When Power Makes Others Speechless: The Negative Impact of Leader Power on Team Performance

By L. Tost, Francesca Gino, Richard P. Larrick. 2013

230 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We examine the impact of subjective power on leadership behavior and demonstrate that the psychological effect of power on leaders spills over to impact team effectiveness. Specifically, drawing from the approach/inhibition theory of power, power-devaluation theory, and organizational research on the antecedents of employee voice, we argue that a leader's experience of heightened power produces verbal dominance, which reduces perceptions of leader openness and team open communication. Consequently, there is a negative effect of leader power on team performance. Three studies find consistent support for this argument. The implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Subfields: Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/5f6d98ad593e8aaef2c577407f54a4250a3511f9

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management

1. Matej Cerne
2. Miha Škerlavaj
3. L. Bunderen
4. Siyu Yu
5. Junha Kim
6. Lindred L. Greer
7. Y. Kim
8. Sabina Bogilović

In Sociology and Political Science

1. L. Bunderen
2. Siyu Yu
3. Miha Škerlavaj
4. Junha Kim
5. Lindred L. Greer
6. Y. Kim
7. Matej Cerne
8. Sabina Bogilović

Citations in the corpus

• The dysfunctions of power in teams: A review and emergent conflict perspective (2017, background): “In support of the conflict account, many studies have found negative effects of power dispersion on team outcomes (e.g., Edmondson, 2002; Torrance, 1955; Tost et al., 2013; Van der Vegt, De Jong, Bunderson, & Molleman, 2010), and conflict has been frequently shown to mediate”
• Hiding behind a mask? Cultural intelligence, knowledge hiding, and individual and team creativity (2017, result): “For example, a previous study by Tost, Gino, and Larrick (2013) demonstrated a high correlation between reported talking time and recorded talking time.”
• Does Negative Feedback Benefit (or Harm) Recipient Creativity? The Role of the Direction of Feedback Flow (2020, methodology): “…these characteristics, we manipulated the direction of feedback flow in two ways: (1) by assigning the participants to the role of supervisor, follower, or peer, and (2) by offering different levels of resource controls (Anderson & Berdahl, 2002; Jordan et al., 2011; Tost, Gino, & Larrick, 2013).”
• Gritting their teeth to close the sale: the positive effect of salesperson grit on job satisfaction and performance (2018, background): “Here we define need for power, not as a hierarchical status or a position within a network (Tost 2015), but as a broader psychological need in which salespeople feel that they can influence the outcomes and experiences of others (Tost, Gino, and Larrick, 2013).”