The influence of focal-partner team leader bottom-line mentality congruence on inter-team conflict: the moderating role of feedback-seeking climate

Purpose As organizations increasingly rely on collaboration among teams to achieve complex goals, understanding how leaders’ mindsets shape cross-team dynamics is essential. Prior research has focused on bottom-line mentality (BLM) within single teams, overlooking the role of mindset alignment between leaders across teams in shaping inter-team interactions. This study aims to investigate the influence of focal-partner leader BLM congruence on the evolution of inter-team conflict via perceived inter-team work-goal progress and examines the moderating effect of the feedback-seeking climate. Design/methodology/approach To capture the relational nature of leader mindset alignment across teams, this study uses a multi-source, time-lagged research design. Polynomial regression with response surface analysis was used to estimate congruence and incongruence effects between focal and partner team leaders’ BLM. Data were collected from 225 teams in Study 1 and 277 teams in Study 2, ensuring robust validation across distinct organizational settings. Findings The degree of congruence in focal-partner team leader BLM positively influences inter-team conflict. Perceived inter-team work-goal progress mediates the relationship between congruence in focal-partner team leader BLM and inter-team conflict. In addition, feedback-seeking climate moderates the negative impact of congruence in focal-partner team leader BLM on perceived inter-team work-goal progress, further intensifying inter-team conflict. The indirect effect of perceived inter-team work-goal progress on the relationship between BLM congruence and inter-team conflict is strengthened when the feedback-seeking climate is more pronounced. Originality/value This study shifts BLM research from individual effects to alignment of leader mindsets across teams. A congruence framework based on social interdependence theory explains how BLM alignment shapes perceptions of goal structure and interdependence, offering a new lens on inter-team conflict. This study also reveals the dark side of feedback-seeking climate.