Visionary and Operational efficiency behaviors, middle managers should refrain from Supportive
leadership behaviors and lower-level managers should perform Intellectual stimulation,
Organizational creativity and Business development behaviors.
THE POTENTIAL OF SHARED STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP
The primary question in the last application study was the extent to which leadership could be shared
amongst team members. Besides the trend towards more horizontal and externally oriented
organizations, there has also been a trend to look beyond the individual leader as a source of
leadership (Nonaka & Nishiguchi, 2001; Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995; Pearce & Conger, 2003a), where
leadership is not necessarily be tied to a particular individual in authority position (Huxham &
Vangen, 2000). Shared leadership is a recent concept which provides leeway for the increased burden
on the shoulders of individual single leaders. In this dissertation, strategic leadership is analyzed in
terms of strategic leadership effectuated by the team leader, which has been called vertical strategic
leadership and strategic leadership effectuated by the team members as a collective effort, called
shared strategic leadership.
The most important finding was that shared leadership was an important predictor for the
environment-oriented team effectiveness measures. These results showed that a conscious strategy of
sharing the strategic leadership functions of Business development and Client centricity is likely to
enhance team effectiveness in terms of its external orientation. Hence, the notion of shared strategic
leadership suits the societal trend, where the interaction between the organization and the
environment, becomes more and more crucial for organizational performance.
10.2 THEORETICAL CONTRIBUTIONS..................................................................................................................................
This dissertation bears multiple theoretical contributions. First of all, it has developed a conceptual
model for strategic leadership. This model has been operationalized and proved to be stable across
samples in terms of exploratory and confirmatory analyses and distinctive from transformational
leadership (selected as an appropriate measure of supervisory leadership).
The strategic leadership model holds primary value as it links strategy and leadership (Montgomery,
2008) and is distinct from the mainstream supervisory leadership concept. Strategic leadership goes
beyond disciplinary and theoretical boundaries. No longer fixating on the internal leader-follower
dyad (Yukl, 1999b), but opening up the leadership perspective, including the interaction of the
organization with its environment. Moreover, this dissertation shows that leadership concept holds