Considerate leadership and performance in diverse teams

¶ … Diversity: The positive effects of considerate leadership on diverse teams" by Astrid C. Homan and Lindred L. Greer (2013)

Describe the purpose of the article -- what were the authors attempting to address?

This study focused on identifying and overcoming constraints to effective performance of teams comprised of diverse members who may differ culturally, racially, or along any number of other dimensions. To this end, the authors critically reviewed three studies concerning the effects of considerate leadership of diverse team functioning based on the following hypotheses:

Members of diverse teams are more likely to prefer leader consideration than members of homogeneous teams;

Diverse teams (compared to homogeneous teams) will perform better and experience less subgroup formation to the degree that their leader shows more consideration;

Diversity will be more strongly related to leader perceptions of individual differences (i.e., leader individuation) to the degree that the leader scores higher on consideration; and,

4. The interaction between team diversity and leader consideration on team performance will be mediated by perceived subgroup formation and leader individuation (pp. 109-110).

What do the authors mean when they say the positive effects of considerate leadership in diverse teams?

While their findings are relatively intuitive, Homan and Greer make the point that the extent to which team leaders recognize individual team members as unique individuals will likely be the extent to which these teams perform at their optimal level. In this regard, Homan and Greer (2013) report that, "Considerate leadership is an effective way to deal with the potential downsides of diversity. Considerate leaders show concern and respect for followers, look out for their welfare, and express appreciation and support" (p. 106).

What did the researchers find from their study, and what conclusions did they make from their findings?

One of the main findings to emerge from this study concerned the preferences demonstrated by diverse teams for different types of leadership styles, with considerate leadership being regarded as a highly effective approach for diverse team settings. For instance, Homan and Greer note that, "Considerate leadership is characterized by healing relationships, solving conflicts, increasing trust [and] is especially preferred by, and beneficial for, diverse groups. We identified a mechanism by which considerate leaders are helpful to diverse groups -- namely, heightened leader individuation of team members" (p. 118). In sum, these findings largely confirmed the above-cited hypotheses except for hypothesis number four.

What are your take aways from this study? Is there anything you learned that you can apply to your organization?