Falling over ourselves to follow the leader: conceptualizing connections between transformational leader behaviors and dysfunctional team conflict.

With regard to team conflict, a team leader can affect the performance of a decision-making team in two ways: (a) by stimulating cognitive conflict and (b) by minimizing the instances of cognitive conflict becoming affective conflict. The perspective that a team leader can improve performance by managing two aspects of conflict is consistent with observations in the literature that a team leader's job involves dealing with problems that are both task related and team maintenance related (Hogan, Curphy, & Hogan, 1994). This idea is not new. For example, Maier (1950) proposed that an effective team leader's role is (a) to stimulate thought and debate and not allow the team to settle too early on a particular decision or outcome and (b) to minimize the level of frustration in the team, which results in "hostile, childish, and stubborn behavior" (p. 163). Given the challenges of stimulating cognitive conflict while restraining affective conflict, it is critically important to identify leader behaviors that can affect patterns of team conflict--for better or for worse.

The nature of cognitive and affective conflict, as described above, suggests that team leaders should display behaviors that emphasize rules, structure, and an environment that provides members with room for debate but with restrictions for the methods of debate. Leader behaviors can serve to reduce the freedom to express emotion in inappropriate ways and thereby reduce the likelihood of an affective-conflict episode. In addition, given that the interpretation of events can have powerful effects on the experience of emotion (Speisman, Lazarus, Mordkoff, & Davison, 1964), a leader's behavior can affect team members' assessments of cognitive conflict by continuously reminding them that frustration is a common element of this process and that the intent of critiquing each other's positions is not to get personal but to arrive at a high-quality team decision. The team leader can clarify noncompetitive intentions of other team members (Thomas & Pondy, 1977).

Leaders can also make team members aware that anger tends to lead to aggression and can encourage them to monitor their emotions and to control themselves in channeling their angry feelings and impulses into action (Ury, 1991). The overall aim of such leader behaviors is to minimize adverse emotional responses to cognitive conflict and thereby reduce the likelihood that cognitive conflict will develop into affective conflict.

Second, behavioral manifestations of emotion tend to be curtailed in situations that do not permit free expression of emotion (Lazarus, 1991). In such situations, people may rely on cognitive coping strategies such as reinterpreting the meaning of events (Lazarus, 1991). A team leader can reduce instances of aggression and hostility by discouraging such behaviors, reprimanding inappropriate, emotionally driven outbreaks, and clearly specifying the rules of conduct (Brett et al., 1998). For example, the team leader can remind team members of their superordinate goal(s) (Eisenhardt, 1999), their common team membership, and their mutual dependence (Pruitt & Rubin, 1986). In addition, leaders can establish clear rules of conduct which may include the following: Listen to others' ideas respectfully, without interrupting or making cynical comments; if a member fails to see the essence of another's arguments, seek clarification but do not use judgmental or set-up questions; critique ideas but do not criticize individuals; challenge others' assumptions but do not challenge their integrity, intelligence, or motives (Tjosvold, 1993). Consequently, the team members are likely to perceive little need to escalate conflict (reciprocate aggression) because the leader's explicit job is to enforce fair rules of conduct.

We have identified leader behaviors that would effectively reduce the likelihood of cognitive conflict degenerating into affective conflict. Table 1 provides a summary of how cognitive conflict transmits into affective conflict and lists the actions that a leader can take to reduce this transmission. Based on this assessment, for decision-making teams, the fundamental relevant leader behaviors involve directiveness and role clarification (House, 1998; Keller, 1989), provision of rewards and feedback, and maintenance of positive interaction among team members (House, 1998). It is interesting that all the suitable leader behaviors described are those typically associated with what the literature defines as transactional leader behaviors.

Transactional leadership theories (Wofford & Liska, 1993) are based on the concept that the role of a leader is to help followers attain rewards that they perceive as valuable in exchange for their compliance. The central behaviors indicative of transactional leadership reflect the application of contingent rewards for attaining designated performance levels (Bass, 1985). This can require a set of related leader behaviors that include role clarification, the provision of feedback, and assurance that team members are coordinating their efforts toward the performance goals (Wofford & Liska, 1993). As outlined above, these behaviors are ideally suited to minimizing the transmission of affective conflict from cognitive conflict.

In their recent empirical study, Kotlyar and Karakowsky (2006) suggested that different leadership styles (transactional, transformational, and external leaders) can have very different effects on the degree and nature of conflict generated in work teams and consequently may affect the ultimate performance of the team. The question is, do transformational leadership behaviors trigger equally beneficial consequences for team conflict management? What, indeed, is the potential impact of transformational leader behaviors on the level and types of conflict generated in decision-making teams? This issue is addressed below.

Transformational Leader Behaviors and Cognitive Conflict

It has been known for some time that transformational leaders trigger cognitive and affective consequences among followers, including emotional attachment and motivation arousal (Conger & Kanungo, 1998; House, 1998). Conceptualizing connections between transformational leader behavior and team conflict requires a consideration of leadership behaviors that can trigger conflict. The literature indicates three fundamental components of transformational leadership behaviors: vision, vision implementation, and transformational communication style (Groves, 2005; Kirkpatrick & Locke, 1996). That is, among the most central characteristics of transformational leaders is the ability to communicate a vision and motivate followers to embrace this vision (Bass, 1985; Conger, 1991; House, 1977; Yukl & Van Fleet, 1992). It is the manner in which the leader's vision is communicated and the nature of the values the leader instills that can ultimately motivate team conflict--both constructive and dysfunctional.

The leadership literature often describes transformational leaders as using a vision to offer a new reality to their followers, which can impel followers to re-examine their existing social realities and priorities among their needs (Bass, 1985). A vision, in contrast to a goal, is a "general transcendent ideal that represents shared values; it is often ideological in nature and has moral overtones" (Kirkpatrick & Locke, 1996, p. 37). As Bass (1990) asserted, through a vivid description of a vision, transformational leaders can "inspire and excite their followers" (p. 21) to engage in a certain set of activities with pride and enthusiasm (House, 1998). The emphasis on engaging followers with values and needs, often excluding the status quo to inspire thinking outside the box, is consistent with the aim of generating constructive conflict--that is, cognitive conflict in decision-making teams.

Transformational leaders engage in a range of behaviors to communicate or promote vision implementation. For example, such leaders will act as a role model in inspiring followers to implement this vision (Bass, 1985) and engage in a variety of other behaviors to effect follower involvement. The job of a transformational leader in a decision-making team is different from that in other types of teams. Typically, the ability of a transformational leader to achieve superb performance is attributed to his or her ability to unify followers through a common vision and to reduce the divergence of views and the accompanying conflict (e.g., House, 1998; Howell & Hall-Merenda, 1999). However, a transformational leader can also stimulate a divergence of views and generate cognitive conflict by creating a sense of shared values in which dialectical interaction is desirable. This may cause team members to overcome their need to get along with others and motivate them to critically evaluate others' ideas and to express their own points of view.

In sum, behaviors reflective of transformational leadership style appear to be compatible with the requirements necessary for stimulating cognitive conflict in a team. The effectiveness of transformational leaders in facilitating constructive conflict can be summarized in the following proposition:

Proposition 1: The ability of transformational leaders to instill a compelling vision in team members that emphasizes constructive conflict will enhance the team's capacity for generating cognitive team conflict.

Transformational Leader Behaviors and Affective Conflict