Leaders, Conflict, and Team Coordination : A Relational Leadership Approach in Temporary Organizations

This study explores how the level of relational leadership of team leaders, as well as their ethnicity, influences conflict management and team coordination in temporary organizations. The research extends relational leadership theory into conflict management theory to identify their effects on team performance in general and, as a proxy of effective teamwork, the level of team coordination. We evaluate how the ethnicity of leaders moderates the nature of the association between relational leadership and team performance. This contribution is unique by engaging with three moderating ethnic groups while drawing on data from 126 teams in temporary organizations, using PLS path-modelling to test the hypotheses. Relational leadership influences team members’ cooperative and conflict-avoiding styles, which are, in turn, positively associated with team coordination and performance. The judicious and considered use of the conflict-avoiding style should be recognised as a solution in multi-cultural team contexts and as a consequence of relational leadership