Leader extraversion and team performance: A moderated mediation model

Extraversion is the best and most consistent predictor of important leadership outcomes. However, there has been little exploration and examination of the mechanisms underlying the effects of extraverted leadership on performance. Drawing on distal-proximal motivational theory and situational streng...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2022-12, Vol.17 (12), p.e0278769-e0278769
Main Authors: Zhang, Jun, Yin, Kui, Li, SiQi
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Behavior
Biology and Life Sciences
Clarity
Empirical analysis
Employee motivation
Employees
Evaluation
Extraversion, Psychological
Hypotheses
Influence
Leadership
Motivation
Personality
Personality traits
Physical Sciences
Research and Analysis Methods
Roles
Social Sciences
Team leaders
Training
Work groups
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Summary:Extraversion is the best and most consistent predictor of important leadership outcomes. However, there has been little exploration and examination of the mechanisms underlying the effects of extraverted leadership on performance. Drawing on distal-proximal motivational theory and situational strength theory, the present study proposes and examines a moderated mediation model that explains how leader extraversion affects team performance and how situational characteristics strengthen or constrain this relationship. Respondents were recruited through management team training courses run by the eight Chinese companies. We conducted two rounds of electronic questionnaire collection. The first round of data was collected during the training session. Four weeks later, we collected the data through the training courses' WeChat groups. Data collected from 226 Chinese team leaders was analyzed using SPSS 26 and Mplus 7. We find that leader extraversion predicts team performance through a motivational mechanism operationalized as leader work engagement. We further find that goal clarity and process clarity play an important role in strengthening the positive effect of leader extraversion on leader work engagement as well as the motivational mechanism, providing an empirical explanation of how leader extraversion affects team performance through a motivational mechanism operationalized as leader work engagement. We also explore how two potential situational characteristics, operationalized as goal clarity and process clarity of leaders, affect the relationship between leader extraversion and leader work engagement as well as the motivational mechanism. Addionally, the findings suggest important practical implications for the organizations seeking to identify effective team leaders.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0278769