 0.57 for transformational leadership

and between 0.90 and 0.58 for laissez-faire leadership. The internal consistency of both

scales was sufficient or good, with alpha’s of respectively, 0.73 and 0.92.

Team learning behaviours

Our conception of team learning leads to a focus on conversational actions, enabling team

members to become partners in the construction of shared knowledge and coordinated

team activities. These conversational actions refer to the two aforementioned aspects of

the learning behaviour (co-construction and constructive conflict), which were measured

by means of six items from the TLB & B-Q, Van den Bossche et al. 2006). Examples of

items measuring these TLBs were ‘information from team members is complemented with

information from other team members’ (co-construction) and ‘this team tends to handle

differences of opinions by addressing them directly’ (constructive conflict). The factor

analysis revealed one factor on which all items loaded between 0.87 and 0.52 (see Table 1,

component 2). Also, the internal consistency was high, with an alpha of 0.90. This shows

that the items of the team learning sub-questionnaire cluster into a separate general con-

struct that can be defined as ‘‘TLB’’.

Mediating variables

(1) Team psychological safety: for measuring team psychological safety, we used five

items of the questionnaire of Edmondson (1999). Sample items for team psycho-

logical safety include ‘People in this team sometimes reject others for being different’

(reversed) and ‘It is safe to take a risk in this team’. The team psychological safety

scale was confirmed by our CFA with factor loadings ranging from 0.68 to 0.50 (see

Table 1, component 4). The analysis of the internal consistency confirmed this pic-

ture, with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.71.

(2) Social cohesion: social cohesion was measured using a scale developed by Sargent

and Sue-Chan (2001), containing four items. Sample items include ‘I like my team’

and ‘I feel a sense of belongingness to my team’. The factor analysis confirmed the

scale as measured with factor loadings ranging from 0.86 to 0.64 (see Table 1,

component 3) and the internal consistency of the scale was high with a Cronbach’s

alpha of 0.85.

Aggregation on team level

The constructs measured are only conceptually meaningful at the team-level. Therefore,

the data gathered from individual team members to assess the team-level variables needed

to be aggregated at the level of the team. The within-group agreement was assessed using

the multiple-item estimator rwg (James et al. 1984). This analysis resulted in a mean value

of 0.91 for transformational leadership, 0.92 for TLB, 0.85 for social cohesion and 0.79 for

296 E. Raes et al.

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team psychological safety. These results justify the creation of a group-level data set.

Descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation), intercorrelations, and the internal

consistency of the scales at the level of the team are presented in Table 2.

Methods of analysis

This study used path analysis to test the theoretically hypothesised model. The analysis is

presented in two parts. In line with the theoretical framework, it was first tested whether

transformational leadership and laissez-faire leadership predict TLB. Second, it was ana-

lysed whether the identified beliefs about the interpersonal context mediate this relation-

ship. The adequacy of the models was assessed using LISREL version 8.52 (Jöreskog

and Sörbom 2002). Models were all tested with standardised coefficients obtained from

the maximum likelihood method of estimation (MLE). To ascertain the model fit, we

emphasised the CFI, the NNFI and the SRMR as well as the v2 test statistic. Values of the CFI and NNFI greater than respectively, 0.90 and 0.95 are typically taken to reflect

acceptable and excellent fits to the data (Schumacher and Lomax 1996). The NNFI con-

tains, contrary to the CFI, a penalty for a lack of parsimony of the model (Guay et al.

2003). Hu and Bentler (1999) suggested the use of the SRMR in evaluating the model fit,

with values less than 0.08 as an indication of a relatively good fit between the hypothesised

model and the observed data. Only statistically significant paths are included in the pre-

sented diagrams.

Results

A basic path model tested the hypothesis that transformational leadership leads to TLB

(H1) and the hypothesis that laissez-faire leadership inhibits team learning (H2). The result

of this path analysis is presented in Fig. 2.

Figure 2 shows that our basic model (v2 = 0.00, df = 0, p = 1.0000, RMSEA = 0.000) confirms hypothesis 1, transformational leadership does indeed predict TLB

(b = 0.70, t = 4.42, p \ 0.001). However, our hypothesis that laissez-faire leadership inhibits TLB is rejected. In contrast to our presumptions about the concept laissez-faire

leadership, a significant positive relationship between TLB and laissez-faire leadership was

Table 2 Correlation matrix, means, standard deviations and internal consistency of scales at team level

Mean SD Transform leadership

Laissez-faire leadership

TLB Psychological safety

Social cohesion

Transformation leadership

4.6435 0.58153 0.957

Laissez-faire leadership

3.6672 0.47266 -0.403* 0.841

TLB 4.9248 0.39769 0.490** 0.173 0.954

Psychological safety

4.7655 0.46722 0.540** 0.109 0.753** 0.852

Social cohesion 5.4998 0.34729 0.312 0.301 0.680** 0.797** 0.912

* Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (two-tailed)

** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (two-tailed)

Facilitating team learning through transformational leadership 297

123

established (b = 0.39, t = 2.34, p \ 0.05). The results do indicate that transformational leadership influences TLB to a much higher degree.

To analyse whether the identified relationship between leadership style and TLB is

mediated by beliefs about the interpersonal context, we executed a second path analysis in

which we added the mediation variables team psychological safety and social cohesion.

The result of this second path analysis is presented in Fig. 3.

Generally, a good fit was found for the mediation of team psychological safety and

social cohesion for the relationship between leadership style and TLB (v2 = 2.07, df = 2, p = 0.35, CFI = 0.992, NNFI = 0.965, SRMR = 0.0304). However, the hypothesised relations were only partially confirmed. First of all, the analysis confirms hypothesis 3:

team psychological safety does indeed mediate the relationship between transformational

leadership and TLB. Transformational leadership predicts team psychological safety

(b = 0.70, t = 4.42, p \ 0.001) and team psychological safety predicts TLB (b = 0.58, t = 3.36, p \ 0.001). However, contrary to our hypothesis there is no remaining direct relation between transformational leadership and TLB when the mediation is taken into

account, which indicates a full mediation by team psychological safety.

Hypothesis 4, stating that laissez-faire leadership inhibits team psychological safety,

was not confirmed by our analysis. In fact, the path diagram indicates a mediation of

team psychological safety between laissez-faire leadership and TLB, with laissez-faire

leadership predicting team psychological safety (b = 0.39, t = 2.34, p \ 0.05) and team psychological safety predicting TLB (b = 0.58, t = 3.36, p \ 0.001). Hypothesis 5 was confirmed, transformational leadership predicts social cohesion (b = 0.52, t = 4.42,

Basic path analysis

1.00 Transformational

leadership

Laissez-faire leadership

Team learning behaviour

0.58

1.00

-0.40

0.39

0.70

Fig. 2 Basic path analysis

Path analysis of research model

Social cohesion

1.00 Transformational

leadership

Laissez-faire leadership

Team learning behaviour

0.41

1.00

-0.40 0.39

0.70

Team psychological

safety

0.52

0.51

0.46

0.58

0.46

0.68

Fig. 3 Path analysis of research model

298 E. Raes et al.

123

p \ 0.001). According to our results this does however not relate significantly to the occurrence of TLB. Finally, hypothesis 6 was also confirmed, laissez-faire leadership

predicts social cohesion (b = 0.51, t = 2.49, p \ 0.05). It is interesting to notice how the two leadership styles seem to influence differently: while transformative leadership seems

to have a stronger relationship with team psychological safety, both leadership styles relate

equally to the social cohesion in the team.

Conclusion, discussion, limitations and implications

Conclusion

Multi-disciplinary divisional nursery teams in hospitals are faced with the challenge of

learning in order to innovate and improve their services, to adapt their ways of working to

new knowledge and procedures and to capitalise on rapid changes. In this article we

focused on the leaders within these patient care teams and hypothesised them to be social

architects or orchestrators of emergent processes relevant to team learning (e.g. Hannah

and Lester 2009).

Our results show that transformational leadership facilitates team learning in a less

direct and visible manner, developing or allowing team psychological safety in the social

network, enabling further creativity and learning. The strong relationship of transforma-

tional leadership with team learning which was found in the basic path analysis, disap-

peared completely when team psychological safety was included. It is possible that

transformational leadership exerts a direct relationship with team learning, since trans-

formational leaders are perceived as positive role models by their subordinates and since

they are active participants in the team learning process (Mumford et al. 2003). However,

our analysis suggests that the indirect relationship via team psychological safety is of much

greater importance and should be the major concern for team leaders that wish to

encourage learning behaviour in their teams.

Contrary to our hypothesis, laissez-faire leadership also influenced TLB positively.

Moreover, the proportion of variance in the TLB scores explained by laissez-faire lead-

ership was in this model also mediated completely by the variable team psychological

safety. Apparently, a ‘hands-off’ leadership style does not per se mean a threat for neither

team psychological safety nor team learning. Laissez-faire leadership gives employees a

high degree of autonomy and freedom. The team members then share all authority or

power and they have to determine goals, make decisions and resolve problems themselves.

Maybe teams in university hospitals are sufficiently skilled, experienced and educated to

deal with this freedom and power. Maybe they share enough pride, informal leadership and

motivation to generate a learning climate of team psychological safety without the

direction or empowerment of official leadership. This is in line with the substitutes for

leadership theory of Kerr and Jermier (Podsakoff and Mackenzie 1997). Kerr and Jermier

(1987) suggest that the use of self-managing work teams could reduce the importance of

leadership. Although our findings support Bass and Avolio’s idea that laissez-faire lead-

ership is not necessarily always detrimental (1993 in Vigoda-Gadot 2007; Bass and Riggio

2006), and active leadership might not always be necessary or even desirable (Den Hartog

et al. 1997), we believe that future research should first try to cross-validate our results in

other contexts and with other more qualitative methodologies to get insight in what hap-

pens if a team leader is ‘laissez-faire’.

Facilitating team learning through transformational leadership 299

123

Another conclusion that can be drawn from our inquiry is that we gained some insight in

why transformational and laissez-faire leadership relate differently to team learning.

Transformational leadership is more closely related to team psychological safety, while

both styles are equally related to social cohesion. This is an essential difference. Laissez-

faire leadership, in contrast to transformational leadership, tends to have a larger effect on

social cohesion (b = 0.51) than on team psychological safety (b = 0.39). On the other hand, transformational leadership predicts both social cohesion and team psychological

safety, but the primary focus goes to the latter (b = 0.70). Transformational leaders are concerned with the spirit of the team and also try to facilitate a culture of ‘saying it out

loud’. Finally, social cohesion, which has been a major focus of many team leaders, team

trainers and researchers in the past decades, did not seem to mediate the effect of trans-

formational leadership on TLB. This non-mediation of social cohesion is due to the fact

that social cohesion does not influence TLB significantly. Although this result is in line

with findings of Edmondson (1999) and Van den Bossche et al. (2006), it remains

somewhat remarkable, because social cohesion and team psychological safety are closely

related (r = 0.797, p \ 0.01). The concepts are, however, both theoretically and empiri- cally distinguishable, as supported by our factor analysis. Social cohesion bears the threat

of stimulating groupthink when the social bond becomes so strong that deviant thoughts

remain underground, while team psychological safety does not. The non-influence of social

cohesion on TLB could, therefore, be due to the fact that in teams with higher levels of

social cohesion members are too ‘nice’ to each other. Agreeableness becomes more

important than for example pointing out mistakes in order to learn from them or con-

fronting each other with contrasting ideas in order to develop higher level shared mental

models, etc. Ellis et al. (2003) showed in previous research that teams who display much

agreeableness learn less than teams who do not.

Discussion

We suggest that transformational leaders approach team learning by setting the conditions

for learning to occur, while limiting the focus on direct interference in the actual learning

processes. Some of the possible implications of our results are discussed below. First,

because the effect of transformational leadership on TLB is completely mediated through

team psychological safety in our data set, one might wonder what the direct relevance of

leadership style is. The key to that answer is that the major concern for leadership is

effectiveness, not learning. Van den Bossche et al. (2006) showed that TLB is closely

related to team effectiveness. However, previous research of Bunderson and Sutcliffe

(2003) showed that this relationship is not straightforward. They showed that there exists

an optimum level of learning related behaviours for a given team at a given moment in

time. Teams that have been performing well in their recent history, risk focusing too much

on learning, thereby prematurely abandoning workable solutions in order to pursue untried

initiatives and compromising existing performance levels. A direct role of transformational

leadership could be to frame the challenge of learning. However, more research on the

relationship between leadership, team learning and team effectiveness seems required.

Secondly, one might come to the conclusion that there is no need to invest in the social

cohesion of a team because it has no impact on team learning. We stress again that this

research focuses on learning behaviour and not on team effectiveness. Previous research

has shown a link between social cohesion and team effectiveness, although task cohesion

always seems to play a more important role (Mullen and Copper 1994). Moreover, it has

been shown that social cohesion mediates for example the effect of leadership on team

300 E. Raes et al.

123

tenure (Friedkin 2004) or the effectiveness of group lending programs in developing

countries (Wydick 1999).

Finally, we theoretically positioned leadership at the input side of our model. However,

Day et al. (2004), Rowold and Heinitz (2007), West (2002), and Zaccaro et al. (2001)

wisely indicate that leadership is not only an input for team learning, influencing catalyst

emergent states such as team psychological safety (Decuyper et al. 2010). Depending on

the context it will also be a moderator or an output that depends on enacted and evolving

emergent states. As team leaders lead learning, they also learn to lead in a certain fashion.

Teams with a high level of team psychological safety will therefore possibly render a

certain type of leadership.

Limitations and recommendations for future research

Before turning to the implications of our research, certain limitations of the present study

warrant some attention. First of all, due to the limited number of teams available, we were

unable to include other variables at the level of the team, the individual and the organi-

zational level. Although our team definition implies that leading team learning is a mul-

tilevel and multistage process requiring an integrated micro (individual), meso (network),

and macro (systems) approach, we restricted our survey to variables at the level of the

team. This is certainly a restriction because we know that other variables can be at stake.

Other mediating variables such as the creativity of followers (Mumford et al. 2003), task

cohesion, group potency and interdependency, (Van den Bossche et al. 2006), job and

context characteristics (Shalley and Gilson 2004), etc. have not been taken into account. In

future research these variables could be included as variables that could possibly mediate

the effects of leadership style on team learning. Secondly, in this article we focused on

transformational and laissez-faire leadership behaviours. Restrictions by the hospital

management on the amount of time we could have with employees constrained the length

of our survey, preventing us from collecting for example the full version of the MLQ. This

would probably have enabled us to control for transactional leadership. Thirdly, we only

used subjective measures of learning behaviour (e.g. self-reported ratings) instead of more

objective team learning outputs. Brown and Keeping (2005 as cited in Rowold and Heinitz

2007) demonstrated that the relationship between transformational leadership and sub-

jective outcomes are ‘‘highly influenced by the interpersonal affect raters feel towards the targets being rated’’ (p. 245), they are open to judgment and other biases. However, our resources were not sufficient to make a more objective assessment of the team learning in

these specialised teams. Such additional data from e.g. performance evaluations or other

organisational data were not available. Future research should use more objective measures

from multiple data sources in order to reduce common respondent bias and increase both

the objectivity and the reliability of the output measure. Finally, we measured all constructs

with a single questionnaire at a single point in time. Future studies should try to gather data

using multiple methods, working from a longitudinal design. This could on the one hand

reduce single method bias. On the other hand it could open the door for including aspects

of team development/team dynamics that are often forgotten in team learning research

(Sweet and Michaelsen 2007).

Implications

Our findings make some theoretical contributions to the body of knowledge on the facil-

itation of team learning. They show how transformational leaders relate to team learning

Facilitating team learning through transformational leadership 301

123

more than laissez-faire leaders, because they affect team psychological safety and not

because they are concerned with the social cohesion of the team. This indicates the relative

but significant importance of leadership for team learning.

As well as theoretical implications, this survey hosts practical advice for managers and

leaders in the field. However, these implications should be derived with the greatest

consideration because, as argued above, by analysing cross-sectional data our study reveals

mainly correlation, not causation. Moreover, we argue with Hannah and Lester (2009) that

leaders can influence the conditions for knowledge to emerge. However, we know that the

influence of leaders is restrained in practice, because social networks are partially self-

organising. Complexity theory shows that emergent states such as team psychological

safety are both stable and difficult to predict (Jörg 2004). The research on ‘how to influence

team psychological safety’, which should be the real next question is currently virtually

non-existent. Here we try to sum up some lessons learned from transformational leadership

literature and concrete tips for leaders to increase the psychological safety in their teams

(based on Edmondson et al. 2001a; Zaccaro et al. 2001).

• Do not overestimate the importance of ‘feel-good’ and ‘social belongingness’ for team effectiveness and growth.

• Be intellectually stimulating by making clear that others’ involvement, contact and opinions are welcomed and valued

• Be individually considerate and support a culture of respect • Serve as a fallibility model: Team leaders can foster team psychological safety by

admitting their mistakes to the team:

• Admit your own shortcomings • Accept feedback and critiques from others (even if you do not agree) • Neutralise fear of embarrassment

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