Ambidextrous Leadership for Innovation: How the Dynamic Interplay of Leadership Behaviors in Teams Can Foster Innovation

创新过程是复杂的，至少包含创造力（即产生新的有用的想法）和实施（即实现这些想法）的两个子过程。领导力被认为是追随者创新表现的关键预测因素。然而，同一种领导风格不太可能同时支持创造力和执行绩效。事实上，研究人员认为，传统的领导风格并不适合促进下属的创新绩效，因为这些领导风格忽视了创新过程的复杂性，特别是创造力和实施之间的区别。为了克服现有领导与创新研究的局限性，我们提出了双灵巧领导的概念。双灵巧领导模型提出领导者需要采取开放的领导行为来支持追随者解决创造力要求，领导者需要采取封闭的领导行为来支持追随者解决实施要求。此外，领导者需要能够在他们的行为中表现出高度的可变性，因为创造力和实施的要求在整个创新过程中都是波动的。最近的研究支持了双灵巧领导模型的核心假设。然而，专门针对领导行为在不同情境下的可变性方面的研究仍然很少。此外，还缺乏一种有效而全面的双灵巧型领导评估工具。因此，本项目的中心目标是开发一种双灵巧领导情境判断测试，能够涵盖双灵巧领导的所有相关方面：(1)领导者参与开放和封闭领导行为的程度，(2)在不同情况下使用开放和封闭领导行为的可变性，以及(3)领导行为与情境要求的一致性。该项目的第一阶段将致力于开发情境判断测试。在第二阶段，我们将进行两项验证研究，以全面验证新仪器。我们建议，一个合适的评估工具，两手灵巧的领导是有益的研究和实践。首先，它为深入检验双灵巧领导模型所隐含的理论假设提供了必要的前提条件。其次，情境判断测试提供了一种有效的方法来评估双手灵巧的领导能力，例如在领导力培训和/或人员选择环境中。

Innovation processes are complex and encompass at least two sub-processes of creativity (i.e., the generation of new and useful ideas) and implementation (i.e., the realization of these ideas). Leadership has been identified as a crucial predictor of followers’ innovative performance. However, it is unlikely that one and the same leadership style is able to support both creativity and implementation performance. Indeed, researchers have argued that traditional leadership styles are not well suited to promote followers’ innovative performance as these leadership styles disregard the complexity of innovation processes, especially the differentiation between creativity and implementation. To overcome the limitations of extant research on leadership and innovation, we developed the concept of ambidextrous leadership. The ambidextrous leadership model proposes that leaders need to engage in opening leadership behavior to support followers in addressing creativity requirements and they need to engage in closing leadership behavior to support followers in addressing implementation requirements. Moreover, leaders need to be able to show high levels of variability in their behavior as the requirements of creativity and implementation fluctuate throughout the innovation process. Recent research supports central assumptions of the ambidextrous leadership model. However, research specifically on the aspect of variability of leader behavior across situations is still scarce. In addition, an efficient and comprehensive assessment tool of ambidextrous leadership is missing. Therefore, the central aim of this project is to develop a situational judgment test on ambidextrous leadership that is able to cover all relevant aspects of ambidextrous leadership: (1) the extent that leaders engage in opening and closing leadership behavior, (2) the variability in using opening and closing leadership behavior across different situations, and (3) the alignment of leadership behavior to situational requirements. The first phase of the project will be dedicated to the development of the situational judgment test. In the second phase, we will conduct two validation studies to comprehensively validate the new instrument. We propose that an appropriate assessment tool of ambidextrous leadership is beneficial for both research and practice. First, it offers a necessary prerequisite for in-depth testing of theoretical assumptions implied by the ambidextrous leadership model. Second, the situational judgment test provides an efficient means to assess ambidextrous leadership, for example, in leadership training and/or personnel selection contexts.