The traditional notion that effective leadership inevitably flows from one person at the top who directs the actions of others may not be true.
A study published in the April/May issue of the Academy of Management Journal suggests that groups that allow leadership to vary from one individual to another as situations change can have better, more creative outcomes. The team collectively owns the leadership role and creativity thrives as power shifts from one individual to another.
Instead of hierarchy ruling, a more flexible approach, dubbed “heterarchy”, works better.
The term heterarchy comes from neurobiological research on the way that the brain is organized. The study is titled “The Riddle of Heterarchy: Power Transitions in Cross-Functional Teams.”
“As far as we know, this is the first research to find that power-shifting not only is nicely democratic but pays off in enhanced creativity,” comments Federico Aime in a press release from the academy. Aime is an associate professor of management at Oklahoma State University, who carried out the study with Stephen Humphrey of Pennsylvania State University, D. Scott Derue of the University of Michigan, and Jeffrey B. Paul of the University of Tulsa.
Researchers recruited 131 business school students and divided them into 45 teams of four or five individuals. Unknown to the students, each team included two researchers who were told to observe team interactions and avoid being overly creative themselves.
The tasks required teams to create a marketing plan and a website to introduce a new cell phone to college students and then make a presentation to a panel of marketing experts. The most creative team was awarded $500.
Students believed that responses to questionnaires were used to determine leadership assignments. Instead, everything was decided randomly.
The study’s conclusions suggest that teams work better when more than one team member has leadership potential. It also is important that teams have people with diverse skills and talents and that those skills and talents are known to everyone on the team.
And when leadership power shifts, team members must accept change as legitimate and appropriate.
While the study’s focus was on lower and middle management, researchers say the results are also likely applicable to decision making by top level executives as well.
The Academy of Management was formed in 1936 by two management teachers at the University of Chicago for the purpose of fostering scholarship of management. Today the professional organization is headquartered at Pace University and the Lubin School of Business and has nearly 18,000 members in 150 countries.
