WHEN POWER MAKES OTHERS SPEECHLESS: THE … Gino and Larrick...teams to understand how power differences affect team interactions and decision-making processes. We therefore set out

WHEN POWER MAKES OTHERS SPEECHLESS: THE NEGATIVEIMPACT OF LEADER POWER ON TEAM PERFORMANCE

LEIGH PLUNKETT TOSTUniversity of Michigan

FRANCESCA GINOHarvard University

RICHARD P. LARRICKDuke University

We examine the impact of the subjective experience of power on leadership dynamicsand team performance and find that the psychological effect of power on formalleaders spills over to affect team performance. We argue that a formal leader’s expe-rience of heightened power produces verbal dominance, which reduces team commu-nication and consequently diminishes performance. Importantly, because these dy-namics rely on the acquiescence of other team members to the leader’s dominantbehavior, the effects only emerge when the leader holds a formal leadership position.Three studies offer consistent support for this argument. The implications for theoryand practice are discussed.

Organizations make extensive use of teams whenstructuring and allocating work projects. Given theincreasing prevalence of teams in modern organi-zations and the complexities involved in group dy-namics, questions about how to ensure high levelsof collective learning and effective decision mak-ing, along with other key determinants of teamperformance, have captured extensive attentionfrom researchers and practitioners alike (Martin &Bal, 2006). One important area of inquiry into teameffectiveness is the issue of how the degree of hier-archy within a team can affect team performance.This question is relatively understudied, but someextant literature suggests that steeper hierarchy hasa diminishing effect on team learning and teamperformance in general. For example, in a qualita-tive field study, Edmondson (2003) found powerdifferences in teams to be negatively associatedwith team learning, and Eisenhardt and Bourgeois(1988), using a case-based methodological ap-proach, found that power inequality in teams in-creases political conflict and diminishes team per-formance. Similarly, other field-based research has

shown that when teams are characterized bysteeper hierarchies, team members are less likely tolearn from member differences (Bunderson, 2003a,2003b). The negative effect of hierarchy on teamperformance suggested by these field-based studiesmay be surprising in light of evidence of the manypositive effects of hierarchy: in particular, workingin a hierarchical setting can be motivating for someindividuals, and hierarchy also has been shown toincrease coordination and cooperation (see Ander-son and Brown [2010] and Halevy, Chou, and Ga-linsky [2011] for recent reviews). Given the multi-ple benefits of hierarchical contexts, why haveprevious field-based findings demonstrated a neg-ative effect of power differences on team learningand performance?

An answer to this question requires an investiga-tion of the micromechanisms by which hierarchycan affect leadership dynamics and team perfor-mance. In this article, we argue that to explain thenegative effect that power inequalities can have onteam performance, it is necessary to look withinteams to understand how power differences affectteam interactions and decision-making processes.We therefore set out to investigate, through a seriesof laboratory studies, how a team leader’s experi-ence of power and level of formal authority affectcommunication dynamics within the team, teamlearning, and, ultimately, team performance.

The authors greatly appreciate the support and facili-ties of the Center for Leadership and Strategic Thinkingat the University of Washington and the Center for Deci-sion Research at the University of North Carolina at Cha-pel Hill.

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Power, leadership, and formal authority—the fo-cal constructs of this article—are closely related.Power refers to an individual’s relative ability tocontrol others’ outcomes, experiences, or behaviors(Keltner, Gruenfeld, & Anderson, 2003; Thibaut &Kelley, 1959). Leadership refers to the process ofinfluencing others to pursue group goals (Bass,2008; Hogg, 2001; Stogdill, 1950). Formal authorityrefers to the holding of a specific role or officeassociated with a social hierarchy (Peabody, 1962).Because power is generally viewed as an importantbasis of influence (French & Raven, 1959; Lord,1977), these definitions seem to imply that the con-centration of power in a particular leader (whetherin a formal position of authority or not)1 wouldenhance the ability of that leader to foster highlevels of team performance. Specifically, thegreater the leader’s power, the more likely he or sheis to be able to use that power to elicit desiredbehaviors from followers. This expectation alignswith functionalist accounts of the role of power onteam and organizational performance, which pre-dict a positive effect of hierarchy on performance(Anderson & Brown, 2010). From this perspective,greater leader power increases leader effectivenessand, consequently, team performance.

However, as evidenced by the field-based find-ings described above, there are at least two reasonsto suspect that this positive relationship betweenleader power and team performance may not mate-rialize as often as a functionalist account wouldpredict. First, team processes and outcomes areemergent (Marks, Mathieu, & Zaccaro, 2001). Thatis, they are not pre-existing entities inherent to ateam that are simply waiting to be brought forth bythe demands of a powerful leader. Instead, much ofthe performance that organizations expect of theirmembers is developed through dynamic processesof team interaction (Marks et al., 2001). Team pro-cesses can produce ideas that did not exist prior tothe team’s interactions (De Dreu & West, 2001; Ma-thieu, Heffner, Goodwin, Salas, & Cannon-Bowers,2000). In tasks that require creative problem solv-ing, information sharing, and the integration ofviewpoints among team members, leaders cannotsimply appeal to their power to elicit performance;

instead, performance must be cultivated by creat-ing a team context that facilitates high levels ofperformance (Agrell & Gustafson, 1996; Anderson& West, 1998; Drach-Zahavy & Somech, 2001; West,1990). As a consequence, team performance is de-pendent upon a variety of factors that cannot bedirectly affected by a leader’s exercise of power.

Second, a leader is not unaffected by his or herown power. Indeed, a broad stream of social-psychological research differentiates between theexercise of power and the psychological experi-ence of power, which refers to a power holder’ssubjective feelings of control over the resources,outcomes, and experiences of others. Subjectivefeelings of power may diverge from the structuralpower that an individual can objectively be dem-onstrated to hold (Proell & Sauer, 2011). Theexperience of power can have wide-ranging ef-fects on the cognitions and behavior of a powerholder, many of which may challenge a leader’sability to effectively facilitate team performance.For example, research has demonstrated that thepsychological experience of power leads powerholders to objectify others (Gruenfeld, Inesi, Ma-gee, & Galinsky, 2008), to be less adept at under-standing the perspectives of others (Galinsky,Magee, Inesi, & Gruenfeld, 2006), to be morelikely to stereotype others than to see them asindividuals (Fiske, 1993; Goodwin, Gubin, Fiske,& Yzerbyt, 2000; Goodwin, Operario, & Fiske,1998), and to be less likely to listen to others (See,Morrison, Rothman, & Soll, 2011).

The integration of these two points implies thatthe concentration of power in a team leadermay not have the straightforward and positive ef-fects on team coordination and collaboration thatwould be expected in a strictly functionalist ac-count of the effects of hierarchy. In particular, weargue that the psychological experience of powerby leaders may influence their behavior towardother team members in ways that could threaten acritical determinant of team success: the open ex-change of information within the team. Team com-munication plays a crucial role in facilitating highlevels of team performance (Dionne, Yammarino,Atwater, & Spangler, 2004; Gardner, Gino, & Staats,2012; Smith, Smith, Olian, Sims, O’Bannon, &Scully, 1994). However, we argue that when a for-mal leader experiences a heightened subjectivesense of power, he or she tends to dominate groupdiscussions and interactions, which leads otherteam members to perceive that their views and

1 Throughout this article, we use the term “leader” torefer to any individual attempting to influence a group.We use the terms “formal leader” and “leader in a posi-tion of authority” to refer to an individual who has re-ceived an official title that involves expectations of lead-ership, such as “manager,” “leader,” or “director.”

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perspectives are not valued. Consequently, com-munication and information sharing in the team islimited, and performance is diminished.

However, we contend that this dynamic is de-pendent upon other team members’ tendencies toacquiesce to their leader’s dominant behavior. Weargue that team members are only inclined to do sowhen the leader in question holds a formal positionof authority. When the leader does not hold a for-mal position of authority, his or her psychologicalexperience of power is less likely to negativelyaffect team performance, because the other teammembers will not defer to the leader’s dominance.Thus, we argue that the nature of the team-levelimpact of a leader’s subjective experience of powerdepends on whether the leader holds a formal po-sition of authority that is recognized by teammembers.

We aim to make three central contributions toorganizational research. First, by highlighting thecritical role of a formal leader’s subjective expe-rience of power in diminishing perceptions ofleader openness and open communication withina team, we answer calls to identify and explainthe microprocesses by which power hierarchiescan negatively affect team learning and perfor-mance (e.g., Van der Vegt, de Jong, Bunderson, &Molleman, 2010). Second, we highlight the sub-jective sense of power as an important variable inorganizational studies. The subjective experienceof power is distinct from the structural forms ofpower often examined in organizational research,but our theorizing and empirical findings indi-cate that the effects of feelings of power, whenexperienced by an individual in an authority po-sition, go beyond the individual level to affect theperceptions and behaviors of his or her entireteam. Third, we contribute to the burgeoning lit-erature on the important role of followers in theleadership process (e.g., DeRue, 2011; Dvir &Shamir, 2003; Grant et al., 2011; Howell &Shamir, 2005) by highlighting the critical role ofother team members’ reactions to a leader’s be-havior and demonstrating that the leader’s formalauthority moderates these reactions. Specifically,our research demonstrates that, because of thecrucial role of team members’ reactions, leaders’power-prompted dominance behaviors are morelikely to negatively affect team performance if theleaders have the legitimacy afforded by holdingformal positions of authority.

LEADER POWER AND TEAM PERFORMANCE

Open communication within teams is a crucialdeterminant of team performance (Dionne et al.,2004; Gardner et al., 2012; Guzzo & Dickson, 1996),affecting team productivity (Pearson, 1991), coop-eration (Orbell, van de Kragt, & Dawes, 1988), andinnovation (Catmull, 2008; Edmondson, 2003).Drawing on social-psychological research on theeffects of power on power holders, as well as onresearch from political science and sociology onthe importance of consent in power dynamics, wepropose that a formal leader’s subjective sense ofpower has detrimental effects on team performanceby decreasing the openness of communicationwithin his/her team.

Building on social-psychological research, wesuggest two main ways in which the subjectiveexperience of power influences how an individualengages in leadership in team settings. First, thepsychological experience of power leads individu-als to be more inclined to express their attitudesand opinions in group contexts (Anderson & Ber-dahl, 2002; Berdahl & Martorana, 2006). Second,individuals who experience increased feelings ofpower come to devalue the perspectives, opinions,and contributions of others (Georgesen & Harris,1998; Kipnis, 1972). Individuals who are prone toexpress their attitudes and opinions, and who feelthat their perspectives are more valuable than theperspectives of others, are likely to feel entitled todominate interpersonal interactions. We thereforeexpect that leaders with a high subjective sense ofpower are likely to feel entitled to verbally domi-nate team interactions. Thus, we predict thefollowing:

Hypothesis 1. Formal leaders with a high sub-jective sense of power spend more time talkingin team meetings than formal leaders with aneutral subjective sense of power.

This notion aligns with the classic work of Balesand colleagues, who found that early talking ingroup interactions establishes an individual as adominant group member and that this early domi-nance tends to perpetuate an individual’s verbaldominance throughout the life of his/her group(Bales, Strodtbeck, Mills, & Roseborough, 1951). Asa consequence, Bales and colleagues (1951) foundthat individuals who engage in early dominant be-havior continue to talk more frequently than indi-viduals who are not dominant in early interactions.Bales’s work focused primarily on how personality

2013 1467Tost, Gino, and Larrick

characteristics predict who will engage in verbaldominance. In contrast, our research focuses onhow an individual’s subjective experience ofpower, which can be altered at any time by socialcontext, prompts these behaviors. In addition, mostother previous research on talking in teams hasfocused on how formal authority is associated withincreased talking (see Stein and Heller [1979] for areview), rather than on how an individual’s senseof power affects these behaviors.

Thus, we expect that when an individual expe-riences a high subjective sense of power, he or sheis likely to attempt to verbally dominate social in-teractions. We further expect that when this indi-vidual is a formal team leader, the leader’s verbaldominance will be detrimental to team communi-cation. Just as open communication is critical forteam effectiveness (Catmull, 2008; Dionne et al.,2004; Edmondson, 2003; Gardner et al., 2012;Guzzo & Dickson, 1996), the openness exhibited bya team’s formal leader is critical for producing opencommunication within the team. Perceptions of theopenness of team communications has been de-fined both at the level of team members’ percep-tions of their team’s formal leader (previously re-ferred to as “leader openness,” here termed“authority openness”) and at the level of teammembers’ perceptions of their team as a whole(team open communication). Authority opennessrefers to the extent to which a team’s members feelthat the team’s formal leader listens to them, isinterested in their perspectives, and considers theirideas (Ashford, Rothbard, Piderit, & Dutton, 1998;Detert & Burris, 2007). Team open communicationrefers to the extent to which team members feel thatthe team as a whole tends to listen to each mem-ber’s ideas and encourages and facilitates inputfrom all team members (Barry & Stewart, 1997).

When a formal leader verbally dominates ateam’s interaction, the leader signals to others onthe team that their perspectives are not valued.Consequently, the dominating behavior elicited bya high subjective sense of power is likely to reduceperceptions of authority openness and diminish

open communication within the team. We thus ex-pect the following:

Hypothesis 2. Teams whose formal leader ex-periences a high subjective sense of power re-port lower levels of communication openness(i.e., authority openness and open communi-cation) than teams whose formal leader expe-riences a neutral subjective sense of power.

Furthermore, since open communication is crit-ical to team effectiveness (Dionne et al., 2004; Gard-ner et al., 2012; Guzzo & Dickson, 1996), we expectthat the negative effect of a formal leader’s subjec-tive experience of power on team communicationin turn produces a negative effect on team perfor-mance. We therefore hypothesize the following:

Hypothesis 3. Teams whose formal leader ex-periences a high subjective sense of power ex-hibit worse performance than teams whose for-mal leader experiences a neutral subjectivesense of power.

This series of predictions converges on the modeldepicted in Figure 1. Specifically, we expect thatwhen a formal leader experiences a heightenedsense of power, the following three-stage sequenceensues: the leader will attempt to verbally domi-nate team interactions, which will hinder commu-nication openness, which in turn will diminishteam performance. We therefore hypothesize thefollowing:

Hypothesis 4. The effect of a formal leader’ssubjective experience of power on team perfor-mance is mediated in sequence by the formalleader’s amount of talking and by communica-tion openness.

We suggest that the hypotheses above apply onlyto formal leaders. In particular, we argue that theseeffects cannot emerge without the consent (implicitor otherwise) of other team members. If a highsubjective sense of power encourages these behav-iors on the part of a leader, it is the leader’s formal

FIGURE 1The Causal Path for the Main Effect of Formal Leader Power on Team Performance

+ Formal Leader Power

Formal Leader’s

Amount of Talking

Authority Openness and

Team Open Communication

Team Performance

– +


position that permits the effects to spill over toaffect his/her entire team.

Formal Authority and the Reactions of TeamMembers

Sociologists, philosophers, and political scien-tists have long recognized that a critical componentof the successful exercise of power and influence isthe consent of those individuals affected by it (e.g.,Hamilton & Biggart, 1985; Locke, 1689/1988; seeOverbeck [2010] for a recent, thorough review). Aconsent-based view of power holds that, becauselower-ranking group members are greater in num-ber than high-ranking members and can form coali-tions, power holders must acquire their consentand support or else risk being overthrown and los-ing their power. We suggest that consent also playsan important role in leadership dynamics in teams.Specifically, we have argued that individuals witha high subjective sense of power are likely to at-tempt to dominate conversations, talking more thanother team members. However, they will be able todo so only if other team members permit it—that is,only if other team members yield the floor anddo not interrupt the dominating individual. Theexercise of verbal dominance thus requires thecomplicity of other team members.

We suggest that team members are willing togrant this consent to verbal dominance only whentheir team leader holds a formal leadership posi-tion. When someone holds a high-status position,such as a formal leadership role, the position itselfaffects expectations about that individual’s behav-ior in group contexts (Ridgeway & Berger, 1986).Specifically, individuals in formal leadership posi-tions are expected to talk more as they coordinategroup tasks and to exhibit competency and agencyin guiding social interactions (Stein & Heller,1979). Thus, if a formal leader begins to engage indominating behavior, other team members arelikely to defer to him or her, permitting the verbaldominance as an appropriate and legitimate aspectof this individual’s role. However, if someone whois attempting to lead (i.e., to influence the group) inthe absence of a formal leadership position beginsto engage in dominating behavior, other team mem-bers are less likely to acquiesce. This perspectivesuggests that the predicted positive relationshipbetween leaders’ subjective sense of power andtheir proportion of talking time, as well as the re-sulting reduction in open communication and teamperformance, are only likely to emerge when lead-

ers hold a formal position of authority. Specifically,if the negative effects of leaders’ experience ofpower occur because of the increased amount oftalking in which powerful leaders engage, and ifverbal dominance of conversations requires theconsent of others on a team, then these negativeeffects can only come about when other team mem-bers allow it. We therefore expect that the maineffects of power predicted in Hypotheses 1–3 aremoderated by leaders’ level of formal authority:

Hypothesis 5. The effect of a team’s leader’subjective experience of power on the leader’samount of talking, the level of open communi-cation among team members, and the team’sperformance emerge only when the leaderholds a formal position of authority.

We also expect that the indirect effect predictedin Hypothesis 4 and modeled in Figure 1 is mod-erated by formal authority. Specifically, we expectthat when a leader lacks formal authority, thecausal link between power and talking will be bro-ken, eliminating the effect of the leader’s experi-ence of power on team performance. We thereforepropose the following first-stage moderated-medi-ation hypothesis:

Hypothesis 6. The indirect effect of a team’sleader’s subjective experience of power onteam performance (as mediated in sequenceby the leader’s amount of talking and bycommunication openness) is moderated inthe first stage by the leader’s level of formalauthority; thus, the indirect path is signifi-cant only when the leader holds a formalposition of authority.

In summarizing the rationale behind Hypothe-ses 5 and 6, it is important to emphasize that wedo not view the negative effect on team perfor-mance as being constituted by additive effects ofpower and authority; that is, it is not that powerand authority both produce dominance that, whencombined, produces even more dominance. In-stead, a leader’s experience of power affects his orher dominance behavior, and the leader’s level ofauthority affects team members’ reactions to thatbehavior (i.e., deference). It is the combination ofleader behavior (due to power) and team members’reactions (due to level of authority) that affectsteam interactions and performance.


The Moderating Role of InstrumentalityAwareness

As mentioned earlier, a key reason we expectleaders’ subjective experience of power to produceverbal dominance is that feelings of power producea tendency to devalue the perspectives, opinions,and contributions of others (Georgesen & Harris,1998; Kipnis, 1972). However, this tendency is notabsolute. Feelings of power are associated withflexibility in the allocation of social attention, de-pending on the extent to which social targets areinstrumental to the achievement of valued goals(Overbeck & Park, 2006). For example, research hasindicated that high-power individuals objectifythose around them, paying little attention to thosewhom they consider irrelevant to their goal pursuit,and greater attention to those who can help themachieve their goals (Gruenfeld et al., 2008).

Assuming that a formal leader values his/herteam’s performance, this line of reasoning suggeststhat the negative effect of this leader’s feelings ofpower on team performance may be eliminated byemphasizing to the leader that team members canmake important contributions to the pursuit ofteam goals and that effective leaders facilitate teamperformance. When leaders are made aware of oth-ers’ potential contributions and the importance ofleaders’ encouragement of those contributions(which may counteract the power-induced bias todevalue others’ input), they are likely to encourageopen intrateam communication so that these con-tributions can be revealed. We refer to team mem-bers’ capacity to contribute productively to teamperformance as team members’ instrumentality. Wepropose that when leaders perceive team membersas instrumental, the effect of power on leader talk-ing is likely to be minimized, because leaders willbe more likely to encourage and listen to contribu-tions from others, rather than dominating conver-sation themselves. Consequently, the negative ef-fect of leader power on team open communicationis likely to be minimized, thus eliminating the neg-ative effect of leader power on team performance.We therefore predict the following:

Hypothesis 7. The effect of a team’s formalleader’s subjective experience of power on theleader’s amount of talking, the team’s level ofopen communication, and the team’s perfor-mance are eliminated when the leader is re-minded of the instrumentality of other teammembers.

Given this, we also expect that the indirect effectpredicted in Hypothesis 4 and modeled in Figure 1is moderated by instrumentality awareness. Specif-ically, we expect that when a leader is reminded ofthe instrumentality of team members, the causallink between power and talking will be broken,eliminating the effect of the leader’s experience ofpower on team performance. We therefore proposethe following first-stage moderated-mediationhypothesis:

Hypothesis 8. The indirect effect of a team’sformal leader’s subjective experience of poweron the team’s performance (as mediated insequence by the leader’s amount of talking andby the team’s communication openness) ismoderated in the first stage by the leader’sawareness of the instrumentality of other teammembers; thus, the indirect path is significantonly when a leader is not reminded that othersare instrumental to goal achievement.

Overview of the Present Research

We conducted three studies to test these hypoth-eses. Our studies involved teams of three, four, orsix members participating in team decision-makingsimulations. All three studies employed tasks thatrequired collaborative problem solving. Study 1was designed to examine the fundamental premiseof our arguments: that formal leaders’ experience ofpower leads to greater amounts of talking in teaminteractions (Hypothesis 1), which diminishes per-ceptions of authority openness (Hypothesis 2) andconsequently negatively affects team performance(Hypotheses 3 and 4). Thus, Study 1 tests the basicmodel presented in Figure 1. To test these hypoth-eses, in Study 1 we manipulated the level of powersubjectively experienced by formal team leaders. InStudies 2 and 3, we sought to replicate and buildupon these effects by repeating the tests of the basicmodel depicted in Figure 1 and then examining ourtwo first-stage moderators of that model (formalauthority and instrumentality awareness). In Study2, we not only examined the effect of a subjectivesense of power on formal leadership dynamics butalso investigated how a leader’s formal role affectedteam members’ reactions to him or her. Therefore,in Study 2 we used two manipulations: leaderpower and formal leadership role. We providedfurther support for Hypotheses 1–4, and we testedour expectations about the role of formal authorityin moderating our focal effects (Hypotheses 5 and


6). Finally, in Study 3 we again replicated ourfindings for Hypotheses 1–4 and tested the moder-ating role of formal leaders’ awareness of the instru-mentality of other team members (Hypotheses 7and 8).

STUDY 1

Participants and Design

One hundred six undergraduates and MBA stu-dents at a university in the southeastern UnitedStates participated in our study as part of a classexercise. The study employed one between-personsfactor: high-power formal leadership vs. neutral-power formal leadership. Each student was ran-domly assigned to one of 20 teams of five memberseach (six teams had an additional sixth member inthe role of observer). Students completed the studywithin their teams, and the manipulation occurredonly to each team’s formal leader.

Procedures

The day prior to the simulation, students weregiven instructions for the Everest Simulation devel-oped by Harvard Business School. This web-basedsimulation uses the context of a Mount Everestexpedition to reinforce student learning in teamdynamics and leadership. Each team member re-ceived general information about the simulationand detailed information regarding his/her specificrole. Students were randomly assigned to one offive roles on a team attempting to reach the moun-tain’s summit: leader, photographer, physician, en-vironmentalist, or marathoner. The simulation oc-curred in six rounds, lasting about 80 minutes intotal. During the simulation, students sat in break-out rooms with their teams and analyzed informa-tion on their own laptops while communicatingwith team members aloud and through the use ofchat programs. In each round, team members ana-lyzed information on weather, health conditions,supplies, goals, or hiking speed, and they deter-mined how much of that information to communi-cate to their teammates. Team members then col-lectively discussed whether to attempt to reach thenext camp en route to the summit. Throughout thesimulation, the team had to decide how to effec-tively distribute supplies and oxygen bottlesneeded for the ascent. These decisions affected hik-ing speed, health, and ultimately the team’s successin reaching the summit. Failure to accurately com-

municate and analyze information as a team hadnegative consequences on team performance.

Our manipulation was administered only to stu-dents assigned the formal leader role. In addition tothe materials received by other team members,leaders in the teams assigned to the high-powerformal leader experimental condition received thepower manipulation before receiving the rest oftheir information packet (formal leaders in the neu-tral power condition did not receive the powermanipulation). The high-power manipulation wasadapted from previous research (Galinsky, Gruen-feld, & Magee, 2003; Gruenfeld et al., 2008) and, inkeeping with our theorizing, was designed to elicita high level of subjective feelings of power (ratherthan to manipulate objective or structural power).The instructions in the high-power manipulationread as follows:

Please think about a time when you had power oversomeone. By power, we mean a situation in whichyou controlled the ability of another person or per-sons to get something they wanted, or were in aposition to evaluate those individuals. Please write4–5 sentences describing this situation in whichyou had power.

In addition, formal leaders in this condition wereasked to write about how the experience they wroteabout could help inform the strategies they woulduse in team interactions the next day. The timing ofthe manipulation was important: since formal lead-ers in the high-power condition completed thepower writing task before reading the informationregarding the details of the simulation, they wouldbe expected to “encode” the information about thesimulation in a way that was congruent with theirhigh-power psychological state, so participating inthe simulation the next day would in fact reactivatetheir psychological feelings of power. In keepingwith this notion, research by Babcock and Loewen-stein (1997) demonstrated that people selectivelyencode and evaluate information, depending ontheir role. Accordingly, we expected that inducingthe power experience immediately before the pro-cessing of role information would lead participantsto encode their roles in ways that were consistentwith the power manipulation, and that the effect ofthe power manipulation would consequently carryover into their experience the next day, when theyacted out the role.

The simulation recorded the level of goals teamswere able to achieve, an objective measure of teameffectiveness and performance. Students were also


asked to complete an online survey individuallyafter the simulation was over, at any time before theend of the day. The surveys administered to non-leaders included measures assessing their percep-tions of their leaders’ amount of talking and open-ness. The surveys administered to formal leadersincluded manipulation checks.

Measures

Amount of talking. Participants indicated thepercentage of the total time each member talkedduring the simulation. We investigated the appro-priateness of aggregating this measure to the teamlevel (defined as all team members without a for-mal leader). Interrater reliability among team mem-bers was high (ICC1 � .63, ICC2 � .89, p � .001;mean rwg � .96), justifying aggregation at the teamlevel (LeBrenton & Senter, 2008). Thus, we createdan aggregated score for the amount of talking ofeach team member.

Authority openness. We assessed the perceivedopenness of the formal leaders by following Grant,Gino, and Hofmann’s (2011) approach. In particu-lar, we adapted items from existing measures ofleader openness (Ashford et al., 1998; Detert & Bur-ris, 2007). Team members evaluated their formalleader on five items, using a Likert-type scale (1 �“disagree strongly,” 7 � “agree strongly”): “open tonew ideas,” “receptive to suggestions,” “interestedin our ideas,” “rejected new ideas” (reverse-scored), and “dismissed suggestions” (reverse-scored) (� � .88, on average, for the ratings of eachteam member role). Since team members’ ratingsdemonstrated good interrater reliability (ICC1 �.53, ICC2 � .85, p � .01; mean rwg � .85), weaveraged them to compute an overall team-levelscore for perceived authority openness.

Team performance. The simulation program re-corded the level of goals achieved by each teamduring the exercise (as a percentage). Higher per-centages indicate higher levels of goal achievementand thus higher levels of team performance.

Manipulation check. To test for the effect of thepower manipulation, we asked the formal leadersto indicate the amount of power and influence theypersonally felt during the simulation (1 � “verylittle,” 7 � “a great deal”). The two items werehighly correlated (r � .71, p � .001), and we thusaveraged them into a single measure (� � .82).

Results

Given that six teams had an observer, we con-trolled for team size in all our analyses. Team sizewas not a significant predictor of any of these re-sults, so we do not discuss this variable further.

Manipulation check. We first checked whetherour manipulation was successful by examining theratings the formal leaders provided regarding theamount of power and influence they felt through-out the simulation. Formal leaders in the high-power condition felt more powerful (mean � 5.50,s.d. � 0.75) than did those in the neutral-powercondition (mean � 4.20, s.d. � 0.54, F[1, 17] �18.91, p � .001).

Amount of talking. Team members reported thattheir formal leaders talked for a higher percentage ofthe time allotted for the simulation when the leaderswere in the high-power condition (mean � 32.73%,s.d. � 6.63) than when the leaders were in the neu-tral-power condition (mean � 18.70%, s.d. � 2.68,F[1, 17] � 39.93, p � .001). In keeping with thisfinding, team members reported that nonleaderstalked for a lower percentage of the allotted time inthe high-power condition than in the neutral-powercondition. Thus, Hypothesis 1 was supported.

Authority openness. Members of teams withleaders in the high-power condition reported lowerperceptions of openness (mean � 4.84, s.d. � 0.56)than did those with leaders in the neutral-powercondition (mean � 5.37, s.d. � 0.43, F[1, 17] �5.78, p � .05). Thus, Hypothesis 2 was supported.

Team performance. Teams achieved a higherlevel of their team goals when leaders were in theneutral-power condition (mean � 76.20%, s.d. �11.92) than in the high power condition (mean �59.00%, s.d. � 13.12, F[1, 17] � 8.99, p � .01).Thus, Hypothesis 3 was supported.

Mediation analyses. Hypothesis 4 predicts thatthe negative effect of formal leaders’ subjective feel-ings of power on team performance will be medi-ated by talking and perceptions of authority open-ness (in that order). We therefore examined thethree-stage mediated path model, as depicted inFigure 1. To do so, we conducted three regressions,each controlling for team size. We first regressedformal leaders’ amount of talking on power (b �14.03 [s.e. � 2.22], � � .83, t � 6.32, p � .001); wethen regressed authority openness on formal lead-ers’ amount of talking (b � �0.05 [s.e. � 0.01],� � �.76, t � �5.02, p � .001); finally, we re-gressed team performance on authority openness(� � .56, p � .012) and formal leader power


(� � �.31, p � .12). We used a bootstrap analysis toconstruct bias-corrected confidence intervals basedon 1,000 random samples with replacement fromthe full sample (MacKinnon, Fairchild, & Fritz,2007; Shrout & Bolger, 2002). The bootstrap analy-sis showed that the 95% bias-corrected CI for thesize of the indirect effect did not include 0 (�22.49to �0.156), suggesting a significant indirect effectand supporting our path model depicted in Fig-ure 1. Thus, Hypothesis 4 was supported.

Discussion

The results of Study 1 supported our argumentthat a formal leader’s experience of power leads toincreased leader talking, which decreases his/herperceived openness and, consequently, diminishesteam performance. By doing most of the talking,powerful formal leaders conveyed a sense that theywere not open to others’ input, and this dynamicproduced a lower level of team performance, asmeasured by a team’s ability to reach its goals in thesimulation.

STUDY 2

Study 2 was designed to further investigate therole of leader power in team performance by dis-tinguishing between the effects of a formal leader-ship position and a leader’s psychological experi-ence of power. As explained in Hypotheses 5 and 6,we expect that the negative effect of a leader’spower on team communication and performanceemerges only when the leader holds a formal posi-tion of authority. We tested this expectation in thecontext of a hidden-profile task. Hidden-profiletasks are team tasks that contain a correct or bestalternative, and in which the information aboutthese alternatives is distributed among team mem-bers in such a way that no team member can detectthe best alternative by relying exclusively on his orher own information (see Stasser, 1992; Winquist &Larson, 1998). Hidden-profile tasks can be solvedonly if team members exchange and integrate theirunshared information and thereby detect the deci-sional implication of the full information set.


One hundred forty-four individuals (68 male;meanage � 22.24, s.d. � 2.60; 125 students) from acity in the northeastern United States participatedin the study for $20, plus an additional bonus based

on team performance. The study employed twobetween-persons factors: power (high power vs.neutral power) and formal leadership role (formalleader vs. no formal leader). Participants were ran-domly assigned to teams of three members each (fora total of 48 teams).

Procedure

Participants worked in teams of three to solve amurder mystery (adapted from Stasser and Stewart[1992]). They were given 20 minutes to read theirmaterials about a homicide investigation individu-ally. The materials included a (fictional) newspa-per article about a murder, a set of interviews withsuspects, and other supplementary materials, suchas maps and a note from the victim to one of thesuspects. The materials provided 45 shared cluesand 8 unique clues, the idea being that when all ofthe clues were considered together, the materialswould make it clear which suspect was the guiltyparty. However, because the critical clues were dis-tributed among the three team members, the correctsolution to the murder mystery was unlikely to bediscovered unless team members shared and dis-cussed their uniquely held information.

The packets of materials also contained our ma-nipulations of power and authority. We again useda writing task as the power manipulation, this timeadministered on the same day as the team discus-sion. The high-power manipulation was similar tothat used in the first study. For members of teamsin the neutral-power condition, the instructionsread as follows:

Please recall the last time you were at the supermar-ket shopping for groceries. Please write 4–5 sen-tences describing this situation and one item orproduct that you purchased during the visit.

In the teams in the high-power condition, onerandomly chosen participant in each team com-pleted the high-power writing task. In the neutral-power condition, one randomly chosen participantin each team completed the neutral-power writingtask. Thus, each team consisted of two team mem-bers who received no writing task and one teammember who received either the high-power or theneutral-power writing task.

We used name tags to manipulate formal leaderstatus: all participants used name tags, but formalleaders received tags labeled “LEADER.” The for-mal leader role manipulation always occurred foran individual who received a writing task; thus,


this individual either was labeled as leader orwas not. In addition, because there were eightunique clues, the individual who engaged in thewriting task was always assigned to the role thathad two unique clues, while other participantswere always assigned to one of the two roles thathad three unique clues.

After reviewing their materials and engaging inany writing tasks to which they were assigned,participants were asked to discuss the case withtheir team. Teams used break-out rooms for theirteam discussion; they had 30 minutes to reach aconsensus on who committed the murder. After theteam discussion, each team indicated one suspectthat they believed was the guilty party. Next, par-ticipants completed postdiscussion questionnaireswith measures of the study variables.

Measures

Amount of talking. As in Study 1, each partici-pant indicated the percentage of the total time eachmember talked during the team discussion. In ouranalyses, we used the participants’ estimates of thepercentage of talking time taken up by the personwho engaged in the writing task. Interrater reliabil-ity among team members on this measure was high(ICC1 � .45, ICC2 � .62, p � .01; mean rwg � .95),so we aggregated this measure at the team level.

Team open communication. Each member indi-cated the extent to which he or she agreed witheach of four statements (1 � “strongly disagree,”7 � “strongly agree”) measuring communicationopenness: (1) “All members had a chance to ex-press opinions”; (2) “Team members listened toeach others’ input”; (3) “Members held back in fearof what others thought” (reverse-scored); and (4)“Members were free to make positive and negativecomments” (scale adapted from Barry and Stewart[1997]). We averaged the four items into a singlescore (� � .70 for each team member role). Becauseteam members achieved good interrater reliability(ICC1 � .21, ICC2 � .44, p � .02; mean rwg � .86),we averaged their rating to create a team-level score.

Team performance: Decision. Participants indi-cated their team decision by checking “the name ofthe one suspect your group believes murdered Rob-ert Guion” (all responses agreed). Team decisionperformance was based on whether the team chosethe correct suspect. This was a dichotomous depen-dent variable (1 � “correct,” 0 � “not correct”).

Team performance: Learning. The materials forthe team task included eight clues that were uniqueand not shared among team members. In the finalquestionnaire, we listed these clues together withsome other filler clues and asked members to indi-cate whether they discovered information consis-tent with the listed clues during the team discus-sion. For each member, we then counted thenumber of unshared clues (out of eight) they re-ported learning about during the team discussion.Because team members achieved good interraterreliability on this measure (ICC1 � .50, ICC2 � .67,p � .001; mean rwg � .77), we averaged their ratingsto form a measure of team learning performance.

Autocratic leadership style. While we did notinclude autocratic leadership style in our formalhypotheses, we measured it in this study as anadditional check on our theoretical logic. Specifi-cally, we have argued that the interactive effect ofthe subjective experience of power and formal au-thority on talking, communication, and perfor-mance is not simply an additive effect. That is, wedo not expect that both variables increase talkingand that the effects simply magnify one anotherwhen combined. Instead, we expect that a leader’ssubjective experience of power increases attemptsat dominating interpersonal interactions in general(both verbal and nonverbal), and that it is otherteam members’ reactions (which are dependentupon the leader’s level of formal authority) thatdetermine whether these attempts at dominanceactually spill over to affect team communicationand performance. This line of reasoning suggeststhat subjective power increases dominance but for-mal authority does not; instead, formal authoritysimply determines how others react to attempts atdominance. If this line of reasoning is correct, for-mal authority should not moderate the effect ofsubjective power on attempts at dominating butshould only moderate the effect of subjective poweron team dynamics that require team interaction toemerge, such as talking, communications, and per-formance. Because autocratic style represents anindividual’s unilateral adoption of a dominatingstyle rather than emergent behavior that involvesthe consent of all team members, we would notexpect to see an interaction between subjectivepower and formal authority on autocratic style butrather a main effect of subjective power.

To test this expectation, we used the measuredeveloped by Chen, Eberly, Chiang, Fahr, andCheng (in press) to assess autocratic leadership be-haviors. Team members were asked to evaluate the


individuals who engaged in the writing task(whether or not they were labeled “leader”) on thismeasure. This measure includes items that assessperceptions of an individual’s leadership behaviorand intentions that are not contingent on otherteam members’ cooperation and consent (e.g.,“This team member behaved in a commandingfashion” and “This team member seemed to want toexercise discipline over others”). We averaged theitems from the scale into a single score (� � .69 formember 1, and � � .75 for member 2). Becauseteam members achieved good interrater reliability(ICC1 � .56, ICC2 � .73, p � .001; mean rwg � .96),we averaged their ratings.

Manipulation checks. The manipulation checkfor power was conducted on participants who re-ceived one of the writing tasks (both formal leadersand individuals who were not assigned the formalleader position). To check the manipulation of power,these individuals were asked to respond to two items:“How much influence do you feel that you had overthe team decision task?” and “How much power didyou personally feel during the team decision task?”These items were averaged to form a score of experi-enced power (� � .80). We also asked individuals tocomplete the sense-of-power scale we used in thepilot study (Anderson & Galinsky, 2006). We aver-aged the eight items included in the scale to form ascore of sense of power (� � .82). To check for formalleader manipulation, the final questionnaire askedparticipants to indicate whether there was a formalleader in their team.

Results

Manipulation checks. We started by examiningwhether our power manipulation was effective byusing two (power) by two (formal leadership) be-tween-subjects analyses of variance (ANOVAs). Indi-viduals who engaged in the writing task rated them-selves as more powerful in the high-power condition(mean � 5.74, s.d. � 0.69) than in the neutral-powercondition (mean � 5.00, s.d. � 0.84, F[1, 44] � 10.69,p � .002). These individuals’ ratings of their sense ofpower were consistent with the first manipulationcheck; participants in the high-power condition re-ported feeling more powerful (mean � 5.69, s.d. �0.58) than did individuals in the neutral-power con-dition (mean � 5.17, s.d. � 0.73, F[1, 44] � 7.06, p �.011). Neither our formal leadership manipulationnor the interaction between the two manipulationssignificantly affected these ratings. As for formal lead-ership manipulation, we confirmed that team mem-

bers in the formal leader condition reported having aformal leader, whereas team members in the no for-mal leader condition reported not having a formalleader.

Amount of talking. A two (power) by two (formalleadership) between-subjects ANOVA with teammembers’ answers for the amount of time the indi-vidual who engaged in the writing task talked dur-ing team discussion revealed a main effect of power(F[1, 44] � 9.46, p � .004) and a marginally signif-icant interaction effect (F[1, 44] � 3.71, p � .061).When a team had a formal leader, power positivelyinfluenced the leader’s amount of talking, as per-ceived by their team members (meanhigh_power �42.39%, s.d. � 8.16 vs. meanneutral_power � 33.26%,s.d. � 2.91, F[1, 44] � 12.54, p � .001). This findingprovides additional support for Hypothesis 1.When a team did not have a formal leader, teammembers reported that the individual who en-gaged in the writing task talked about the sameamount of time, regardless of the power manipu-lation (meanhigh_power � 36.02%, s.d. � 6.73 vs.meanneutral_power � 33.92%, s.d. � 6.22, F[1,44] � 1, p � .48). This finding lends support toHypothesis 5.

Team open communication. In a similar two(power) by two (formal leadership) between-subjectsANOVA, we found only a significant interaction effect(F[1, 44] � 3.92, p � .05). When teams had a formalleader, there was a negative effect of power onteam open communication (meanhigh_power �5.68, s.d. � 1.16 vs. meanneutral_power � 6.30,s.d. � 0.50, F[1, 44] � 4.73, p � .035), againsupporting Hypothesis 2. When teams did not have aformal leader, members reported about the same levelof open communication, regardless of the power ma-nipulation (meanhigh_power � 6.44, s.d. � 0.43, vs.meanneutral_power � 6.26, s.d. � 0.46, F[1, 44] � 1, p �.53). This finding lends further support to Hypothe-sis 5.

Team performance. Next, we examined team per-formance. To do so, we used binary logistic regres-sion, using contrast-coded dummy variables forpower (“high power” � 1, “neutral power” � �1) andauthority (“formal leader” � 1, “control” � �1). Onlythe interaction was significant (b � �0.62 [s.e. � .31],Wald �2 � 3.91, df � 1, p � .048). Figure 2 graphsoverall Study 2 team performance. When teams had aformal leader, a higher percentage of teams reachedthe right solution in the neutral-power condition thanin the high-power condition (75.0 vs. 25.0%,�2[1, n � 24] � 6.00, p � .014). This finding supportsHypothesis 3. When teams did not have a formal


leader, about the same percentage of teams reachedthe right solution, regardless of the power manipula-tion (54.5 vs. 61.5%, �2[1, n � 24] � 1, p � .73). Thisfinding lends further support to Hypothesis 5.

Team learning performance. We next examinedteam learning performance, which we measured byaveraging the number of unique facts team mem-bers learned (out of eight unique facts included inthe task). In a two (power) by two (formal leader-ship) between-subjects ANOVA, we found a mar-ginally significant interaction effect (F[1, 44] �3.86, p � .056). When teams had a formal leader,there was a negative effect of power on team learn-ing performance (meanhigh_power � 4.17, s.d. � 0.78,vs. meanneutral_power � 5.38, s.d. � 1.61, F[1, 44] �5.54, p � .023), again supporting Hypothesis 3.When teams did not have a formal leader, thepower manipulation did not affect members’level of learning (meanhigh_power � 5.34, s.d. �1.39, vs. meanneutral_power � 5.32, s.d. � 1.06, F[1,44] � 1, p � .60). This finding lends furthersupport to Hypothesis 5.

Moderated Mediation

We next examined Hypothesis 6, which predictsthat the three-stage mediated path model depictedin Figure 1 will be moderated by formal authorityin the first stage (i.e., in the path between powerand talking). We began by focusing on team deci-sion performance as the dependent variable. Toexplore this hypothesis, we followed the advice ofEdwards and Lambert (2007), who recommend run-ning a series of regressions on the mediators anddependent variable and using the results of theseregressions to generate a reduced-form equation(i.e., one that includes only exogenous variables aspredictors), which is used to compute simple pathsthat constitute the indirect effect of an independentvariable at different levels of a moderator variable.Therefore, we first regressed formal leaders’amount of talking on power (“high power” � 1,“neutral power” � 0), authority (1 � “formalleader,” 0 � “control”) and on the interaction be-tween the two (b � 7.03 [s.e. � 3.65], � � .43, t �

FIGURE 2Team Performance, Study 2


1.93, p � .06); we then regressed openness onamount of talking (b � �0.05 [s.e. � 0.01], � ��.51, t � �3.97, p � .001); and, finally, we usedbinary logistic regression to estimate the effect ofopenness (b � 1.23 [s.e. � .58], �2 � 4.56, df � 1,p � .033) and power (b � �0.79 [s.e. � .63], Wald�2 � 1.57, df � 1, p � .21) on team decision per-formance. The bootstrap analysis (MacKinnon etal., 2007; Shrout & Bolger, 2002) indicated that theindirect effect of power on team decision perfor-mance as mediated through leader talking and opencommunications was significant when leaders helda formal position of authority (95% bias-correctedCI: �2.32, �0.03). This finding again supports Hy-pothesis 4 and our path model depicted in Figure 1.Further, as expected, the bootstrap analysis re-vealed that the indirect path was not significantwhen a leader did not hold a formal position ofauthority (95% bias-corrected CI: �0.90, 0.14). Thisfinding supports Hypothesis 6.

We next conducted the same mediation analysisusing team learning performance as the dependentvariable. In the series of regression equations, wesubstituted the third equation for one in whichteam learning was regressed on open communica-tions (b � 0.50 [s.e. � 0.26], � � .28, t � 1.97, p �.055) and power (b � �0.36 [s.e. � 0.38], � � �.14,t � �0.97, p � .34). The bootstrap analysis indi-cated that the indirect effect of power on teamlearning performance, as mediated through leadertalking and open communications, was significantwhen leaders held a formal position of authority(95% bias-corrected CI: �0.82, �0.01). This findingagain supports Hypothesis 4 and our path model,depicted in Figure 1. Further, as expected, the boot-strap analysis revealed that the indirect pathwas not significant when leaders did not hold aformal position of authority (95% bias-corrected CI:�0.30, 0.04). This finding supports Hypothesis 6.

Supplementary Analysis on AutocraticLeadership Style

We conducted a supplementary analysis as a fi-nal check on our expectation that taking on anautocratic demeanor or style, unlike talking, is notdependent upon the consent of other team mem-bers and thus would not be affected by the manip-ulation of formal authority. To do so, we conducteda two (power) by two (formal leadership) between-subjects ANOVA, using team members’ aggregaterating of the autocratic style of the individual whoengaged in the writing task as the dependent vari-

able. In keeping with our expectations, this analy-sis revealed only a main effect of power (F[1, 44] �4.94, p � .032): in the high-power conditions,members perceived the individual to have used amore autocratic style than did those in the neutral-power conditions (meanhigh_power � 1.66, s.d. �0.66 vs. meanneutral_power � 1.35, s.d. � 0.32). Asexpected, this main effect of power was not mod-erated by formal authority. In keeping with ourarguments, individuals who received the powerprime were perceived as acting autocraticallywhether they were formal leaders or not; however,they only succeeded in talking more (and therebylimiting open communication and decreasing teamperformance) if they had the formal leader title.This supports our contention that the reactions ofother team members (based on leaders’ levels offormal authority) to leaders’ dominating behaviorwere the crucial determinants of whether the neg-ative effects of leaders’ experience of power actu-ally spilled over to affect team communicationsand performance.

Another important implication of this findingthat we wish to highlight is that the effect ofsubjective power on autocratic tendencies is,while significant, fairly subtle. Leaders whowrote about power were rated at a mean level of1.66 on the seven-point autocratic leadershipstyle scale; thus, even high-power leaders scoredbelow the midpoint of the scale. We wish tohighlight this point because we believe that itsubstantiates our contention that two relativelysubtle psychological tendencies (the tendency ofsubjective power to induce a more dominatinginterpersonal style on the one hand, and the ten-dency of formal authority to elicit deference fromothers on the other hand) can combine in a waythat has not-so-subtle effects on team talking,communication, and performance.

Discussion

The results of Study 2 replicated our findingsfrom Study 1, indicating that formal leaders’ expe-rience of power produces greater proportions ofteam talking from leaders, lower levels of opencommunication in teams, and consequently, di-minished team performance. Critically, these ef-fects did not emerge when the persons receivingthe power manipulation were not formal leaders.These results suggest that team members only co-operate and acquiesce to leaders’ dominating be-haviors when leaders are granted a formal position


of authority, such as official team leader. In align-ment with this reasoning, the findings for the auto-cratic leadership measure indicate that power ma-nipulation increased the dominating behavior ofthe individuals who engaged in the writing taskregardless of their formal leadership status. Thus, itappears that the experience of power affects lead-ership behavior, but this behavior only affects thebroader performance of teams when leaders exhib-iting the behavior hold a formal position ofauthority.

STUDY 3

We designed a final study to test for an importantboundary condition of the effects of leaders’ poweron team open communication and performance:leaders’ awareness of their team members’ instru-mentality. We expected that a formal leader’sawareness of the potential contributions of otherswould eliminate the negative effect of the leader’ssubjective experience of power on team open com-munication and team performance.


One hundred fifty-two individuals (68 male;meanage � 21.84, s.d. � 2.65; 130 students) from acity in the northeastern United States participatedin the study for $20, plus an additional bonus basedon team performance. (After each session, we se-lected one team from those that found the correctsolution to the team task and gave each member a$20 bonus payment.)

The study employed two between-persons fac-tors: power (high-power formal leader vs. neutral-power formal leader) and awareness of the instru-mentality of team members (formal leader isreminded of instrumentality vs. not reminded).Participants were randomly assigned to teams offour members (for a total of 38 teams).

Procedure

As case material, we used a modified version ofan exercise developed by the Dispute ResolutionResearch Center at the Kellogg School of Manage-ment. In this exercise, the top management team ofPB Technologies is asked to recommend to the CEOone of three finalists for the position of chief finan-cial officer (CFO). For one candidate, the only com-mon information is negative. However, if teammembers share information effectively, they dis-

cover that this candidate has the most positive pro-file overall. The other two candidates both havesignificant unshared negative information: one hasa moderate amount of negative information, andthe other has mostly negative information. The ini-tial instructions described the objective of thestudy to be an investigation of effective decisionmaking. The participants were informed that onecandidate was clearly better than the other two.Participants were given 20 minutes to carefullyread the materials individually.

In the high-power formal leader condition, oneindividual was provided with a formal name tagindicating that he/she would be team leader. As inStudies 1 and 2, that individual was asked to write,for a few minutes before the team discussion, abouta past experience of power, and then about theinfluence that he/she would have over his/her teamthroughout the study. In the neutral-power leadercondition, we used the same public assignment ofthe leadership role through the formal name tagmechanism, and the leader received an extra pageof instructions indicating that he/she was teamleader (as in the high-power leader condition) butdid not engage in the writing task.

To manipulate formal leaders’ awareness of theinstrumentality of team members, we provided ad-ditional information to the participants in the roleof formal leader. Specifically, instructions for for-mal leaders in the instrumental team members con-dition stated this: “Each member in the team isrepresenting a different role. So, everyone hassomething unique to contribute in this task. Givenevery team member’s unique perspective, obtainingeveryone’s views of the situation can be critical inreaching a good decision.” In the noninstrumentalteam members condition, team leaders did not re-ceive these instructions.

Both manipulations were contained in the casematerial. Immediately after reading the case mate-rial, participants sat at a table as teams so that theycould discuss the case together. They were given apiece of paper to record their team decision. Afterthe allotted 20 minutes, each member completed afinal questionnaire individually, which includedthe measures described below.

Measures

Amount of talking. As in Studies 1 and 2, eachparticipant indicated the percentage of the totaltime each member talked during the team discus-sion. As before, we focused on team members’ per-


ceptions of the amount of talking by the formalleader. Interrater reliability among team memberswas high (ICC1 � .58, ICC2 � .80, p � .001; meanrwg � .96), so we aggregated this measure at theteam level.

Team open communication. We used the samemeasure of team open communication that we usedin Study 2. We again averaged the four items into asingle score (� � .70 for each team member role).Because team members achieved good interraterreliability (ICC1 � .21, ICC2 � .44, p � .02; meanrwg � .86), we averaged their ratings.

Team decision performance. We assessed teamperformance using a dichotomous variable equal to1 if a team reached the right solution by recom-mending the best candidate, and 0 otherwise.

Manipulation check: Power. To test for the ef-fect of the power manipulation, we asked formalleaders to indicate the amount of power and influ-ence they personally felt during the team decisiontask (1 � “very little,” 7 � “a great deal”). The twoitems were highly correlated (r � .78, p � .001),and we thus averaged them into a single measure(� � .87). In addition, formal leaders answered thesame eight-item sense-of-power scale we employedin Study 2 (� � .77). Thus, we tested the effect ofthe manipulation using both scales.

Manipulation check: Instrumentality. To test forthe effect of the awareness of instrumentality manip-ulation, we asked formal leaders to indicate theiragreement with four statements for each team mem-ber (1 � “strongly disagree,” 7 � “strongly agree”): (1)“This person provided useful input to help the teamperform well”; (2) “Listening to the input from thisperson would have helped the team perform well onthis task”; (3) “This person greatly contributed toteam performance”; and (4) “This person greatlyhelped the team achieve its goals.” We created anaggregate score of team members’ instrumentality, asjudged by formal leaders, by averaging formal leaders’answers for the four items (� � .81 for ratings abouteach of three team members being evaluated) andthen by averaging these aggregate scores for the threeteam members (� � .91).

Results

Manipulation checks. We started by examiningwhether our manipulations were effective using two(power) by two (instrumentality awareness) between-persons ANOVAs. In keeping with our manipulation,formal leaders rated themselves as more powerful inthe high-power condition (mean � 5.79, s.d. � 1.06)

than in the neutral-power condition (mean � 4.79,s.d. � 1.43, F[1, 34] � 5.59, p � .024). In addition,formal leaders’ ratings of their sense of power werealso consistent with our manipulation: formal leadersin the high-power condition reported feeling a highersense of power (mean � 5.51, s.d. � 0.59) than didthose in the neutral-power condition (mean � 4.93,s.d. � 0.95, F[1, 34] � 4.81, p � .035). Neither ourinstrumentality manipulation nor the interaction be-tween the two manipulations significantly affectedthese ratings.

We then used formal leaders’ ratings of teammembers’ instrumentality to test the validity ofour manipulation of instrumentality awareness.As expected, leaders in the instrumental condi-tion rated team members as more instrumental(mean � 6.50, s.d. � 0.72) than did leaders in thenoninstrumental condition (mean � 5.62, s.d. �1.16, F[1, 34] � 7.72, p � .009). Neither ourpower manipulation nor the interaction betweenthe two manipulations had significant effects.Taken together, these results indicate that ourmanipulations were effective.

Amount of talking. A two (power) by two (instru-mentality awareness) between-persons ANOVA, us-ing team members’ answers for the amount of timethe formal leader talked during the team discussion,revealed a main effect of power (F[1, 34] � 10.33, p �.003) and a significant interaction effect (F[1, 34] �5.11, p � .03). When team members were not de-scribed as instrumental, the power manipulation hada positive effect on formal leaders’ amount of talkingas perceived by team members (meanHP_leader �35.37%, s.d. � 8.53 vs. meanNP_leader � 23.89%,s.d. � 3.73, F[1, 34] � 14.23, p � .001). However,Levene’s test for equality of variances indicated thatthe assumption of homogeneity of variance was vio-lated in this test, so we further examined this predic-tion using an unequal variance t-test, which furthercorroborated our prediction (t[10.95] � 3.70, p �.004), thus providing further support for Hypothe-sis 1. When team members were described as in-strumental, they described their formal leader astalking the same amount, regardless of the powermanipulation (meanHP_leader � 27.83%, s.d. �4.45 vs. meanNP_leader � 25.83%, s.d. � 7.79, F[1,34 � 1, p � .49). These findings lend initialsupport to Hypothesis 7.

Team open communication. A two (power) bytwo (instrumentality awareness) between-personsANOVA using open communication as the depen-dent variable only revealed a significant interactionbetween our two manipulations (F[1, 34] � 4.47, p �


.042). When members were not described as instru-mental, the power manipulation had a negative effecton team open communication (meanHP_leader � 5.78,s.d. � 0.76, vs. meanNP_leader � 6.44, s.d. � 0.54, F[1,34] � 6.43, p � .016). Thus, Hypothesis 2 was sup-ported. When team members were described as in-strumental, they reported communicating equallywell, regardless of leader power (meanHP_leader �6.25, s.d. � 0.45 vs. meanNP_leader � 6.15, s.d. � 0.44,F[1, 34] � 1, p � .69). Taken together, these findingslend additional support to Hypothesis 7.

Team performance. Next, we examined team per-formance using exact logistic regression, which wasnecessary because one of the cells in our two by twodesign (power, no instrumentality awareness) pro-duced no correct answers on the dependent variable.In exact logistic regression, a p-value is calculated bydetermining the proportion of permutations of thedata that would generate a distribution of outcomes atleast as extreme as the observed outcome. The p-value for each parameter estimate is calculated con-

ditionally according to the estimated value for theother parameters. Because exact logistic regression isbased on counting permutations, the usual test statis-tics, based on z or chi-square distributions, are notcalculated. Therefore, we report only the coefficientestimates and p-values for these tests.

This analysis revealed no main effects and a mar-ginally significant interaction between power andinstrumentality (b � �2.32, p � .08). Figure 3graphs overall Study 3 team performance. As pre-dicted, when team members were not described asinstrumental, a higher percentage of teams reachedthe right solution in the neutral-power conditionthan in the high-power condition (55.6 vs. 0%,�2[1, n � 18] � 6.92, p � .009), a finding thatsupports Hypothesis 3. When team members weredescribed as instrumental, about the same percent-age of teams reached the right solution, regardlessof leader power (50.0 vs. 60.0%, �2[1, n � 20] � 1,p � .65). These findings lend further support toHypothesis 7.

FIGURE 3Team Performance, Study 3


Moderated mediation. Finally, we examinedwhether the instrumentality manipulation moder-ated the indirect effect depicted in Figure 1. To doso, we again used the approach recommended byEdwards and Lambert (2007). We first regressedleaders’ amount of talking on power (1 � “highpower,” 0 � “neutral power”), instrumentality (1 �“awareness reminder,” 0 � “no reminder”), and theinteraction between the two (b � �9.48 [s.e. �4.20], � � �.56, t � �2.26, p � .03); we thenregressed openness on amount of talking (b ��0.28 [s.e. � 0.12], � � �.36, t � �2.28, p � .029);and finally, we used binary logistic regression toestimate the effect of openness (b � 5.82 [s.e. �2.02], Wald �2 � 8.30, df � 1, p � .004) and power(b � �1.05 [s.e. � 1.02], Wald �2 � 1.05, df � 1,p � .30) on team decision performance. The boot-strap analysis (MacKinnon et al., 2007; Shrout &Bolger, 2002) indicated that the indirect effect ofpower on team decision performance as mediatedthrough leader talking and open communicationswas significant when leaders did not receive aninstrumentality reminder (95% bias-corrected CI:�80.01, 0.00, p � .05). This finding again supportsHypothesis 4 and our path model, depicted in Fig-ure 1. Further, as expected, the bootstrap analysisrevealed that the indirect path was not significantwhen a leader did not hold a formal position ofauthority (95% bias-corrected CI: �25.55, 0.74).This finding supports Hypothesis 8.

Discussion

Study 3 replicated key findings from Studies 1and 2. Specifically, when no mention was made ofthe instrumentality of team members, teams withformal leaders with a high level of subjective feel-ings of power reported higher levels of leader talk-ing, indicated lower levels of open communication,and demonstrated lower levels of team perfor-mance than teams in the neutral power condition.In addition, Study 3 supported our contention thatleaders’ awareness of the instrumentality of teammembers can eliminate these effects. Specifically,when team members were described as instrumen-tal, the effects of formal leaders’ feelings of poweron leader talking, team open communication, andteam performance were essentially eliminated. Theresults of Study 3 also further supported our pre-diction that leader talking and team open commu-nication mediate the effect of leader power on teamperformance.

GENERAL DISCUSSION

The results of three studies provide consistentevidence in support of our arguments. Specifically,Study 1 demonstrated that the subjective experi-ence of power increases formal leaders’ tendenciesto verbally dominate social interactions and de-creases perceptions of authority openness, whichin turn diminishes team performance. Mediationanalyses provided support for our three-step causalpath, in which subjective power increases leadertalking, which in turn decreases perceptions of au-thority openness, which finally transmits the neg-ative effect to team performance. Study 2 replicatedthese findings and further demonstrated the impor-tant role of team members’ reactions to leaders’behavior. Specifically, Study 2 showed that, al-though subjective feelings of power increased lead-ers’ autocratic tendencies, their formal role (or lackthereof) determined team members’ willingness toacquiesce to this dominant behavior. Thus, wefound that the effects of subjective power on leadertalking, team open communication, and team per-formance (both decision performance and learningperformance) only emerged when leaders held aformal leadership role. Study 3 again replicated thefindings from Studies 1 and 2 with respect to for-mal leaders and also identified an importantboundary condition of these effects. Specifically, inStudy 3, teams with subjectively powerful formalleaders reported higher levels of leader talking, in-dicated lower levels of team open communication,and exhibited lower team performance than teamsin the control condition, but this only occurredwhen formal leaders were not reminded of the in-strumentality of their team members. When leaderswere reminded that all team members had the po-tential to contribute to team success, these effectsdid not emerge. These findings support our conten-tion that formal leaders’ awareness of the instru-mentality of their team members motivates them toovercome their tendency to discount others’ per-spectives and input; when formal leaders experi-encing a high subjective sense of power are awareof the instrumentality of their team members, theyare more encouraging of others’ input, and the neg-ative effect of power on team open communicationis eliminated.

Theoretical and Practical Implications

We wish to highlight three key theoretical con-tributions of this research. First, we contribute to


research on the impact of social hierarchy on learn-ing and performance in teams and organizations(e.g., Bunderson, 2003a, 2003b). Specifically, re-searchers have called for a better understanding ofthe microprocesses by which hierarchy impedesteam performance (Van der Vegt et al., 2010). Ourresearch indicates that the concentration of powerin formal leaders can be a crucial factor that leadsto negative team performance. In particular, wedemonstrate that leaders’ subjective experience ofpower increases their attempts to dominate teaminteractions. Furthermore, if leaders hold a formalposition of authority, other team members are moreinclined to defer to these dominating attempts.Therefore, when formal leaders experience aheightened level of power, they are likely to ver-bally dominate team interactions, thus reducing theopenness of team communication and, conse-quently, diminishing team performance. Identify-ing the microprocesses that produce the negativeeffect of hierarchy on team performance is a firststep toward mitigating some of the negative effectsthat hierarchy can produce and thus represents animportant theoretical and practical advance.

Second, the present article shows that the psy-chological effect of power is not limited to internaland behavioral effects on an individual experienc-ing either high or low power. We demonstrate thatwhen formal leaders experience feelings of power,that experience affects the entire group in whichthey are situated. A formal leader’s subjective ex-perience of power influences collective outcomesby changing the leader’s behavior, and the leader’sformal position increases the likelihood that otherteam members will defer to his or her dominatingbehavior. Our findings therefore represent an im-portant advancement of prior research on the ef-fects of the psychological experience of power byshowing that the effects transmit beyond the indi-vidual level to the team level.

Third, we advance research on the important roleof followers in determining leadership dynamics(e.g., DeRue, 2011; Dvir & Shamir, 2003; Howell &Shamir, 2005) by highlighting that followers’ con-sent is a crucial determinant of the effect of leaders’dominating behaviors on the performance of agroup. Specifically, our research demonstrates thatleaders’ power-prompted dominant behaviors areless likely to negatively affect team performance ifthe leaders lack the legitimacy derived from hold-ing formal positions of authority. The ways inwhich followers’ consent moderates the effective-ness of leadership behaviors is an important area

for further research. Indeed, we have argued thatformal authority evokes deference, which suggeststhat deference was an unmodeled proximal moder-ator transmitting the moderating effect of formalauthority to the effects of subjective power. Futureresearch could more directly test this implication.

This research also has important practical implica-tions for the role of leaders in promoting team perfor-mance. Specifically, our work indicates that it may benecessary for organizations and groups to take actionto minimize the negative effects of formal leaders’psychological experiences of power on team perfor-mance. This goal may be pursued in multiple ways.One option would be to minimize the psychologicalexperience of power among leaders by maintaining arelatively flat organizational structure and egalitarianculture. Alternatively, organizations could train lead-ers to cultivate high levels of authority openness andto encourage open team communications. Similarly,organizations may institute practices and policiesthat remind leaders of the important contributionstheir subordinates have the capacity to make, therebyreminding leaders that those around them are instru-mental to the pursuit of collective goals. Finally, or-ganizations could encourage all members to questionthe legitimacy of formal leaders who take a dominat-ing approach to social interactions. This tactic coulddelegitimize leaders’ dominating behavior, which inturn would decrease team members’ willingness todefer to formal leaders who engage in such behavior.

Limitations and Directions for Future Research

These contributions must be qualified in light ofseveral limitations of our research, each of whichsignals possible directions for future research onthis topic. A first limitation is our methodologicalapproach. We conducted the three studies we de-scribed in controlled settings (laboratory or class-room), which may limit the external validly of ourfindings. However, the negative effect of hierarchyon team performance has been established in pre-vious studies, and our goal here was to identify andexplain the microprocesses that underlie these neg-ative effects of power. By taking advantage of ran-dom assignment and manipulations of power thathave been validated by previous research, our stud-ies provided consistent and robust evidence thatformal leaders’ psychological experience of powercan affect their teams’ processes and performancein important ways. Moreover, the correlation be-tween the effect sizes obtained in the field andthose obtained in the lab are generally high (Ander-


son, Lindsay, & Bushman, 1999). Therefore, we ex-pect that further field-based investigations intothese microprocesses would strengthen the gener-alizability of the present results and possibly un-cover important boundary conditions of both thefindings and the theory presented in this article.

A second limitation is the type of team tasks weused. In all three studies, we employed tasks thatrequired collaborative problem solving that involvedteam members’ sharing and integrating informationand perspectives. There may be other types of tasksfor which our findings would be less likely to hold.For example, complex tasks that require a high levelof process coordination may benefit from a moredominating or autocratic approach to team leader-ship, as long as there is a true differentiation of ex-pertise that the leader can accurately identify (Lewis,2004). In addition, in contexts that involve a highlevel of uncertainty or insecurity, team members maybe comforted by the presence of a commandingleader, which may have a positive effect on perfor-mance. Similarly, autocratic leadership may be par-ticularly beneficial in crisis situations in which it isneither feasible nor desirable to obtain input from allteam members. Also, in these tasks, no particularperson had more general expertise than others; whena leader has a much higher level of expertise thanother team members, verbal dominance by the leadermay have less of a negative effect. That said, if theleader has such a high level of expertise that othermembers’ input is unnecessary, there is relativelylittle reason to use a team. Teams are most usefulwhen information from multiple individuals needs tobe integrated, and we argue—and our findings cor-roborate—that it is precisely in these situations thatthe psychological experience of power is most likelyto negatively affect team communication andperformance.

A third limitation of our methodological approachis that we did not record the conversations that tookplace among the teams, and thus we relied primarilyon self-reported measures of talking rather than ob-servational data. Previous laboratory studies in thisline of research have demonstrated high correlationsbetween reported talking time and recorded talkingtime (Tost, Gino, & Larrick, 2011). However, futureresearch in this area could record the conversationsand code their content to attempt to clarify howpower and authority affect the content of informationexchanged in team meetings.

The theoretical contributions of the present re-search open up a broad range of new directions forfuture work. Our findings suggest there may be an

intriguing cyclical relationship between performanceand leader power. Presumably, leadership success atlower levels of organizations increases an individu-al’s likelihood of promotion, which increases his/herformal authority and very likely a subjective feeling ofpower. The research presented here suggests that, atleast in some contexts, the simultaneous combinationof authority and feelings of power could diminish theeffectiveness of a leader at facilitating high levels ofteam performance. As a result, the very act of promot-ing someone could cause the performance of thatperson’s team to suffer. Future research should inves-tigate this possibility.

Furthermore, future research could examine howthe subjective experience of power affects leaders’abilities to modify the amount of participation theysolicit from team members on the basis of theirassessments of those team members’ expertise andabilities (Vroom & Jago, 1998). On the one hand, thedominating impulses brought about by feelings ofpower may diminish leaders’ abilities to accuratelyassess others’ expertise and abilities. On the otherhand, the positive effect of feelings of power on theflexible allocation of attention (Guinote, 2007;Overbeck & Park, 2006) suggests that, to the extentthat power holders accurately assess others’ abili-ties, they may be more effective than less powerfulleaders at successfully soliciting appropriate infor-mation and feedback.

Future work could also explore how the subjec-tive experience of power affects the behavior ofteam members other than formal leaders. Howwould our results differ if two individuals weresimultaneously experiencing high subjective feel-ings of power? How would team members’ inclina-tions to defer to a formal leader differ if team mem-bers themselves were experiencing high subjectivefeelings of power?

Another important area of future inquiry concernsthe moderators of the effects we have demonstrated.For example, it may be that certain personality typeshave more Machiavellian tendencies and would ex-hibit stronger effects of the experience of power oninterpersonal dominance, while others may be moreinclined to channel their experience of power inprosocial ways (Chen, Lee-Chai, & Bargh, 2001). Sim-ilarly, some team members may be more or less in-clined to defer to authority according to their person-ality type, interest in the issue being discussed, andrelationship to their leader.

Finally, our research highlights the importanceof developing a better understanding of the organ-ization-level antecedents of leaders’ psychological


experiences of power (e.g., does a hierarchical cul-ture increase the frequency of these experiences?)and determining ways in which these factors can bemodified to diminish the negative impact of a for-mal leader’s power on team communications andperformance. We hope our present research haslaid the groundwork for the pursuit of these andrelated avenues of inquiry.

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Leigh Plunkett Tost ([email protected]) is an assistantprofessor of management and organizations at the Uni-versity of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. She re-ceived her Ph.D. from Duke University. Her researchfocuses on the psychological and sociological dynamicsof power and status, and on the motivations underlyingindividuals’ pursuits of prosocial change.

Francesca Gino ([email protected]) is an associate professorof business administration at Harvard Business School,Harvard University. She received her Ph.D. in economicsand management from the Sant’Anna School of Ad-vanced Studies. Her research focuses on judgment anddecision making, social influence, group dynamics, andethics.

Richard P. Larrick ([email protected]) is the MichaelW. Krzyzewski University Professor in Leadership at DukeUniversity’s Fuqua School of Business. He received hisPh.D. from the University of Michigan. His research focuseson individual, group, and organizational cognition.


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WHEN POWER MAKES OTHERS SPEECHLESS: THE … Gino and Larrick...teams to understand how power differences affect team interactions and decision-making processes. We therefore set out