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Facilitating team learning through transformational leadership Author(s): Elisabeth Raes, Stefan Decuyper, Bart Lismont, Piet Van den Bossche, Eva Kyndt, Sybille Demeyere and Filip Dochy Source: Instructional Science, Vol. 41, No. 2 (March 2013), pp. 287-305 Published by: Springer Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23372889 Accessed: 31-05-2020 09:57 UTC

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Instr Sei (2013) 41:287-305 DOI 10.1007/s 11251-012-9228-3

Facilitating team learning through transformational leadership

Elisabeth Raes • Stefan Decuyper • Bart Lismont • Piet Van den Bossche • Eva Kyndt • Sybille Demeyere • Filip Doch y

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 (H) • 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

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288 E. Raes et al.

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.

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Facilitating team learning through transformational leadership 289

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

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290 E. Raes et al.

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

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Facilitating team learning through transformational leadership 291

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.

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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 (HI), 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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Facilitating team learning through transformational leadership 293

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.

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294 E. Raes et al.

Hypothesized research model

Positive relationship

Fig. 1 Hypothesized research model

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

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Facilitating team learning through transformational leadership 295

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

Transform 1 0.87 - - - -

Transform2 0.86 - - - -

Transform3 0.85 - - - -

Transform4 0.83 - - - -

Transform5 0.80 - - - -

Transform6 0.76 - - - -

Transform? 0.60 - - - -

Transform8 0.57 - - - -

TLB! - 0.87 - - -

TLB2 - 0.84 - - -

TLB 3 - 0.83 - - -

TLB4 - 0.81 - - -

TLB5 - 0.77 - - -

TLB6 - 0.54 - - -

Socialcohesl - - 0.86 - -

Socialcohes2 - - 0.83 - -

Socialcohes3 - - 0.77 - -

Socialcohes4 - - 0.64 - -

Psychsafl - - - 0.68 -

Psychsaf2 - - - 0.66 -

Psychsaf3 - - - 0.55 -

Psychsaf4 - - - 0.51 -

Psychsaf5 - - - 0.50 -

Laissezfl - - - - 0.90

Laissezf2 - - - - 0.62

Laissezf3 - - - - 0.58

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 (NNH = 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

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296 E. Raes et al.

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

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Facilitating team learning through transformational leadership 297

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

Mean SD Transform Laissez-faire TLB Psychological Social

leadership leadership safety cohesion

Transformation 4.6435 0.58153 0.957

leadership Laissez-faire 3.6672 0.47266 -0.403* 0.841

leadership TLB 4.9248 0.39769 0.490** 0.173 0.954

Psychological 4.7655 0.46722 0.540** 0.109 0.753** 0.852

safety

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)

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 y2 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 Bentier (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 (HI) 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 (x2 = 0.00, df = 0, p = 1.0000, RMSEA = 0.000) confirms hypothesis 1, transformational leadership does indeed predict TLB (ß = 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

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298 E. Raes et al.

Basic path analysis

Fig. 2 Basic path analysis

Path analysis of research model 0.46

X

Team learning behaviour

*—0.41

Fig. 3 Path analysis of research model

established (ß — 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 (x2 = 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 (ß = 0.70, t = 4.42, p < 0.001) and team psychological safety predicts TLB (ß = 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 (ß = 0.39, t = 2.34, p < 0.05) and team psychological safety predicting TLB (ß = 0.58, t = 3.36, p < 0.001). Hypothesis 5 was confirmed, transformational leadership predicts social cohesion (ß = 0.52, t = 4.42,

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Facilitating team learning through transformational leadership 299

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 (/? = 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'.

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300 E. Raes et al.

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 (ß — 0.51) than on team psychological safety (ß = 0.39). On the other hand, transformational leadership predicts both social cohesion and team psychological safety, but the primary focus goes to the latter (ß = 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

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Facilitating team learning through transformational leadership 301

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

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302 E. Raes et al.

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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