Motivation to Lead: Examining its Antecedents and Consequences in a Team Context

Abstract

A model was developed that explores several personal characteristic of individuals as predictors of their motivation to lead. Stable personality traits were hypothesized to interact with an individual's belief in the nature of effective leadership to differentially predict the level of their leadership aspirations. The use of a team laboratory design allowed for an examination of the causal nature of an individual‘s motivation to lead. An appointed team leader led their four-person team in a performance task with high levels of interdependence to examine the leader's impact on teamwork. Team leaders were rated by multiple sources during the task on directive leadership, empowering leadership, and laissez-faire leadership. Several significant relationships between personality and motivation to lead were found that lend support to earlier research on the antecedents to motivation to lead, although no moderating effects were uncovered. Leadership behaviors were differentially related to increases in team processes, and demonstrated strong associations with satisfaction with the leader, and leadership potential. Results indicated that team leaders who do not calculate the personal costs of leadership may be unable to positively influence team action processes. This study has implications for functional leadership theory, the development of the motivation to lead construct, and trait perspectives of leadership.