Leader Political Skill and Team Performance

TLDR

The study examines how leaders’ political skill affects performance of casework teams in a state child welfare system. Team performance was measured by the permanency rate, defined as the successful placement of children into final living arrangements such as adoption, guardianship, or return to parents. After controlling for caseload, child age, placement volume, team and leader experience, and empowerment, leader political skill explained a significant portion of variance in team permanency rates.

Abstract

The present study investigates the impact of the political skill of leaders on team performance. More specifically, this study examined the role of leader political skill in the performance of casework teams in a large state child welfare system. Team performance was operationalized as “permanency rate,” or the successful placement of children into legally final living arrangements (i.e., adoption, successor guardianship, or return to natural parents). After controlling for several contextually important factors (i.e., average caseload, average age of children served, average number of team placements, team member experience, leader experience, and team empowerment), leader political skill was found to explain a significant proportion of variance in team performance scores. Implications of these results, as well as directions for future research, are discussed.