Examining the behavioral and structural characteristics of team leadership in extreme environments

Despite the growing interest in extreme teams, there is currently a lack of understanding concerning leadership within such teams, as the literature has predominantly focused on team leadership within the context of traditional organizations. The current study investigates team leadership within the context of teams operating in extreme environments, with a specific focus on teams operating in isolated, confined environments. We seek to identify team leadership functions as well as a subset of structural characteristics associated with team leadership in extreme environments (i.e., formality of leadership, locus of leadership, and leadership distribution). We leverage a historiometric approach to capitalize on real historical examples of extreme teams that are rich with critical information regarding actual team leadership functions occurring in extreme settings. Results suggest that team leadership functions such as team problem solving, supporting social climate, structure and planning, and sensemaking are among the most prevalent. Results also indicated that the degree to which leadership is distributed throughout the team as well as the formality of leadership varies across action and transition phases of the team's task cycle.