As organizations encounter unpredictable external environments, expectations are changing for managers and team leaders toward providing more facilitative, less directive coaching in order to stimulate more flexibility and adaptability. Prior research has underscored the role of team leader supportive coaching behaviors in reinforcing and growing team member capabilities to work independently from the leader. What is not yet understood, however, is if and how supportive coaching behaviors relate to team member engagement in boundary-spanning behaviors, which are team member efforts to establish and maintain relationships with key parties external to their team. This study examines how team leaders’ supportive coaching of boundary spanning—defined as a set of behaviors that (a) encourages team members to engage in frequent and open collaborations with key parties external to the team and (b) grants team members the latitude to engage external parties in ways the team members deem necessary—relates to team member boundary-spanning behavior and job satisfaction through a motivational pathway. We test a hypothesized indirect-effects model within a field sample of 256 engineering employees working in teams. Results indicate that leaders’ supportive coaching of boundary spanning is positively related to team member boundary-spanning self-efficacy, which in turn is positively related to team member engagement in boundary-spanning behavior for their teams. Also, team members who reported more boundary-spanning behavior experienced greater job satisfaction. The findings have important implications for organizations, team leaders, and team members.

当组织遇到不可预测的外部环境时，经理和团队领导者的期望正在发生变化，以提供更多的便利，更少的指导性教练，以激发更大的灵活性和适应性。先前的研究强调了团队领导者支持性教练行为在增强和增强团队成员独立于领导者工作的能力方面的作用。但是，尚不清楚的是，支持性教练行为是否以及如何与团队成员参与跨界行为有关，这是团队成员为与团队外部关键方建立和维持关系而做出的努力。本研究研究了团队领导者如何支持跨界培训，定义为以下行为的集合：（a）鼓励团队成员与团队外部关键方进行频繁且开放的合作，以及（b）赋予团队成员以下方面的自由度：以团队成员认为必要的方式与外部各方进行互动-与团队成员跨越边界的行为和通过激励途径实现的工作满意度有关。我们在256个团队工作的工程人员的现场样本中测试了假设的间接效应模型。结果表明，领导者对边界跨越的支持性教练与团队成员边界跨越的自我效能感呈正相关，而后者又与团队成员参与其团队的边界跨越行为呈正相关。还，报告更多跨界行为的团队成员的工作满意度更高。这些发现对组织，团队负责人和团队成员具有重要意义。