Do self-organizing teams promote shared leadership and team performance in crisis management?

Purpose This study aims to examine how team structure (self-organizing vs functional) influences the emergence of shared leadership and its relationship with team performance in crisis management settings. Design/methodology/approach Forty-eight four-person teams completed a dynamic firefighting simulation (C3Fire) under either self-organizing or functionally assigned roles. Shared leadership was assessed via social network metrics (density and centralization) across four trials, alongside objective measures of team performance. Findings While both team structures exhibited shared leadership, self-organizing teams displayed lower leadership centralization and performed better overall. Leadership density did not predict team performance. Centralization decreased over time in self-organizing teams, which may reflect adaptive leadership emergence. Research limitations/implications The use of a simulated microworld may limit the generalizability of the findings to real-world settings. Future research should explore behavioral indicators of leadership emergence and examine professional teams in real-world crisis contexts. Practical implications Organizations should foster flexible team structures and support role negotiation to enable adaptive and decentralized leadership. Simulation-based training may enhance team responsiveness under crisis conditions. Originality/value This study provides empirical evidence on how structural conditions shape the emergence of shared leadership in dynamic, high-stakes environments. It distinguishes between leadership intensity and distribution, and supports adaptive leadership theory by highlighting the role of structural decentralization and temporal dynamics.