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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of shared leadership on the gap between male and female leadership influence in groups. Design/methodology/approach – The leadership influence of 231 members from 28 committees was studied using a social networks methodology. Gender differences in committee members’ directive and supportive leadership influence were analyzed through two ANCOVA tests. Findings – Results confirm significant differences between men and women’s leadership influence, as rated by their peers, using directive and supportive leader behaviors. Surprisingly, shared leadership has no significant effect on reducing this gender gap. Research limitations/implications – Results cannot be extrapolated to all other types of groups, since the committees studied have very unique characteristics due to their low typical mutual interaction. Practical implications – Organizations may need to consider complementary strategies in their group leadership design to prevent the emergence of strong gender gaps when leadership is shared. These strategies could involve training members to recognize gender inequalities in leadership status and assigning leadership roles formally to ensure more equal participation in leadership. Originality/value – This paper examines the promise of gender equality in shared leadership and provides empirical data that shows that this promise is not being realized.

Purpose – A theoretical analysis evidences the existence of multiple patterns of collective leadership and serves as foundation for the proposal of a two-dimensional model of collective leadership, which evaluates leadership sharedness (the extent to which leadership roles are shared by group members), and leadership distribution (the extent to which different leadership roles are permanently assigned to group members). The relationship between these dimensions and committee effectiveness is further tested. Design/methodology/approach – A social networks methodology is used with a sample of 28 committees. Two complementary network properties (centralization and density) are used to operationalize leadership sharedness and a new measure is developed to operationalize leadership distribution. Stepwise regressions test the relation between collective leadership dimensions and performance. Findings – The model proposed advances the understanding of collective leadership’s internal dynamics and facilitates empirical comparisons of the effectiveness of various forms of collective leadership. The highest committee performance was found in groups where members contribute equally to charismatic and supportive leadership but only when these equal contributions were high. In collective directive and participative leadership, however, equality of contribution was associated to higher performance independently on the strength of members’ contributions. No relationship was found between the distribution of leadership roles among group members and committee performance. Research limitations/implications – A small sample size may have reduced hypothesis testing power. The intraclass corrections (ICC(2)) were lower than recommended. Finally, results cannot be extrapolated beyond committees, which have very unique characteristics due to their low typical interaction. Practical implications – Organizations can improve committee performance by ensuring high and equal participation of members in their group’s leadership through training and selection. Enhancing participation of all members in leadership requires special attention to women and members of minorities, that are typically attributed less leadership influence and whose commitment to the group may be hurt by lack of involvement. Originality/value – The two-dimensional model proposed goes beyond previously published models in exploring several aspects of collective leadership internal dynamics by advancing the understanding how different aspects of collective leadership patterns affect group performance.

One path to the successful transference of knowledge is through linking concepts to students' experience. To provide this connection, we used an experiential methodology to design an exercise called mood, emotion, and affect in group performance. This exercise provides learners with an opportunity to experience, in addition to hearing and reading about, the effects of positive and negative dispositions on a group task. We describe the design and mechanics of the exercise with practical reflections from the use of the exercise in many different environments. The paper ends with end-of-the semester student comments and instructor reflections.

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