Shared leadership and its role in team learning

Teams have been identified as the vehicle for learning in organizations. However, little is known about the factors that enable teams to learn. From an applied perspective, leadership constitutes a very relevant ingredient. This study is a first step in building up this theory by focusing on the role of shared leadership in team learning. We present data from an exploratory observatory study on the collective leadership and learning process in two business consulting student teams. This qualitative data is used to investigate shared leadership emergence and its role in team learning and is conceptualized as interplays of reflection and action. We find that the more team members engaged in the leadership process, the more the team learned. In particular, we find that shared leadership activities related to task, relations and change complemented one another and enhanced reflection and action in different ways.