Team innovation is an important factor for organizational effectiveness. However, fostering innovation in teams remains a major challenge for team leaders. In particular, we still have an incomplete understanding of (1) the effects of team‐centric leadership and (2) the role of teamwork for the relationship between leadership and innovation and learning. Integrating team‐centric transformational leadership and the teamwork quality (TWQ) model with frameworks for team innovation, the current study addresses this issue. Specifically, we investigated TWQ as a team‐level mediator of the relationship between team‐centric transformational leadership, team innovation, and individual members’ learning. We tested our hypotheses using lagged, multi‐source data from a sample of 79 scientific teams. Our findings show that team‐centric transformational leadership is positively related to both team innovation and individual members' learning. Furthermore, the positive relationship between team‐centric transformational leadership and learning is mediated by specific aspects of TWQ. Our study helps to clarify the processes underlying the effects of team‐centric leadership on innovation and learning.

• Innovation and learning are crucial drivers of success in organizations in knowledge‐intensive industries such as science. Transformational leadership is a key factor for enhancing innovation and learning in scientific teams.
• By engaging in team‐centric transformational leadership behaviours including emphasizing group identity, communicating a group vision, and fostering team‐building, scientific team leaders can improve innovation and learning
• However, leaders of scientific teams should also be aware of potential negative effects of high team cohesion on team innovation, because it may undermine divergent thinking and critical discussions in teams.