Leader affective presence and innovation in teams.

Abstract

Affective presence is a novel personality construct that describes the tendency of individuals to make their interaction partners feel similarly positive or negative. We adopt this construct, together with the input–process–output model of teamwork, to understand how team leaders influence team interaction and innovation performance. In 2 multisource studies, based on 350 individuals working in 87 teams of 2 public organizations and 734 individuals working in 69 teams of a private organization, we tested and supported hypotheses that team leader positive affective presence was positively related to team information sharing, whereas team leader negative affective presence was negatively related to the same team process. In turn, team information sharing was positively related to team innovation, mediating the effects of leader affective presence on this team output. The results indicate the value of adopting an interpersonal individual differences approach to understanding how affect-related characteristics of leaders influence interaction processes and complex performance in teams.