Sharing is caring: Toward a model of proactive caring through shared leadership

•We offer a model and propositions that suggest that shared leadership proactively increases group-level caring within organizations.•Our model suggests that the shared leadership – group-caring relationship is mediated by two key mechanisms – psychological empowerment climate and group solidarity.•We further identify collaborative capacity and collaborative context as two possible moderators of shared leadership effectiveness.•Finally, we explore implications of the model for both research and practice.

In this paper we address an age-old expression – “sharing is caring.” We offer a model and propositions suggesting that shared leadership proactively increases group-level caring and ultimately group-level performance within organizations through two key mediating mechanisms – psychological empowerment climate and group solidarity. In addition, we identify collaborative capacity and collaborative context as two potential moderators of the relationships between shared leadership and the two mediators. We conclude by exploring the implications of our model for both research and practice.