Understanding Innovation in Hybrid Teams: The Moderating Role of Psychological Safety on Leadership Styles

Abstract

Work as we know it has changed. Numerous studies have previously explored the role of leadership and its impact on innovation in conventional team settings. Studies have also explored how psychological safety can have various positive impacts at a team and individual level, however there is not much in the literature exploring the intersection of these topics in less conventional contexts (e.g. virtual and/or hybrid teams). The proposed research studied leader style and its’ ability to foster innovation in today’s largely virtual or hybrid working environment through the moderating effect of psychological safety. A survey methodology was employed to investigate the relationship between different leadership styles, Psychological Safety (PS), and Innovative Work Behaviours (IWB) in hybrid or virtual teams. Targeting individuals who were part of virtual teams across the capital projects and technology organisation within a top (Fortune 100) multinational energy firm, data were collected from 149 team members on 31 teams to capture their perceptions across these variables of interest. It was hypothesized that leaders who exhibit higher levels of Transformational Leadership behaviours will experience more IWB from team members, which was confirmed via HLM analysis. Additional hypotheses exploring the inverse relationship between Transactional Leadership and IWB, and the moderating role of PS, were also substantiated. Implications, limitations, and areas of future study are also discussed.