Fueling work engagement through sustainable leadership: Examining sequential mediation of perceived organizational support and mental health

BACKGROUND: The current challenging time necessitates looking beyond designated, traditional, and role-based sources of leadership and instead looking at a range of more inclusive leadership styles. This is the first endeavor to investigate how a sustainable leadership style drives work engagement by mediating the effects of perceived organizational support and mental health. These factors generate unique pathways yet to be assessed in the literature. OBJECTIVE: Drawing on the conservation of resources theory, our study strives to analyze a sequential mediation framework for employee engagement under the influence of sustainable leadership along with the mediating effects of perceived organizational support and mental health. METHODS: Data collection was performed during COVID-19 at different times, with an interval of three weeks, from 365 healthcare workers in Pakistan’s private and public sector hospitals. Data analysis was performed using SEM and PROCESS Macro by Hayes. RESULTS: The study reveals that in overcoming challenges like COVID-19, perceived organizational support and a health worker’s mental health play a vital role in explaining the association between sustainable leadership style and work engagement. CONCLUSION: The findings of the current study will inspire the administration of healthcare institutions to invest resources that foster a supportive environment for their workers by employing sustainable leadership practices, reducing the effects of overwork and pressures faced by frontline workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. If healthcare workers are left on their own to tackle the challenges of the pandemic, disengagement, which leads to higher absenteeism and lower productivity, may topple the whole system.