Leadership and Communication as Antecedents of Shared Mental Models Emergence

The effect of leadership on shared mental-model emergence was investigated in the current study. In an experimental setting, 44 2-, 3-, and 4-person teams (N = 129) working on a complex building-block task were assigned to one of three leadership manipulations (inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, control). Team sessions were video recorded, and intra-group communication patterns were coded. We found that leadership style influenced intra-group communication patterns. Furthermore, leadership styles were related to shared mental-model emergence through the mediating effect of intra-group communication patterns. Specifically, task-related communication mediated the relationship between both inspirational motivation and intellectual stimulation and taskwork models, while team-related communication mediated the relationship between intellectual stimulation and both teamwork and taskwork mental models. These findings are particularly important for practice, as leadership behaviors were found to encourage teams to reach consensus on team and task functioning more quickly through improved communication and information exchange.