Managing Team Conscientiousness Diversity: The Role of Leader Emotion-Regulation Knowledge

Team members may vary in the degree to which they are self-motivating, diligent, and organized, but effects of such conscientiousness diversity are poorly understood. We propose that conscientiousness diversity effects depend on the team leader’s knowledge about managing negative affective responses—that is emotion regulation knowledge. Data of two time-lagged team studies show that for teams with leaders with lower emotion-regulation knowledge, conscientiousness diversity was negatively associated with team satisfaction (Study 1 and 2), team cohesion and information elaboration (Study 2), which in turn influenced team performance (Study 2). These negative relationships reversed in teams with leaders with higher emotion-regulation knowledge.