Team Processes and Leadership

Good leadership means successfully managing social relationships. However, not only leaders but also their employees ("followers") play an essential role in this process. We are interested in the complex social interaction dynamics between leaders and employees that constitute functional and dysfunctional˗ leadership processes.

Specifically, we are currently looking at how "emergent leadership" emerges within communication processes in teams, what patterns of interaction play out in employee conversations, and how leaders can successfully shape social interaction processes with their employees and build trust when "face-to-face" interaction is increasingly rare.

Interaction behavior distinguishes effective from ineffective teams. It is the basis for decision-making and creativity processes in teams, controls team performance and influences the individual well-being and work attitudes of employees.

Emotions and moods shape collaboration and can enhance or diminish team performance. We investigate how group moods are created through emotional contagion processes in team interactions and the role of positive interaction patterns such as humor in team interactions. .

We also explore the role of gender issues in the context of team interactions. In a longitudinal study, we are investigating how the gender of team members affects their own interaction behavior, the reactions of other team members, and the emergence of social interaction patterns over time. In a collaborative project with social psychology, we are investigating the effect of gender stereotypes over the course of interaction. The goal is to gain empirical insights into gender effects at both the individual and team level (gender diversity) and to derive recommendations for action for managers as well as for female employees who want to assert themselves in teams.

Contact: Nale Lehmann-Willenbrock, Clara Hemshorn de Sanchez