This research used Bandura’s social cognitive framework of self-regulation to examine functional group leadership. Antecedents and outcomes of leader goals and leadership self-efficacy (LSE) were central to this investigation. Leaders were 96 college students who led three-person teams on either a more simple or complex production task. Results indicated that LSE predicted leader goal levels, and together LSE and leader goals predicted task strategies communicated by leaders to group members. Most effects of LSE and leader goals on group outcomes were mediated by leader strategies. In addition, LSE was instrumental to the leader’s maintenance of challenging goals when leaders confronted a complex task. Findings offered general support for extending Bandura’s self-regulation model to group leadership task settings.
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