Abstract

A multilevel model of leadership, empowerment, and performance was tested using a sample of 62 teams, 445 individual members, 62 team leaders, and 31 external managers from 31 stores of a Fortune 500 company. Leader-member exchange and leadership climate related differently to individual and team empowerment and interacted to influence individual empowerment. Also, several relationships were supported in more but not in less interdependent teams. Specifically, leader-member exchange related to individual performance partially through individual empowerment; leadership climate related to team performance partially through team empowerment; team empowerment moderated the relationship between individual empowerment and performance; and individual performance was positively related to team performance. Contributions to team leadership theory, research, and practices are discussed. Keywords: teams, leadership, motivation, multilevel, performance As a result of the widespread move to team-based organizations in industry, managers are often asked to lead and motivate not only individuals but also teams as a whole Perhaps owing to these same trends in industry, researchers have primarily focused their efforts at the team level of analysis without considering important individual-level processes in team contexts Accordingly, the main purpose of our study was to extend previous research and answer these theoretically and practically relevant calls for multilevel team leadership and motivation research. We do so by examining team leader behaviors and employee motivation simultaneously at both the individual and team levels of analysis. In particular, we develop and test a multilevel model of leadership and motivation through the lens of employee empowerment, a motivational concept that, over the last two de-