Positive leadership and organizational identification: Mediating roles of positive emotion and compassion

Abstract

This study examined the effect of positive leadership experienced by employees on their organizational identification and the mechanisms through how positive leadership enhances organizational identification. Despite the importance of positive leadership at work, such as increasing the followers’ positive self-concepts at work, our understanding of the mechanisms through how positive leadership leads to employees’ organizational identification is still in a nascent state. Thus, this study addresses the research gap by investigating the mediating roles of compassion and positive emotions in the relationship between positive leadership and organizational identification. This study used path analysis and bootstrapping to analyze the survey data collected from 312 full-time employees in 10 large-sized companies located in South Korea. The path analysis results confirmed that positive leadership increases employees’ organizational identification. Furthermore, positive leadership enhances compassion and positive emotions at work, which, in turn, leads to higher organizational identification. Most importantly, the bootstrapping results revealed that both compassion and positive emotion mediate the positive relationship between positive leadership and organizational identification. The empirical results broaden the understanding of the mechanisms through how positive leadership could bring positive effects at work, such as employee organizational identification. Thus, from the managerial perspective, organizations could emphasize the importance of positive leadership at work, and provide the managers with opportunities to develop their positive leadership.

Development, predictors, and effects of trainees’ organizational identification during their first year of vocational education and training

“…Such training of trainers' skills would not only pay off regarding trainees, but can also have an effect on employees who have been working in the company for a longer period of time. Here, Ko and Choi (2021) were able to show that leadership behaviors promoting positive work experiences, competencies, and performance among employees have a positive impact on employees' organizational identification. Similarly, the findings from Epitropaki and Martin (2005) indicate that the positive effect of transformational leadership on organizational identification is significantly greater than the positive effect of transactional leadership.…”

“…Therefore, we were not able to additionally examine the differences between training companies and training occupations. It would be highly plausible that training conditions and a company’s experiences with training programs (e.g., number of trainees, company size, and integration of trainees in existing work processes) and experiences of trainers in the training of trainees and their leadership would also affect trainees’ identification processes (e.g., Epitropaki and Martin, 2005 ; Klotz et al, 2014 ; Metzlaff, 2015 ; Forster-Heinzer, 2020 ; Ko and Choi, 2021 ). In addition, we were unable to conduct analyses differentiated by the personal characteristics of the trainees, for example, trainees’ professional motivation, desired occupation, or personality (e.g., Eisenbeiss and Otten, 2008 ; Metzlaff, 2015 ).…”