When the Firefighter Flees the Scene: A Leader-Centric Investigation of Team Conflict and Team Leader Role Disengagement

Abstract: In light of the predominantly negative effect of team conflict for team functioning, scholars have explored enlisting team leaders to help resolve conflict among team members. However, research evidence so far has been inconclusive. We challenge the prevailing assumption implied in this body of research—namely, that team leaders are immune to the fallout of team conflict and can act as a neutral third party. Instead, we draw from Kahn’s (1990) theory of (dis)engagement and posit that team conflict may erode team leader psychological safety and trigger the leader’s disengagement from their leadership roles. Moreover, we incorporate team leader organizational politics perceptions and conflict symmetry to explicate the joint influence of the extra-team and within-team context, respectively. Multisource, time-separated data from a sample of work teams provide good support for our hypotheses. Overall, our model suggests that team conflict can negatively affect team leaders.

Keywords: task conflict, relationship conflict, psychological safety, team leadership, organizational politics