Paradoxical leadership, team adaptation and team performance: The mediating role of inclusive climate

Abstract

In an increasingly complex and changing competitive environment, organizations inevitably face various conflicting demands, such as the contradiction between the psychological needs of employees and the organization’s performance requirements. Paradoxical leadership could focus on these competing needs of the organization and employees in multiple ways simultaneously. According to the trickle-down effect of social learning theory, we investigated whether and how paradoxical leadership may increase team adaptation and team performance. The study had a time-lagged survey design and included 254 team members and 60 leaders in 60 work teams in mainland China. The results of the structural equation modeling analysis indicated that paradoxical leadership is an essential predictor of team adaptation and performance, and that inclusive climate is mediating in this relationship. Our findings reveal a mechanism underlying the benefits of paradoxical leadership on team adaptation and team performance from a team-level perspective.

Does paradoxical leadership influence employees’ proactive work behavior? A study based on employees in Chinese state-owned enterprises

“…Paradoxical leadership, as a specific style, exerts significant influence on employee behavior. As an integral component of leadership styles, paradoxical leadership has garnered significant research attention for its impact on employees, such as the influence of paradoxical leadership on employee adaptability ( Zhang et al, 2015 ), employee creativity ( Shao et al, 2019 ; Yang et al, 2019 ), employee dual behavior ( Kauppila and Tempelaar, 2016 ), team cognition and innovation ( Li et al, 2018 ), strategic agility ( Lewis et al, 2014 ), promoting work performance improvement ( She et al, 2017 ; Meng et al, 2023 ), and effectively enhancing organizational innovation capability ( Zhu et al, 2020 ), etc.…”

“…Our research contributes in the following ways: First, we have enriched the outcome variables of paradoxical leadership in the state-owned enterprises. Existing studies have discussed its impact on employee adaptability, employee creativity, employee dual behavior, team cognition and innovation, strategic agility, promoting work performance improvement ( Lewis et al, 2014 ; She et al, 2017 ; Meng et al, 2023 ). We have combined the relationship between paradoxical leadership and employees’ proactive work behavior to enrich related research.…”