Teams and Leadership

Lesson 4. Team composition and personality in teams

Today’s lesson:
- Survey time: “bright side” personality
- Meta-analysis on team personality, intelligence, EI, and values in relation to team
performance (Bell, 2007)
- Personality trait variance in teams (Humphrey et al., 2007) and two empirical examples:
team performance (Humphrey et al., 2011) and team innovation (den Hartog et al., 2020)
- Survey time: “dark side” personality
- The Dark Tetrad and team performance and -cooperation (Dierdorff & Fisher (2022)

Team composition in Mathieu et al. (2017)...............................................................................

Team composition in Robbins & Judge (2009)...........................................................................

There is a specific box on team composition.

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Survey time...................................................................................................................................

https://psytests.org/big5/bfiSen-run.html

Select Big Five Inventory-2-Short (BFI-2-S; John & Soto, 2017):

30 items
+/- 3 min
+/- 3 min to check your own test scores

Discussion..............................................................................................................................

● Think about past group-based WPO’s, group assignments, teamwork tasks:

○ Did any of the Big 5 personality traits affect the group dynamics during these tasks?
○ How?
● What personality dimensions do you consider crucial for enhancing team performance?

The Big Five..........................................................................................................................

Openness – Being open to new experiences

Conscientiousness – Being hard-working, orderly, and thorough

Extraversion – Being enthusiastic, energetic, and optimistic

Agreeableness – Being helpful, cooperative, and getting along with others

Neuroticism – Being insecure, anxious, and nervous

(Industrial-Organizational psychologists sometimes call this emotional stability, but this ruins the
OCEAN acronym)

Personality as a dual-level input for teams................................................................................

Individual team member personality/behaviour can influence team affectiveness via to ways. Via
team composition (Pathway A) / through individual behaviour (Pathway B).

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Team level personality:

1. Mean team openness - look on a team level personality

2. Minimum/maximum levels of each of these dimensions → you assume that the personality can
have a major influence on the whole team performance level.
3. Variance and diversity levels → Low variance (a lot of similarity) e.g everybody scores high on
extroverty.

Deep-Level Composition Variables as Predictors of Team Performance: A Meta-Analysis Bell (2007)

Deep level composition variables: those you can not observe directly. E.g. personality.

Method

- Settings: Lab (forced experiment) vs. field (in real-life team performance not forced).
- Deep-level composition variables:
- Personality: Big Five traits
- Abilities: Intelligence (GMA) and Emotional intelligence (EI): effectivelly using your
emotions and the others’
- Values: collectivism (opposite of individualism, focus on the group larger investment
for groups) and preference for teamwork.

- Team-level measures: We are going to look at:

- Mean
- Minimum
- Maximum
- Heterogeneity (= trait variability/variability)

- Outcome: Team performance

Results – Conscientiousness
(Hear the results in the recording)

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→ p .10 - small effects / .30 - moderate effects / .50 - high effects → d are differences, p look on the
relationships.

Overall results:(we take into consideration all the variables (mean, maximum, minimum,
heterogeneity…) the overall effect on consciousness on team performance is SIGNIFICANT but only
in field settings.

Looking at the specific operationalisations: Moderate relationship at the mean level of

conscientiousness in relation to team performance (only in the field).
- If the team is on average more consciousness, the team performance will be higher.

Results – Agreeableness

Overall effects: Significant effect on the field but not in the lab.
Mean level agreeableness in the field has a positive relationship with team performance.
Minimum level: Stronger relationship with minimum agreeableness - one low scoring desagreable
person in the team can screw things up.

Results – Extraversion

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Looking at the overall results there is a significance on the field but not on the lab. tHe relationship
on the different measures is not that strong.
If the team is on average more extroverted, the team performance will be higher.

Results – Emotional Stability

Overall results: We can’t find any significant results.

- Emotional stability does not play any significant role on team performance.

Mean emotional stability level: In the field, does have a small positive effect. On average people
who have self-confidence, the team performance will increase but it is a smaller effect.

Results – Openness to Experience

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Overall: Positive relationship in the field, but not in the lab.

Mean level: Positive relationship in the field. (.25 not very significant in individuals but it is on team
level)

Results – values and EI

On general levels (COLLECTIVISM and TEAM WORK), only significance relations in the fields not in the
lab.
Mean: Significant relationship in the field
- Strong relationship between mean collectivism. When the team scores higher / values the
group, team performance is stronger.

For EI, only significant effects in the lab, but not in the field. (.20 a small effect).

Results – General Mental Ability (GMA)

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GMA is significant in the field and also in the lab. But more strong in the lab compared to in the field.
A person with a low GMA can decrease the team performance levels.

The mean has a positive influence: The teams who score on average higher on cognitive ability, have
a higher team performance level
Minimum and maximum: strong relationship with team performance.
- That means that on average Mental abilities matter. One intelligent team member can
increase the team performance, also happens on the opposite (a person with lower cognitive
abilities).

Main results from Bell (2007)

In lab settings

- Moderate to strong effects of ability variables: team mean (.33), min. (.48) and max. (.42)
GMA and team mean EI (.20) were related to team performance.

- No effects of personality and value variables.

In field settings

The trend use to be the opposite.

- Moderate to strong effects of personality and value variables: team min. A (.37) and team
mean C (.33), O (.25), collectivism (.40), and preference for teamwork (.26) were related to
team performance.

- No or negligible effects of ability variables (GMA and EI) – except for mean GMA (.26)

One person in a team can have a big impact (on GMA especially).

Personality trait variance in self-managed teams (SMT’s) Humphrey et al. (2007).........................

Question

Suppose an organization needs to create 20 teams of 4 people each and has 40 highly conscientious
people and 40 who score low on conscientiousness.

Would the organization be better off …?

(1) forming 10 teams of highly conscientious people and 10 teams of members low on C
team homogeneity: low trait variance - all members are similar. There is evidence that this option
could be better.

(2) “seeding” each team with 2 people who

score high and 2 who score low on C?
team heterogeneity: high trait variance - a lot of
differences in terms of personality traits

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Background

Person-team (P-T) fit: Theories of supplementary and complementary fit

- Supplementary fit: ( 〜 similarity hypothesis): People are more comfortable and productive
when they are similar to each other.
- Complementary fit: People fit the team when they bring something unique to the collective
that “makes it whole”. Different people can complement each other.

Assumption: Both are relevant for team performance, depending on the nature of the trait.

Conscientiousness: The case for supplementary fit

Low levels of C variance is expected to positively affect team performance through goal congruence.
When members are similar in terms of consciousness changes are higher because team members
will have same/similar goals. They want to obtain usually difficult goals.
- Low C variance: team members with the same performance norms and performance goals >
team performance.
- High C variance: team members have different performance norms and -goals.

○ High C: difficult goals; desire to put in a large amount of effort <>

○ Low C: easy goals; desire to put in less effort
■ causes conflicts: High C members angry with low C members who free-ride.
■ ”sucker effect”: High C members feel that other members are putting in less
effort, making them to reduce their personal efforts to avoid being the
suckers in the team.

Extraversion: The case for complementary fit

High levels of E variance (a lot of variability because some team members will score high on
extraversion but there are also introverted team members) is expected to positively affect team
performance through role differentiation.
- Self-managed teams (SMT’s) have no preexisting leadership structure, but need one to be
effective.
- High extraversion variance enables a structure of leaders and followers (<> everybody wants
to be the leader: role conflicts) > efficiency > team performance. It is difficult if the members
are really high on extraversion, it does not work it a lot of them want to be the leader.

Interaction between supplementary and complementary fit

The positive impact of higher levels of E variance on team performance will be stronger in teams
with lower levels of C variance (similar levels of conscientiousness). The combined effects will even
be stronger.

Results – Humphrey et al. (2011)

Humphrey et al. (2011): An empirical test of the conceptual model proposed in Humphrey et al.
(2007). They presented their ideas in a conceptual way, they didn’t empirically test their ideas.

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- Longitudinal study of MBA teams (N = 54). They look at both:

- Short-term performance: they look at Modified version of Distributed Dynamic

Decision-Making (DDD) Task - (4 games over 2 weeks)
- Long-term performance: The group’s academic performance (GPA) over the course
of a full year.

“Seeding” teams: systematically placing people on teams to create maximal and minimal levels of E-
and C-variance. From the beginning they knew the e or c level of everyone and were mixed.

Interaction effects:
Short term Long-term

No mean (main?) effects were found. They only found interaction effects: a combination of both
worked the best.
When high extraversion variance in combination with low C variance, highest performance results at
a team level (both short and long term)

Why not these main effects? They neutralize each other, the interaction is so strong that the benefits
of a complementary fit on E is not obtained when there is a bad fit for C (and way round).
It makes sense to look at combinate variance, as people have different personality traits.

- (2nd paper) Linking personality trait variance in SMT’s (N = 32) to team innovation:

In contrast to the previous study, this one is focusing on team innovation.

› Conscientiousness: low C variance > higher team innovation ( 𝛾= -.12)

› Extraversion: low E variance > higher team innovation ( 𝛾= -.22)

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Authors think maybe in these groups in which there’s a large reliability in terms of E the more
introverted people will not talk and then of course you lose input in terms of innovation levels.

Development of team innovation over time (over 8 weeks)! They also checked how these innovations
went over the time:
- high E variance > decreased team innovation over time.
- low A (agreeableness) variance > decreased team innovation over time. If everyone is the
same in terms of A, team innovation gets hurt.

For team innovation, homogeneity on C and E is better. And heterogeneity on A is better.

Dark personality traits in teams Dierdorff & Fisher (2022)

Survey time
https://psytests.org/darktriad/sd4en.html
Select Short Dark Tetrad (SD4; Paulhus et al., 2020)
- 28 items
- +/- 3 min
- +/- 3 min to check your own test scores

Discussion
Think about past group-based WPO’s, group assignments, teamwork tasks:
- Did any of the Dark Tetrad traits affect the group dynamics during these tasks?
- How?
Not always ”dysfunctional” traits in the work context! (a lot are positively related to career success ot
leadership emergence)
- What kind of relationships do you expect between the Dark Tetrad traits and team
performance?

The Dark Tetrad

Machiavellianism – the belief that cheating, lying, and manipulation are legitimate strategies for
accomplishing personal objectives; have a cynical view of human nature.
Narcissism – grandiosity, have a sense of entitlement, dominancy, and superiority
Psychopathy – tendency to be impulsive and engage in disinhibited antisocial behavior without
remorse; lack of empathy, glibness, superficial charm.
Sadism – derive pleasure/satisfaction from inflicting physical or emotional distress on others
Not extreme, they are related to subclinical levels. Measured in normal people.

Method – Dierdorff & Fisher (2022)

● 43 graduate student teams (N = 269)

● Business game:

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○ Each team runs a company as TMT (decisions on product design, marketing, HR,
production, finance,...) against other teams in the course. Every move you make as a
single team has an impact on other teams.
● Longitudinal design:
6-week time span (“6 years”), incl. a disruptive or shock event (begin of week 4): very difficult
decisions had to be made. Every week represented a year. The researchers look at the:
○ Effect of the mean-level Dark Tetrad traits on team performance and -cooperation
trajectories. Development of performance and cooperation through these weeks.
○ Effect of disruptive events on these trajectories.
○ Controlled for (!) mean agreeableness (A), mean honesty-humility (HH), and Dark
Tetrad variance. Two teams can have identical means but different levels of
reliability. For some teams there would be a lot of variability in terms of these traits
but for others there will be very homogeneous. They controlled for the variance
levels of these traits and therefore, if they find significant relationships it can not be
due to agreeableness, honesty-humility or trait variety, because they controlled
these variables. When you control A or HH you also control all the whole dimension.
Results

- General trend: Positive change in team performance and -cooperation over time
- Significant between-team variance. On average there is a significance between team
variance, as we can see every line in these figures, is the development or the trajectory of
one particular team so some teams made a really positive change while others don’t, but on
average there is positive relationship both for performance and cooperation.

- Teams with high means on Mach and sadism: No positive change in team cooperation over
time. The dotted line is the one with high levels of mach and sadism, so there is no positive
change in cooperation. We also don’t see any significant effects of narcissism or psychopathy.

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- Teams with high means on Mach and sadism: Less positive change in team performance over
time. The dotted lines are less positive changes in team performance. The reason why we
see there is less positive effect in team performance is because of the lower level of
cooperation. The effect of Mach and sadism were mediated by the levels of team
cooperation.

In contrast to the previous slide showing the developmental trajectories of the entire time frame of
the business game, here we see the separate trajectories before and after the shock events. We can
see when exactly those traits harm team performance or cooperation.
- Teams with high means on Mach and sadism: Flatter cooperation- and performance
trajectories only after a disruptive/shock event

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Trajectories of teams scoring higher/lower on narcissism:

- Teams with low means on narcissism: Flatter cooperation- and performance trajectories
before a disruptive event
- Teams scoring higher on narcissism actually do it better. In some specific conditions,
narcissism can be potentially beneficial.

Main findings - Dierdorff & Fisher (2022)

High team means on Mach and sadism had damaging effects on team cooperation and -performance
over time, especially after a stressful disruptive event.

High team means on narcissism had positive effects on team cooperation and - performance over
time, especially before a stressful disruptive event.

- Narcissists are first perceived as expressive and dominant (even charming and flattering,
positive first impression), but in the long run as aggressive and arrogant (Leckelt et al., 2015)

- Maybe a 6-week time span was not enough to observe its damaging effects.

No significant relationships with psychopathy:

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- Overlap with A and HH and the other dark traits (which they controlled for!).

Interesting thing to consider is Whether or not it is useful to control variables like A or HH in studies
like this. Controlling these general traits, actually removes a large part of meaningful variance in
psychopathy and other traits. By doing so it is actually quite unclear what the remaining unique
variability of the construct represents. When the objective is explicitly to test the incremental
identity of the unique dark components of these traits beyond general traits then it makes sense. But
are not entirely sure whether in this specific research it makes sense to remove this agreeableness
and dishonesty from this constrats before relating it to team performance and cooperation. Because
in this way what do the really unique dark components represent after that large part of meaningful
variance is already removed for the contrast.

Quick Recap

Moderate to strong effects of personality and value variables on team performance in field settings

- Different team-level conceptualizations of personality matter: mean, min (Bell et al., 2007),
variability (Humphrey et al., 2011; den Hartog et al., 2020).

Moderate to strong effects of ability variables on team performance in lab settings. Field research
still is a bit better compared to lab studies (personal opinion) - personality and values matter on that
real-performance.

Team means on dark traits also matter for team cooperation and performance trajectories

- Negative effects of Mach and sadism

- Positive effects of narcissism

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