Effects of emerging leadership styles on engagement – a mediation analysis in a military context

Abstract

PurposeThis paper aims to report the findings of a study examining the relationship between different leadership styles and engagement through the mediating role of proactive personality.Design/methodology/approachServant leadership, paradoxical leadership, authentic leadership, employee engagement and proactive personality were assessed in an empirical study based on a sample of 348 military personnel in Spain. The questionnaire data were analyzed through SEM using EQS and bootstrapping analysis using the PROCESS macro for SPSS.FindingsThe results reveal that servant leadership style in officers partially impacts their cadets' engagement through proactive personality but that authentic and paradoxical leadership styles do not mediate the relationship. The authors also verify a direct relationship between proactive personality and engagement.Practical implicationsThe study implications advance the literature on leadership in emphasizing new leadership styles to increase proactive personality and engagement in the military context. This study verifies the importance of military leaders fostering servant leadership as an antecedent of proactive personality. Finally, the authors show that servant leadership partially impacts engagement through proactive personality.Originality/valueThis study explores the relationship among servant, paradoxical and authentic leadership styles, proactive personality, and engagement – relationships that have not been explored theoretically and tested empirically in the military context.

Proactive Personality and Innovative Work Behavior: Through the Juxtapose of Schumpeter's Theory of Innovation and Broaden-And-Build Theory

“…Truxillo et al ( 2012 ), Alikaj et al ( 2021 ), Ruiz Moreno et al ( 2021 ), and Zhang et al ( 2021 ) antecedents have idealized the positive impact of PP on employee outcomes but did not unfold its impact on IWB. Our study contributes to this overt literature gap by adding empirical evidence that PP has a significant positive impact on IWB in the IT sector of China.…”

“…The employees of the IT industry in China could enhance the business growth by triggering the IWB through the PP. In many studies, Truxillo et al ( 2012 ); Ruiz Moreno et al ( 2021 ); and Zhang et al ( 2021 ) have conceptualized and accepted that PP positively impacts employee outcomes but ignored the IWB, so this study aimed to fill a vital literature gap. Unfortunately, the employees in the IT sector are missing PP's features, which is the fundamental reason they are unable to meet the standards of innovative products; resultantly, our competitors are cashing the scenario, from here the Schumpeter's theory of innovation luminous the path.…”

Social Exchange Relationships with Peer Leaders and Ethical Leadership: A Study among Male Military Team Leaders

“…Going beyond these existing perspectives, our research indicates that focal team leaders are also willing to develop social exchange relationships with their peer leaders (that is, Third, our research extends the study of EL by exploring its relevance to the military. As a military organization, the Korean Army is male dominated and has high camaraderie, has its own stratification system, and faces dangerous situations to protect national security for citizens (Moreno et al, 2021). It is thus interesting that despite the highly specific nature of this organizational context, trustful exchange relationships with peer leaders representing ethical role models whose behaviours emphasize fair treatment of and care about colleagues emerge as a relevant driver of military leaders' ethical behaviours.…”

“…This is because keeping their core values, which are key not only to protect national security and defend national interests, but also to engage in high‐reliability humanitarian missions, such as those related to earthquakes, floods, forest fires, or radioactive contamination (Sosik et al., 2019), is central to military organizations. Given such situations, military organizations are requiring effective leadership styles at all rank levels of military leaders under a pyramid‐shaped, strongly hierarchical structure (see for instance Moreno et al., 2021). In addition, military organizations have their own stratification system where all team leaders are promoted internally and entertain high social distance depending on their ranks (or job positions), that is, whether they are commissioned officers or non‐commissioned officers (Stănciulescu & Beldiman, 2019).…”

“…While extant EL research has mostly concentrated on business contexts (see for instance Kim & Vandenberghe, 2021), military contexts are also an appropriate field to investigate EL because such contexts encourage team leaders to comply with a code of ethics within extreme operational conditions (see for instance Kim & Vandenberghe, 2020). Due to the special situation and ranking system of the military, team leaders are also likely to keep some interpersonal distance with people of other ranks, while they entertain a lot of social interactions with direct supervisors, co‐workers, or subordinates (see for instance Moreno et al., 2021). Based on such situation in the military, we extend the application of social exchange theory (SET; Blau, 1964) to suggest that peer leader–leader exchange (PLLX) is a central mechanism by which high‐quality social exchange relationships with other team leaders foster focal team leaders' EL.…”