It is generally assumed that a corporate purpose aiming to benefit all stakeholders has a positive effect on employee motivation and engagement, but no empirical studies into these specific effects were found. To examine this assumption, a corporate mission and vision matching the definition of a higher purpose were tested in two subsequent studies. The first study (N = 270) was a cross-sectional self-report study. The second study included a longitudinal design (N = 56) modeling purpose, motivation, and engagement in a crosslagged panel model over three time-points. The results associated purpose with motivation and engagement. The subsequent longitudinal analysis confirmed the presumed directionality from purpose to engagement, but not to motivation. Hence, while a corporate purpose can be added to the list of antecedents to work engagement, the relationship with motivation, despite the significant association with purpose in the cross-sectional study, remains more complicated. The present study adds to the knowledge of the beneficial effects of a broader purpose and responds to the current surge of interest in purpose as an instrument for sustainable business.

The present quasi-experimental study tested the business impact of a leadership development program focusing on psychological well-being through the satisfaction of basic psychological needs. Based on the concept of engaging leadership and self-determination theory, the 8-month program targeted midlevel team leaders of the customer fulfilment center of a health systems multinational organization. The program was designed in co-creation between senior leadership and the team leaders that participated in the program. Outcomes showed positive business results through significant increases in a preselected key performance indicator and decreased employee absenteeism. Through changes in autonomy satisfaction and intrinsic motivation, the team leaders (N = 14) benefitted in a moderate to very large extent relative to a similar control group (N = 52). In contrast, team members (N = 148) displayed no such benefits. Specifically, higher levels of autonomy satisfaction are said to lead to higher levels of psychological well-being and motivation. Still, the link with business performance is absent in most organizational studies within self-determination theory, making the present study one of the first to fill this gap. The study discloses the program design, compares the effects to a relevant control group, evaluates the lessons learned, and provides practical suggestions.

The purpose of the current study was to test engaging leadership, which is a recently developed leadership concept based on basic psychological needs theory. Drawing on self‐determination theory, the current study hypothesized that basic psychological needs mediate the relationship between engaging leadership and both positive and negative outcomes. An association between need satisfaction and positive results and an association between need frustration and adverse outcomes were expected. The survey data, collected from three comparable groups from two multinational, technical engineering organizations (N = 304), were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling. Autonomy satisfaction was found to play a pivotal role in the leadership model and was associated with increased positive outcomes, such as work engagement and autonomous motivation, and decreased unfavorable motivational consequences, such as controlled motivation and amotivation. The highlighted role of autonomy satisfaction informs leaders to focus on the positive aspects of leadership and need fulfillment rather than aiming to diminish frustration. Additionally, the current study adds to the growing body of knowledge on effective leadership approaches in a fast‐changing complex business world and on the benefits of autonomy‐supportive work environments.

Should leaders pay more attention to values? The present study aims to examine and explain the associations of engaging leadership (EL) with employees' perceptions of the organization's values, need fulfillment, and employee engagement. EL is a recent leadership concept drawing on self‐determination theory, specifically on the fulfillment of the basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. We expected EL to associate with employees perceiving the values of their organization as more intrinsic (e.g., care for others, contributing to making the world a better place, stimulating personal growth), which would satisfy employees' basic psychological needs and fuel work engagement, rather than as extrinsic (financial success, power, status). Study 1 detailed the model using a cross‐sectional study design (N = 436), and, as expected, structural equation modeling identified a positive path from leadership to work engagement via perceived intrinsic organizational values and subsequent satisfaction of the need for autonomy. EL associated negatively with extrinsic organizational values. Study 2 corroborated outcomes of study 1 through a longitudinal study across three time‐points (N = 69) in a cross‐lagged panel model and found specific directionality from leadership to perceived intrinsic values. Implications for leadership and motivation are discussed.

and studies into the role of values in leadership research remain scarce (Yukl, 2012).We maintain that today's state of crisis of employee engagement (Mann & Harter, 2016) and the prevalence of burnout and psychosocial stress among employees (Douwes & Hooftman, 2020; are related to the preoccupation of leadership with economic performance (cf. Alimo-Metcalfe, 2013), the limited attention to purpose and values, and the lack of interest in the essential role of human motivation.The limited academic interest for purpose, values, and human motivation and the preoccupation with economic performance in leadership studies is problematic. First, because for business organizations to thrive in todays' global political and economic climate with its rapid changes and burgeoning technological advancement, it is paramount that employees are committed, self-motivated, agile, creative, and proactive (Brosseau et al., 2019;Deloitte, 2016;Peters et al.,, 2018). Today's business organizations are knowledge-intensive and operate in a world that portrays as Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous (VUCA, see also Bennett & Lemoine, 2014 for an accessible overview). Organizations depend on the flexibility, social skills, and competencies of workers, their innovative capacities, creativity, enduring motivation, and resilience (Peters et al., 2018). The recent outbreak of the Coronavirus dramatically illustrates the volatility through how the outlook on life, work, and living changed almost overnight on a global scale with consequences for human well-being that can hardly be overseen. The equation of leadership with economic performance neglects these complexities and draws on a level of prediction and control that, in fact, does not exist (Lazonick, 2016).The second reason why the limited interest in purpose, values, and motivation within leadership studies is problematic, is that work itself has become central for individuals longing to lead a life of meaning and value (Ciulla, 2000). This adds to the complexity of leadership (Kaye & Giulinoni, 2012). Over the past decades, work has increasingly become a vehicle for self-realization, personal growth, life satisfaction, and happiness (Ciulla, 2000;Sisodia & Gelb, 2019;Wong, 2012) and has become the center stage for the realization of the Western ideal of self-determination and authenticity (Taylor, 1991). Consequently, the expectations and aspirations people have from work, their organizations, and managers have increased, presenting a complexity far beyond the simple mechanical equivalence of leadership and performance.A third reason why this equation of leadership and performance is problematic is that the negative consequences of traditional management theory (Argyris, 1964) and neoliberal theory and practice (Friedman, 2007) have become manifest during the last 40 years of shareholder value primacy (Berger, 2019;Salter, 2019). For societies, Payne (2000) bemoaned that it would take a change of volcanic force to create such a work context. Now, twenty years later, the idealis...