Experience-Based Learning About LMX Leadership and Fairness in Project Teams: A Dyadic Directional Approach

Teamwork skills and knowledge are becoming more important to organizations as they compete in the information age and the knowledge economy (Seers, 2004; Stevens & Campion, 1994). Unfortunately, our business school curricula have not kept pace with the demand for more realistic education, despite our increased attention to develop a ready workforce (Chen, Donahue, & Klimoski, 2004; O'Neil, Allerd, & Baker, 1997). We describe a study on imparting experience-based learning about team- and dyadic-level leadership as a project in classroom research (Loyd, Kern, & Thompson, 2005). As designed, teams were allowed to struggle and succeed or fail based on their critical leadership choices. Results showed that team members experienced deeply the hard lessons of leadership without the real organizational threat of a career-damaging failure experience on their advancement records.