Enabling team learning when members are prone to contentious communication: The role of team leader coaching

John Schaubroeck, Abraham Carmeli, Sarena Bhatia, Etty Paz

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

34 Scopus citations

Abstract

Members of teams are often prone to interpersonal communication patterns that can undermine the team’s capacity to engage in self-learning processes that are critical to team adaptation and performance improvement. We argue that team leader coaching behaviors are critical to ensuring that team discussions that may foster learning new teamwork skills and strategies are unfettered by the tendency of two or more members to exhibit contentious interpersonal communications. We accordingly test a model in which team contentious communication moderates the mediated relationship of team leader coaching behaviors on team innovation effectiveness and team task performance. In a study of 82 work teams, team leader coaching behaviors exhibited indirect, positive relationships with both team innovation effectiveness and team task performance through team learning, but only among teams with an average or higher level of contentious interpersonal communication. We discuss theoretical and practical implications for the leadership of teams.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1709-1727
Number of pages19
JournalHuman Relations
Volume69
Issue number8
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Aug 2016
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2016, © The Author(s) 2016.

Keywords

  • contentious communication
  • group communication
  • team innovation
  • team leader coaching
  • team learning
  • team performance

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