Plural leadership has gained a lot of attention, challenging traditional individualistic leadership models and moving the focus to the dynamic and collective nature of leadership. This leadership paradigm seems particularly relevant in situations where plurality is involved to cope with complexity and uncertainty: a valid example is the context of innovation. In this study, we explore how plural leadership works in the context of employee-driven innovation (EDI), since these initiatives can provide interesting insights about the interactions between formal and informal leaders. Our empirical analysis supports the idea that EDI involves plural leadership. We identified some similarities with two of the streams theorized by Denis, Langley and Sergi (2012) in “Leadership in the Plural”, namely “sharing leadership in teams” and “producing leadership through interaction.” Through multiple case studies, it was possible to extend those streams and to deepen our understanding of the relationship between formal and informal leaders. We conceptualized two leadership roles (i.e., process leadership and content leadership), which enable plural leadership to meet the competing demand of exploration and exploitation, and we revealed elements that help explain why and when leadership is shared between multiple individuals.

多元化领导力已经引起了广泛关注，挑战了传统的个人主义领导模式，并将关注点转移到了领导力的动态性和集体性上。在涉及多元化以应对复杂性和不确定性的情况下，这种领导范式似乎特别相关：有效的例子是创新的环境。在本研究中，我们探索多元化领导如何在员工驱动型创新（EDI）的背景下发挥作用，因为这些举措可以提供有关正式和非正式领导者之间互动的有趣见解。我们的经验分析支持EDI涉及多元化领导的观点。我们发现了与Denis，Langley和Sergi（2012）在“多元化的领导力”理论中推论出的两条流的相似之处，即“分享团队领导力”和“通过互动产生领导力”。通过多个案例研究，可以扩展这些信息流，并加深我们对正式和非正式领导人之间关系的理解。我们概念化了两个领导角色（即过程领导和内容领导），这使多元化领导能够满足勘探和开发的竞争需求，并且我们揭示了有助于解释为什么以及何时在多个个人之间共享领导的元素。