Understanding leadership as an emerging process across team and organizational boundaries: consequences for the employment relationship

State of the art:
Contemporary workers cooperate in multiple, temporary, boundaryless and often virtual teams to pursue shared value-based goals. The growing empowerment implies that future leadership will be increasingly diffuse, which is reflected in how the employment relationshipis managed.

New Perspectives/Contribution:
We argue that leadership is no longer simply appointed to a formal leader, but refers to an emerging process by which individuals are expected to be pro-active and to motivate themselves (self-leadership) and others (shared leadership). However, hierarchical leadership still remains important to create and communicate meaning and direction in organizational activities. Formal leaders increasingly delegate the management of the employment relationship to their followers and teams, who have to take over aspects of the governance of the employment relationship (e.g. via peer or clan control), who become part of the
exchange relationship (e.g. via knowledge sharing and mutual support) and have to co-shape the cooperation dimension (e.g. via partnerships based on ‘swift’ trust). The emergent leadership process should lead to better individual outcomes (e.g. psychological need satisfaction, shared goal-orientation and psychological empowerment, proactive behaviors) necessary to stimulate organizational performance (e.g. co-creativity and ongoing
innovation).

Research/Practical Implications:
Whoever takes on the leadership role (organization, formal leader and team members), has a responsibility in managing the employment relationship and need to understand how individuals can be motivated.

Orginality/Value:
Building on insights from HRM, leadership and organizational behavior literature, our study explores how changes in leadership (outsourcing the leadership role) influences the extension of the employment relationship.