How Do Leaders and their Teams Bring about Organizational Learning and Outcomes?

Abstract

How do leaders generate a learning climate that yields favorable organizational outcomes? To address this question, we offer and test a model linking charismatic leadership with the team-emergent states of shared vision and trust within the team, as predicting organizational learning climate, and long-term assessments of organizational outcomes by key stakeholders. We examined this model in a sample of 69 Arab elementary schools in Israel using multiple sources of raters, predicting long-term assessments by key stakeholders of respective schools (parents and superintendents) at 2 points in time: 1 year and 3 years following the survey of the teachers. In line with our expectations, we obtained an overall, indirect effect between charismatic leadership and organizational learning climate. We also found support for both the direct and indirect effects of leader charisma through trust within the team on organizational learning climate and school outcomes. Although charismatic leadership predicted shared vision among team members, shared vision did not predict organizational learning climate, and hence, our proposed mediating effects of shared vision on organizational learning climate and outcomes were not supported. We discuss both theoretical and practical implications for the effects of leaders on learning processes and outcomes.

From Principals' Inspirational Vision Content and Potential Absorptive Capacity to Realized Absorptive Capacity: Predicting Teacher Absenteeism

“…A further result of the current research related to the effect of principals' inspirational vision content on RACAP. This is in line with previous studies relating school principals with organizational learning (Berson et al, 2015). Specifically, school teachers who perceived the principal's vision as optimistic, inspirational, and presenting challenges and opportunities, were more likely to create something new based on the ''transformed'' knowledge.…”

“…We controlled for the effects of school size (i.e., number of teachers employed by the school) and principals' tenure in their jobs, because these variables are potentially relevant to outcomes such as organizational learning (Berson et al, 2015).…”

“…Researchers have argued that leaders need a clear vision to encourage followers to acquire, assimilate, transform and exploit external knowledge, and to collectively think about and share information on an ongoing basis (Berson et al, 2015;Da'as, 2007). Specifically, the content of the vision is critical in encouraging followers to promote learning processes (Orhan et al, 2014), and in determining whether the leader will move in new directions while maintaining a high level of continued success (Berson et al, 2001).…”

Stronger Than the Sum of Its Parts? The Performance Implications of Peer Control Combinations in Teams

“…Although trust appears to be multifaceted in nature, these different facets are proposed to be "mutually supportive aspects" that combine psychologically to form a "unitary experience called trust" (Lewis and Weigert 1985, p. 972). In support, numerous intrateam trust studies relying on McAllister's (1995) "multidimensional" scale found the scale to be unidimensional (e.g., Berson et al 2014, Braun et al 2013, Dirks 2000, Mach et al 2010. Consistent with these arguments and the majority of the literature (e.g., Crisp and Jarvenpaa 2013, Joshi et al 2009, Langfred 2004, we therefore conceptualize intrateam trust as a unitary construct.…”

How Does Leader Humility Influence Team Performance? Exploring the Mechanisms of Contagion and Collective Promotion Focus

“…Many leadership writings assume that leaders shape group culture and values, and these drive behaviors, which then determine group performance (Deal & Kennedy, 2000; see also Berson, Da'as, & Waldman, 2014;Sun, Xu, & Shang, 2014). For example, transformational leaders, through their powerful analogies, inspiring visions and uplifting stated values (Schein, 1990), produce a "transformational culture," which then in turn influences team performance behavior (i.e., Bass & Avolio, 1993: 119;Parry & Proctor-Thomson, 2003).…”