Dysfunction and Power

In this section, we review the empirical work that has been conducted on the team-level effects of team power-level, power dispersion, and power struggles.

Team power level

Team power has generally been proposed in the literature to have negative effects on team outcomes. Teams where all members have high power, such as in management teams, are generally expected to have internal power struggles and conflicts, which harm team outcomes. These negative effects of team power have been theorized to occur because when members with high power interact, all members are motivated to retain and improve the power they hold. As such members are vigilant to threats to their individual positions. Additionally, given that high power members tend to be proactive and goal-oriented, high-power members are especially likely to lash out preemptively to protect and improve their positions. In support of this, researchers have shown that high-power teams have more intragroup conflict in team studies in the laboratory as well as in studies in the field of high-ranking corporate teams and sports teams. Indeed, early work on high-power teams found that high-power people often made hostile attributions of one another, presuming that the ambiguous behavior of high power others is malevolent. More recently, Zhao and Greer found that when high-power people work together in teams, they often feel paranoid and anxious by the presence of other high-power peers, and therefore act in preemptively aggressive ways to protect their own sources of power. In sum, team power-level is expected in the literature to often drive negative intra-team power struggles and harm team performance.

In support of the above theorizing in the literature, team power level has indeed been largely shown to negatively impact team processes and outcomes. In studies of within-team negotiations, when multiple members hold power within the team (through holding desirable alternatives or possessing formal power in the negotiation), teams are more likely to reach impasses and to achieve lower joint outcomes. In studies of student teams, teams where all members had high power performed worse on tasks in the laboratory than teams where all members had low power. In the field context, work has shown that when organizational teams are populated with multiple high power-members of an organization, this can hurt the performance of teams in the financial industry. For example, Groysberg et al. found teams with a high proportion of star financial analysts performed worse than teams with just a few stars. Similarly, Greer et al. found in both the telecom and financial sectors, that teams with on average many high-power members underperformed lower level teams in the company that had few or no high-power members.

Initial research has begun to look at potential moderators of these effects which can reduce the negative dynamics in high power teams. For example, Greer et al. found that when team members had on-going high consensus about positions within the team (i.e., greater agreement on the power distribution in the team), the negative effects of team power diminished. Similarly, Greer and Van Kleef found that when social comparison and associated threats to members' power within the team were reduced (by flattening internal team power hierarchies), the link between team power-level and performance-detracting power struggles was reduced. Both of these studies suggest that decreasing positional threats within high power teams can help high-power teams to get along better. In more recent work, Zhao and Greer explored another way to reduce perceived threats in high power teams − they asked teams to reduce attention to internal power dynamics. They found in a set of laboratory studies as well as an archival study of management team shareholder letters that an external (as opposed to internal team) focus reduced power struggles and improved performance in high-power teams. Therefore, while team power-level appears to increase power struggles and harm team performance, contexts which can reduce (or at least reduce focus on) perceived personal resource threats can ameliorate the negative power dynamics within high-power teams.

Team power dispersion

Team power dispersion (i.e. intra-team hierarchy) has received the most attention in research thus far of any conceptualization of power in teams, and has been linked to divergent outcomes. Theory and research have proposed and shown both positive and negative effects of differences in power within a team on the outcomes of the team. On the one hand, theory and research on the conflict account of power suggest that team power dispersion negatively impacts team processes and outcomes. According to this theory, power dispersion elicits differences in perspectives and interests between members, as high-power members are motivated to protect their valued high-power positions, and low power members are motivated to reduce their vulnerabilities and move up the power hierarchy. These dynamics are likely to result in conflict, prevent team learning and information sharing, and reduce interpersonal helping, thereby harming team outcomes. To illustrate these dynamics, take for example a typical venture capital firm. In this firm, entry level associates may have important information on startup firms which they have analyzed, but may have to fight to be heard in firm investment meetings where more powerful senior partners tend to wield the most influence and make decisions based on their own personal preferences. In such situations, where power defines team interactions, teams may struggle to perform. In the scenario mentioned, such power dynamics could likely result in the venture firm missing out on an important investment opportunity.

In support of the conflict account, many studies have found negative effects of power dispersion on team outcomes, and conflict has been frequently shown to mediate this effect. In sports teams, teams with more unequal pay performed worse on the field (e.g., winning percentage). Similarly, in management teams, unequal pay has been linked to poorer firm performance. For example, Siegel and Hambrick examined 67 top management teams of U.S. firms, and found executive compensation dispersion was negatively related to firm performance (market-to-book and total shareholder return) for more technologically intensive firms. The researchers' reasoning is that especially in technologically intensive firms, multiway information processing and collaboration between senior executives are required, which are impeded by having high levels of pay inequity in the team. In organizational settings, across all levels of the organization, research has also generally found a negative effect of power dispersion on team performance. For example, Wellman, Mitchell et al., and Perry all found that perceived dispersion in referent power, or status, decreased the performance of healthcare teams. In the context of negotiating teams, several studies have shown power dispersion to create more competitive and conflictual interactions and to impair team performance outcomes. For example, Van Bunderen, Greer et al. and Van Bunderen, Van Knippenberg et al. found that teams with a formal power hierarchy (as opposed to flat power structure) had more power struggles and lower joint outcomes during within-team negotiations, especially when team resources were threatened by conflicts in the broader organization. In studies of student groups, power dispersion, such as seen in differences in dominance, sense of power, and in the presence or absence of formal leaders, reduced team open communication and member satisfaction and consequently diminished team performance. For example, Carson, Tesluk, and Marrone found that higher levels of power dispersion, in the form of more centralized leadership (vs shared leadership), hurt the performance of student consulting teams.

On the other hand, the functionalist account suggests that power dispersion is associated with potential positive outcomes. First, this perspective is rooted in research in social psychology, which suggests that an unconscious preference for hierarchy exists because of the comfort it gives in prioritizing and clarifying information and interactions. Such clarity can satisfy individuals' fundamental needs for structure, predictability, and certainty. Second, power dispersion satisfies individuals' needs for power and achievemen and provides an effective incentive structure for people motivated to move up the ranks in a power hierarchy. By enabling promotion, differentiated compensation, and intangible status symbols (e.g., job titles), power dispersion in teams serves as a formal reward structure motivating individual members to excel at work and engage in extra-role behaviors. Third, power dispersion is thought to increase role clarity, which facilitates the division of labor, smooths interpersonal interactions, and enhances coordination. Finally, the functional account of power dispersion suggests that power differentiations should reduce conflict and promote cooperation between ranks, because lower-ranked members comply with and defer to higher-ranked ones so as to maximize their short- and long-term interests. Taken together, functionalist accounts expect power dispersion to benefit team outcomes.

In support of the functional perspective, some studies have shown positive effects of power dispersion on team outcomes. Power dispersion in management teams (such as via executive compensation dispersion or dispersion in decision making influence) has been found to be positively related to firm performance. For instance, Main, O'Reilly, and Wade examined 209 top management teams of public firms over five years and found executive team wage dispersion to be positively related to return on assets. In certain sport teams (e.g., NBA, NHL), power dispersion (based on salary or talent level) has also been found to enhance the likelihood of winning due to improved cooperation and coordination. In such teams having a key player, rather than multiple stars, may help alleviate ego conflicts and team failures. Similarly, in some negotiation studies, power dispersion has been shown to benefit team outcomes. For example, Sondak and Bazerman found that unequal power between negotiation partners in terms of the parties' different potential outside alternatives (i.e. one party has a great exit option, and the other didn't) increased the quality of negotiated agreements. And in studies of student teams, power dispersion also has been shown to benefit team performance, particularly when based on expertise. For example, Woolley et al. found that teams which had high power dispersion in the form of a clear expertise hierarchy better integrated information and were therefore better at solving a hypothetical terrorist plot.

In an effort to reconcile these two accounts (conflict and functional perspectives) and to summarize the state of the literature, Greer, De Jong et al., and Greer, Van Kleef et al. recently conducted a meta-analysis across 54 studies (including 13,914 teams). They found that the average main effect of power dispersion on team performance and satisfaction across the studies included was negative. They empirically demonstrated that this negative effect was explained by heightened conflicts within power-dispersed teams, and did not find any support for positive effects of power dispersion on performance via coordination processes in power-dispersed teams. The authors suggested that their findings showed stronger support for conflict than functionalist accounts of power dispersion at this point in the literature. They also raised the possibility that past functionalist assumptions on the benefits of power dispersion, or hierarchy for teams, may have been overgeneralized from findings which were theoretical or measured individual level outcomes rather than team performance outcomes. They therefore suggested that the literature needs to pay more attention to developing a deeper understanding of how and why power dispersion may have a more negative effect on team outcomes via conflicts in the team. However, they also showed that these effects are sensitive to the context, with the negative effects of power dispersion being weakened in teams where conflicts are unlikely (i.e. homogenous teams with stable membership and stable hierarchies), and positive effects of power dispersion being possible when the power differences are clearly expertise based and when tasks require an especially high amount of coordination (i.e. virtual teams, or teams where the hierarchy is clearly expertise based).

Others have also begun to attempt to reconcile these divergent findings on the effects of team power dispersion. Different theoretical moderating models have been put forward, and numerous empirical studies have begun to test contingencies which may determine whether power dispersion is good or bad for team outcomes. For instance, Tarakci et al. found that performance differences between teams with high and low power disparity are contingent on whether the power holder has high or low competence. Power dispersion benefits team performance when it is aligned with power holder's task competence, but harms team performance when it is not aligned with task competence. In another example, Van der Vegt et al. examined 46 teams in the field and found that power dispersion was positively related to learning and performance when teams received team feedback, but negatively related to learning and performance when teams received individual feedback. This is because team feedback promotes a collective improvement orientation within a team (i.e., how are we doing; what can we do to improve our performance?), which leads high power members to use their power advantage to help the team. Individual feedback on the other hand promotes an individual improvement orientation (i.e., how am I doing; what can I do to improve my performance?), leading high power members to use their power advantage solely for their own gain. Relatedly, both Bunderson and Greer, De Jong et al., and Greer, Van Kleef et al. show that power differences are more negatively related to performance in teams where there are functional differences and conflict susceptibilities. And closely tied to these findings, Van Bunderen, Greer et al. and Van Bunderen, Van Knippenberg et al. show that external conflicts may also lead power differences to be more strongly related to performance-detracting intra-team power struggles. Together, the body of work on power dispersion suggests that power dispersion can often cause performance-detracting power struggles in teams.

Power struggles in teams

The primary behavioral process around power in teams which has been examined in the literature is intra-team power struggles. Power struggles can involve competition for formal resource control as well as for more informal control, such as esteem in the eyes of others [indeed, some research has specifically focused on such status conflicts]. Intra-team power struggles are different from other known forms of intra-team conflicts in their underlying driver - power struggles occur because of a desire to change the relative levels of resource allocations in the team. At times, power struggles are overt, and can be explicitly seen as such. At other times, power struggles may be expressed more indirectly and instead may be seen in how they drive other forms of conflict in teams, such as conflicts over the task (i.e., disagreements about the goals and outcomes of teamwork), relationship (i.e., personality or value clashes), and process (i.e., disagreements about team logistics, such as meeting time). This is because other types of conflicts are oftentimes seen as less threatening, and therefore are more accepted and more normative to express than power struggles, which are mostly condemned. Indeed, research has shown that trying to overstep or improve one's resource control is punished in teams. Therefore, rather than openly express such counter-normative goals, members may instead use other forms of conflicts as opportunities to gain power. For example, a member may propose a new process to guide work on a specific task in order to gain prestige in the eyes of others or control over a more desirable role within the team. As another example of a hidden power struggle, during such a task conflict, a member who is afraid of losing power may start to heavily criticize a proposal, not because he does not agree with this new way of working, but because he is afraid that by accepting this proposal, the other member may gain power, and he might lose power. As such, members may frequently use other forms of conflicts to express their underlying power struggles.

Power struggles encompass a large variety of behaviors. In order to gain more power, members may both try to put or pull others down or to bring oneself up, and they may do so in more overt – out in the open for everyone to see and experience – or more covert – hidden, more secretly executed – manners. For instance, members may struggle for power by engaging in behind-the-scenes coalition formation, purposely withholding information from each other, or gossiping about one another. Members may also in their power-quest deceive, manipulate or undermine authority - for instance by explicitly refusing orders or more implicitly ignoring orders. They can also try to augment their power by dominating, coercing or sabotaging other members. Members can also try to improve their power position by increasing one's effort and achievement, bragging about their achievements, or taking credit for other members' work.

Power struggle behaviors may not only manifest in many different ways, but they may also be portrayed by members in all directions. That is, power struggle behaviors may be directed upward from lower ranked members to higher ranked members, in order to either bring higher ranked members down, oneself up or both. For instance, lower ranked members may rally up together against higher ranked members. Lower ranked members may also make power moves by withholding access to persons, information or instrumentalities, or by making high-ranked members more dependent on the lower-ranked members. For example, the secretary who is generally in charge of the allocation of office supplies and space may use this power to purposely disadvantage higher ranked colleagues. Power struggle behaviors may also come from higher ranked members directed at lower ranked members – especially when they feel threatened – in order to protect or improve their own power positions. Indeed, it is not uncommon for high power members, like the CEO's of top management teams, to be suspicious, distrusting, and worried that other team members are plotting against him or her (i.e., be paranoid). Therefore, higher ranked members may, for instance, oppress or sideline lower ranked members. Lastly, power struggle behaviors may also be directed laterally, i.e., members of the same power rank may also compete with one another for instance by discrediting each other.

Power struggles have been nearly entirely proposed to have a negative impact on team outcomes. First, power struggles are notoriously difficult to clearly identify and resolve, as they are often indirectly expressed via other behaviors, such as pushing more aggressively during a task conflict or claiming a desirable role during a process discussion. Conflicts can only ever help performance when the real issues are brought to the table and discussed. However, power tends to be a very sensitive topic, which people find it difficult to openly talk about, and therefore power struggles are rarely openly discussed in teams, making their eventual resolution very problematic and their chance of escalating likely. Second, power struggles make members primarily concerned with their own power position, and as such distracts them from their task and team activities. Third, power struggles are likely to sour personal relationships between members, which impacts other important pre-requisites of team functioning and performance, including intra-team trust and the willingness to share information and cooperate with one another. Fourth, because power is often seen as zero-sum, when one member seeks power, this can be threatening for other team members. As a result, they may seek to protect or bolster their own position in response to perceived power moves by others. This, together with the fact that changes in the intra-team power distribution affect all members of the team, makes power struggles likely to be contagious within teams. As such, the implications of power struggles tend to be long-term and intractable, thereby harming effective teamwork.

In support of the above theorizing, research thus far does show that power struggles are likely to negatively affect team outcomes. For example, Greer and Van Kleef  video-coded power struggles in both student negotiation-dyads as well as real work teams performing an information-sharing exercise, and found power struggles to impede intra-team conflict resolution. Power struggles have also been found to impair team decision-making quality. For instance, Spoelma and Ellis let 90 four-person student teams conduct a distributed information team decision-making task in which students needed to discuss and then decide which of the described university professors would be the most qualified candidate for an endowed chair position. Teams that showed more power struggles made poorer team decisions. Last, power struggles have been found to harm team performance. As an example, Greer, Van Kleef et al.  found in their study with retail outlet teams that higher levels of self-reported power struggles were negatively related to the financial performance of the team − as measured by the number of sales divided by the number of customers walking into the retail outlet per day. In sum, at this point in the literature, findings have nearly universally shown that power struggles negatively affect team outcomes.

Given the potentially devastating effects of power struggles for team outcomes, research has begun to examine how such power struggles can be prevented or managed. For example, Lee, Choi, and Kim showed in a multi-method set of studies that gender diversity can ameliorate the negative effects of status conflicts in teams. De Hoogh et al. showed that the deleterious effects of power struggles for team performance are ameliorated when leaders exhibit less autocratic tendencies. And, Bendersky and Hays showed that in teams with initial high disagreement about ranks, power struggles about such ranks can actually lead to subsequent higher agreement on internal team hierarchies, highlighting a situation in which power struggles could even potentially benefit team outcomes.