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This is the peer reviewed version which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/joop.12316 . This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions., Team innovation is an important factor for organizational effectiveness. However, fostering innovation in teams remains a major challenge for team leaders. In particular, we still have an incomplete understanding of (1) the effects of team-centric leadership and (2) the role of teamwork for the relationship between leadership and innovation and learning. Integrating team-centric transformational leadership and the teamwork quality (TWQ) model with frameworks for team innovation, the current study addresses this issue. Specifically, we investigated TWQ as a team-level mediator of the relationship between team-centric transformational leadership, team innovation, and individual members’ learning. We tested our hypotheses using lagged, multi-source data from a sample of 79 scientific teams. Our findings show that team-centric transformational leadership is positively related to both team innovation and individual members’ learning. Further- more, the positive relationship between team-centric transformational leadership and learning is mediated by specific aspects of TWQ. Our study helps to clarify the processes underlying the effects of team-centric leadership on innovation and learning.

Team-based work structures have become prevalent in science. Scientific teams, however, are characterized by competing individual-level and team-level needs (i.e., by mixed-motive situations). This makes leading scientific teams particularly challenging: Balancing competing individual-level goals and common team-level goals requires a specific type of leadership that simultaneously considers both satisfying individual-level needs as well as team-level needs. The current study addresses this issue by combining the dual-focused model of transformational leadership with person-environment fit theory. Specifically, we investigated needs-supplies fit, person-supervisor fit, and team fit as mediators of the relationship between transformational leadership and scientific team members’ job satisfaction and work-related strain. In doing so, we provide a new perspective on leadership in scientific teams by explicitly differentiating individual-level and team-level effects of transformational leadership. We tested our hypotheses using a three-wave design with a sample of 134 members of 42 scientific teams. The relationships between individual-focused transformational leadership, job satisfaction, and work-related strain were mediated by needs-supplies fit and person-supervisor fit. Team-focused transformational leadership was positively related to job satisfaction and negatively related to work-related strain. Our findings contribute to further clarifying the mechanisms underlying the relationship between transformational leadership and members’ well-being in scientific teams.