Resumen de Relating shared leadership to capstone team effectiveness
Brian J. Novoselich, David Knight
Waning student engagement over the course of year-long capstone design projects may decrease team effectiveness and createchallenges for capstone faculty advisors and student team leaders. Because leadership is an influence process, reframing howleadership is conceptualized for students may provide a tool that can bolster student effort and overall team effectiveness. Recentliterature suggests that sharing leadership may be more effective than vertical leadership for complex design work, but little isknown regarding shared leadership within the undergraduate engineering context. This study examined the relationship betweenshared leadership and team effectiveness for undergraduate mechanical engineering capstone design teams using an adaptation ofthe Full Range of Leadership model. Results indicated that the overall strength and a limited sharing of select team leadershipbehaviors relate to a team’s effectiveness through group process and individual satisfaction, but not task performance. This studyprovides capstone faculty with insights into effective leadership behaviors that may be encouraged within the capstone designexperience.
