SOCIAL IDENTITY IN WORK TEAMS: THE PALLIATIVE ROLE OF CHARISMA

Using social identity theory, we examine the diversity conditions under which social identities become salient in teams, how it affects team outcomes and how charismatic leadership can counteract the emergence and consequences of social identity salience. Analyzing 42 teams comprised of 287 individuals working in two plants of a manufacturing company, we apply an artificial intelligence approach to assessing social identity salience in groups. Our results show that teams containing people of different sex and race tended to exhibit high salience of sex and race identity and that the faultline strength of sex and race predicted the salience of this multiple identities. Furthermore, leaders’ charisma makes people sex and color-blind so that they do not “see” the differences. But even when people are psychologically aware of their differences, charismatic leaders are able to turn the negative consequences of diversity into positive performance and satisfaction.