Abstract: The Information Operations necessitate the transformation of Chinese Army’s leadership style, including the transition from positional authority to charismatic leadership. Charismatic leadership plays a critical role at both elementary level and upper level in the army, whereas its dynamic mechanism is under-explored. In addition, the implementation of the dyadic leadership structure where military tasks and political work are assigned to two officers at an even level characterizes organizations of the PLA Army. Nonetheless, the potential extra effect produced by the interaction of two leaders remains to be scrutinized. In the context of a dual-leader team in the PLA, i.e., company, this study modeled a morale-mediated interaction framework to explore the joint impact of company commander(CC)’s and political instructor(PI)’s charismatic leadership on company performance, or the synergistic effect of dyadic charismatic leadership particularly. Three hundred and fifty cadets in a military academy who used to be soldiers participated in this study. They were invited to rate CC’s and PI’s charismatic leadership, global morale, and performance of their former company on a battery of questionnaires. A series of structural equation models were constructed with Mplus 7.4 software to test a few hypotheses. The main findings are as follows: (1) Dual charismatic leadership exerts an interacting effect on company performance (γ=-.19, p<.05). (2) Morale serves as a mediator linking CC’s and PI’s charismatic leadership to company performance (95% CI of the mediating effects are [.143, .435] and [.078, .320], respectively). (3) In the integrated model, dual charismatic leadership exerts an interacting effect on morale (γ=-.15, p<.05) but not on company performance (γ=-.10, p>.05), demonstrating the full mediating role of morale in the interplaying process (95% CI of the mediating effect is [.040, .122]). (4) According to simple slope tests, when PI’s charismatic leadership is at a relatively low level, CC’s charismatic leadership is significantly predictive of morale and company performance (b=.46 and .36, respectively, ps<.001). In contrast, when PI’s charismatic leadership is at a high level, CC’s charismatic leadership fails to predict neither morale nor company performance (b=.15 and -.03, respectively, ps>.05).The aforementioned results suggest that the interaction of CC’s and PI’s charismatic leadership on company performance is mediated by morale; specifically, the interaction highlights the emergence of positive effect of the high-charisma leader in partnership with a low-charisma leader. Nonetheless, the synergistic effect of dual high-charisma leaders turns out to be insignificant. In terms of theoretical contributions, this study develops a comprehensive model of charismatic leadership effectiveness in military teams, integrating the interaction of dyadic leadership with the mediation of team morale, which provides fresh insights into the underlying process and the interdependent nature of dyadic leadership in typical PLA grassroots units. Additionally, such findings have noteworthy implications for the selecting and positioning approaches of company leaders as well as the cultivation of extraordinary military units. In order to maximize dyadic leadership effectiveness, a low-charisma leader should be matched with a high-charisma counterpart so that the partners can achieve the complementation of leadership style and expertise. Furthermore, via the emotional path and motivational path, morale can bridge the gap between charismatic leadership and military team performance, which underlines the necessity of military leaders to fulfill their responsibility of enhancing subordinates’ positive emotions and inspiring team morale.

Key words: charismatic leadership, performance, morale, military team, dyadic leadership

摘要： 我军广泛实行分工负责军事和政治工作的平级双领导体制，两名主官的相互作用可能产生额外影响效果。本研究在“连”这一双领导军事团队中，构建了一个以士气为中介的交互效应模型，考察连长和指导员的魅力型领导对连队绩效的影响。对350名军校士兵学员进行问卷调查，结果显示：（1）连长和指导员的魅力型领导对连队绩效具有交互效应。（2）士气在连长、指导员的魅力型领导与连队绩效之间均具有中介效应。（3）连长、指导员的魅力型领导对连队绩效的交互效应受到士气的中介。（4）双主官的交互效应为补偿式：与低魅力型领导搭档时，高魅力型领导的积极效果凸显，但两位高魅力型领导的协同效应不显著。

关键词: 魅力型领导, 绩效, 士气, 军事团队, 双领导