Authentic Leadership and Employee Resilience: A Moderated Mediation Analysis

Abstract

Authentic leadership is essential for predicting employee resilience. However, despite fruitful findings, more adapted models of authentic leadership – employee resilience based on empirical findings can serve as a guide to understand the complex mediators and moderators in different industries such as in construction engineering project organizations during the turbulent pandemic. This study, therefore, based on the organizational identification theory and flow theory through the lens of positive organizational psychology, aims to disentangle the authentic leadership—employee resilience association by investigating their underlying mechanism and their boundary condition. To test our hypothetical model, we applied a cross-sectional design with data collected from a large sample of 884 employees from a big enterprise in China. Findings from confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation modeling analysis, and Hayes’s conditional process model indicated that: authentic leadership positively predicted employee resilience through the partial mediation effect of organizational identification, and such a mediation model was moderated by the experience of flow. In other words, flow moderated the relationships between authentic leadership, organizational identification, and employee resilience. Findings provide evidence for cultivating leaders’ authenticity in promoting their subordinates’ resilience; findings also highlight the significance of organizational identification in bridging authentic leadership and employee resilience and the essential role of flow experience in supporting the relationships mentioned above.

Impact of authentic leadership on employee turnover intention: Perceived supervisor support as mediator and organizational identification as moderator

“…However, certain variables can impact the negative relationship between PSS and turnover intention. Although some scholars suggested organizational identification as an intervening variable of the relationship between authentic leadership and outcomes ( Mao et al, 2022 ), we propose that organizational identification plays an important moderating role in the effect of authentic leadership on turnover intention. Social identity theory suggests that organizational identification can contribute to employees’ attitudes and behaviors such as OCB, job satisfaction, commitment, and turnover intention.…”

“…For example, scholars found that authentic leadership is positively associated with organizational level constructs such as employees’ affective attachment to and organizational identification ( Leroy et al, 2012 ). Most importantly, studies revealed that organizational identification mediates the relationship between authentic leadership and employee resilience using a theoretical framework that organizational identification can be influenced by their leaders (e.g., Mao et al, 2022 ). In this study, we aim to gain a better understanding of how authentic leaders reduce employee turnover intention.…”

Does inclusive leadership foster employee psychological resilience? The role of perceived insider status and supportive organizational climate

“…Psychological resilience can be developed in the presence of proper leadership and help employees recover from adversity (Franken et al, 2020). In line with the principle of reciprocity and social exchange theory, Mao et al (2022) discovered that authentic leadership was significantly related to employee psychological resilience. Eliot (2020) explored that servant leaders focus their efforts on meeting their followers' psychological needs and are thus well positioned to positively impact subordinate psychological resilience (Eliot, 2020).…”

“…Leadership style is the situational factor that has the greatest impact on the behavior of subordinates ( Owens and Hekman, 2016 ). Leadership style can effectively guide the behavior of employees and is seen as an essential trigger factor for psychological resilience ( Zhu et al, 2019 ; Franken et al, 2020 ; Mao et al, 2022 ). When a leader has the right leadership style, people can develop psychological resilience, which can help them recover from stressful situations ( Franken et al, 2020 ).…”

Flow experience fosters university students' well‐being through psychological resilience: A longitudinal design with cross‐lagged analysis

“…It corresponded to the dimensions of flow as described by Csikszentmihalyi (1975) and was designed to assess the frequency of participants' flow experience for each of the three distinct contexts (i.e., work, maintenance and leisure). The SFPQ has demonstrated robust reliability and validity across different cultural contexts and diverse populations, including university students (Mao et al., 2022; Wu et al., 2021). The sample items in this study include: ‘When you engage in study activities, how often do you experience a sense of complete control?’ and ‘When you engage in study activities, how often do you find yourself completely focused?’ According to recommendations, all factor loadings based on the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) should ideally be .5 or above (Hair et al., 2006).…”