Paradoxical Leadership and Innovation in Work Teams: The Multilevel Mediating Role of Ambidexterity and Leader Vision as a Boundary Condition

In light of ever-increasing demands for innovation in work teams, we recommend paradoxical leadership to manage team and individual innovation. Integrating the paradox perspective and ambidexterity theory, we propose a multilevel model of how and when team leaders’ paradoxical leadership enhances team and individual innovative outcomes. We conducted two multi-wave, multisource field studies and a survey study with a cross-lagged panel design. Our findings show that paradoxical leadership has a positive indirect effect on team members’ individual innovation through individual ambidexterity and a positive indirect relationship with team innovation through team ambidexterity. Our results further show that leader vision strengthens the effects of paradoxical leadership on team and individual ambidexterity and innovative outcomes. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.