CEOs as catalysts and inhibitors of the relationship between vertical and shared leadership

A dialogue between different perspectives of leadership seems to be deficient and research on the relationship between vertical and shared leadership seems to be scarce (Binci et al., 2016). Given the rapid pace of change and significant impact of upper echelon on the company performance, this is a noteworthy gap especially within the realm of strategic leadership research. To address this gap, we focus on the shared leadership perspective among the strategic leaders and investigate the relationship between shared and vertical leadership (Pearce & Manz, 2014; Binci et al., 2016; Döös & Wilhelmson, 2021). More specifically, we study the expectations that different groups at the upper echelon place on the CEO-position, and ask: How do CEOs influence the relationship between shared and vertical leadership among strategic leaders?