Self-sacrificial leadership, thriving at work, workplace well-being, and work–family conflict during the COVID-19 crisis: The moderating role of self-leadership

Abstract

The COVID-19 crisis has created instability in nurses’ workplace well-being (WWB) and work–family relationships. Exploring effective leadership tailored to the needs in a special context is significant to address these issues. Therefore, we examined how the interaction of self-sacrificial leadership (SSL) and self-leadership (SL)—explaining in the integration of conservation of resources and self-determination theories—related to thriving at work (TAW), WWB, and work–family conflict (WFC). A multi-wave questionnaire was distributed to 405 nurses working at a large hospital in China. The results indicate that (1) SSL brought more WWB and less WFC, (2) TAW mediated the correlations between them, and (3) SL stimulated more TAW than did SSL and weakened the influence of SSL on TAW. Alongside improving the understanding of the role of SSL and SL during the COVID-19 pandemic, we facilitate management interventions to practitioners. JEL CLASSIFICATION: L200

Authentic leadership and motivation as moderators of the organizational politics–knowledge sharing relationship: A test amidst crisis

“…Similarly, we contribute to AL by testing it in a seldom-used context, and also following a crisis in which the organization has been subject to a declining market. This contributes to the emerging stream of crisis leadership research (e.g., Dasborough & Scandura, 2022;Huang & Zhou, 2023;Junça-Silva, & Caetano, 2024). Our results also extend the political influence perspective (i.e., Ferris & Judge, 1991;Munyon et al, 2016) by highlighting the conditions under which POPS impact interpersonal processes, including KS in crisis context.…”

Leadership in special contexts: Introduction to the special issue

“…Among the six articles included in this special issue, four focused on crisis contexts (Arciniega et al, 2024;Arias Rodriguez et al, 2024;Huang & Zhou, 2024;Junça-Silva & Caetano, 2024) and two addressed emerging contexts (Chávez-Rivera et al, 2024;Orozco Collazos & Botero, 2024).…”

“…Among the articles investigating crisis context, three engaged with the effect of the pandemic. Huang and Zhou (2024) explore the COVID-19 context, while Arciniega et al (2024) and Junça-Silva and Caetano (2024) focus on COVID-19 post-pandemic context. The importance of the COVID-19 context in this special issue is easy to understand since the pandemic-induced changes that have imposed immediate measures (Lombardi et al, 2021) while also leaving an enduring impact on the roles assumed by leaders within work settings (Arora & Suri, 2020).…”

“…As health workers were in the front line, they experienced the strongest effects of this crisis. In their work, "Self-sacrificial leadership, thriving at work, workplace well-being, and work-family conflict during the COVID-19 crisis: The moderating role of self-leadership," Huang and Zhou (2024) tried to explore how self-sacrificial leadership and self-leadership impact workplace wellbeing and work-family conflict among nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic. To reach this objective, authors performed an empirical study with primary data of 405 full-time nurses working at a large general hospital in northwest China during the COVID-19 pandemic.…”

“…These four studies make important contributions to literature about leadership in crisis context. For example, Huang and Zhou (2024) contribute by examining managers' self-sacrificial behaviors aimed at alleviating the stress caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and answering Yang et al's (2023) call to focus on the role of self-sacrificial leadership in external crises. Arciniega et al (2024) enrich the literature by examining the impact of organizational responses to the pandemic on employee work ethic.…”