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.