How and when paradoxical leadership benefits work engagement: The role of goal clarity and work autonomy

Abstract

Paradoxical leadership behaviour (PLB) represents an emerging leadership construct that can help leaders deal with conflicting demands. In this paper, we report three studies that add to this nascent literature theoretically, methodologically, and empirically. In Study 1, we validate an effective short‐form measure of global PLB using three different samples. In Studies 2 and 3, we draw on the job demands–resources model to propose that paradoxical leaders promote followers’ work engagement by simultaneously fostering follower goal clarity and work autonomy. The results of survey data from Studies 2 and 3 largely confirm our model. Specifically, our findings show that PLB is positively associated with follower goal clarity and work autonomy, and that PLB exerts an indirect effect on work engagement via these variables. Moreover, our results support a hypothesized interaction effect of goal clarity and work autonomy to predict followers’ work engagement, as well as a conditional indirect effect of PLB on work engagement via the interactive effect. We discuss the practical implications for leaders and organizations. Practitioner points To effectively engage followers in their work, leaders should create work environments in which followers know exactly what to do (i.e., have high goal clarity), but at the same time can determine on their own how to do their work (i.e., have high work autonomy) To foster both goal clarity and work autonomy, leaders should combine communal (e.g., other‐centred, flexibility‐providing) and agentic aspects of leadership (e.g., maintaining decision control and enforcing performance standards). HR departments should design leadership trainings that help leaders to combine seemingly opposing, yet ultimately synergistic behaviours.

How does paradoxical leadership promote bootlegging: a TPB-based multiple mediation model

“…In response, this study examines paradoxical leadership as the antecedent of bootlegging. We did this on the basis that prior studies have indicated that this leadership-related factor can help employees to better understand, perform and improve their work tasks (Li et al , 2020; Nils et al , 2021; Zhang et al , 2015) and guide them to solve problems creatively (Li et al , 2018).…”

“…First, paradoxical leaders attach great importance to work duty and requirements while allowing flexibility (Zhang et al , 2015). Clear job requirements with specific work goals and procedures can further help employees complete their job efficiently (Nils et al , 2021) and ensure they have more energy to think broadly beyond their roles. This leads to high levels of role breadth self-efficacy.…”

Crazy, stupid, disobedience: The dark side of paradoxical leadership

“…Over the past decade, scholars have increasingly argued that leaders face contradictory challenges on a regular basis. This has led to the introduction of the concept of paradoxical leadership, which is reflected in the leader's ability to respond to paradoxes in a constructive way (Fürstenberg et al, 2021) and involves "practices seeking creative, both/and solutions that can enable fast-paced, adaptable decision making" (Lewis et al, 2014: 58). Zhang et al (2015) introduced the concept of paradoxical leader behavior to understand how seemingly competing, yet interrelated leader behaviors contribute to meeting competing workplace goals.…”

“…In general, paradoxical leadership is concerned with the effective handling of paradoxes that are inherent in leadership and/or organizations, whereas the key to effectiveness is seen in both/and rather than either/or approaches. Several studies provide empirical evidence that paradoxical leadership is associated with positive effects on followers, including employee creativity (Yang et al, 2021), employee voice behavior (Li et al, 2020), followers' in-role and innovative performance behaviors (Ishaq et al, 2021), work engagement (Fürstenberg et al, 2021), and organizational citizenship behavior (Pan, 2021). We therefore consider this line of research to represent the bright side of paradoxical leadership.…”

Good or Bad? The Ambivalent Leader-Follower Relationships

“…Undermining & support (Duffy, 2002;Nahum-Shani et al, 2014); Safety-specific transformational leadership & passive leadership (Mullen et al, 2011); Paradoxical leadership behavior (Zhang et al, 2015;Jia et al, 2018;Shao et al, 2019;Fürstenberg et al, 2021); Leader humility and narcissism (Owens et al, 2015;Zhang et al, 2017); Leader hypocrisy (Greenbaum et al, 2015); the research on Web of Science, and these keywords were ambivalence * AND leader * , inconsistency * AND leader * , paradox * AND leader * . We only focus on studies on the management field.…”