Cognition-based and affect-based trust as mediators of leader behavior influences on team performance.

TLDR

The study develops a model in which cognitive and affective trust in the leader mediate the influence of leader behavior on team psychological states and performance, and discusses implications for research and leader development. The model was tested on 191 financial services teams in Hong Kong and the U.S., examining how servant and transformational leadership shape affect‑based and cognition‑based trust and team psychological safety. Results show that servant leadership improves team performance through affect‑based trust and psychological safety, transformational leadership through cognition‑based trust, and that all leader effects are fully mediated by trust and psychological states, with servant leadership accounting for an additional 10 % of performance variance.

Abstract

We develop a model in which cognitive and affective trust in the leader mediate the relationship between leader behavior and team psychological states that, in turn, drive team performance. The model is tested on a sample of 191 financial services teams in Hong Kong and the U.S. Servant leadership influenced team performance through affect-based trust and team psychological safety. Transformational leadership influenced team performance indirectly through cognition-based trust. Cognition-based trust directly influenced team potency and indirectly (through affect-based trust) influenced team psychological safety. The effects of leader behavior on team performance were fully mediated through the trust in leader variables and the team psychological states. Servant leadership explained an additional 10% of the variance in team performance beyond the effect of transformational leadership. We discuss implications of these results for research on the relationship between leader behavior and team performance, and for efforts to enhance leader development by combining knowledge from different leadership theories.