Knowledge sharing in teams is the gold standard for modern organizations. A recent study published in the European Management Journal examined how leadership style impacts knowledge sharing behaviors in the workplace. More specifically, the authors aimed to uncover the effect of two types of leadership, shared and transformational.

Shared leadership is seen when employees are assigned joint responsibility for activities that are traditionally overseen by a formal leader. Transformational leadership, on the other hand, involves a leader who takes on the role of coaching and inspiring collaboration among employees.

In the study, the researchers tested the hypothesis that these two types of leadership enhance perceptions of knowledge sharing behavior in the workplace, with one style in particular proving to be more effective.

In addition, they were curious to find whether this relationship had anything to do with an individual's psychological needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness.

What the researchers uncovered was that one of the two leadership styles seems to win out over the other when it comes to fostering knowledge sharing behavior in the workplace.

Sharing your way to successful workplace communication

Decentralization of authority is a common theme in the contemporary workplace due to trends such as globalization. As a result, we increasingly find the need to enhance open communication between leaders and their workers, especially when organizations are faced with complex problems. Multi-faceted issues often require multi-faceted solutions, which is why the all-ruling “boss” is increasingly becoming replaced by more collaborative forms of leadership.