Promoting proactive extra-role service behaviors through empowering leadership: the role of mindfulness

Purpose Based on conservation of resources theory, this study aims to understand how employees’ level of mindfulness serves as a boundary condition capable of negatively conditioning the process through which empowering leadership affects employees’ proactivity and extra-role service (ERS) behaviors. Design/methodology/approach A total of 361 Spanish frontline employees in the hospitality sector collaborated in this research. We tested our hypotheses using a bootstrapping method to perform a regression study employing the PROCESS macro developed for Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). Findings As expected, our results confirmed the direct and indirect positive effects between empowering leadership and ERS. However, these effects nearly disappeared when employees exhibited high levels of mindfulness. Originality/value Worker ERS behavior is a key way for hotels to distinguish themselves from competitors. Paradoxically, ERS is discretionary and not part of the employee’s formal duties. Although mindfulness is often promoted to enhance organizational functioning, our study highlights its drawbacks in hospitality. Hotel work requires proactive decision-making, and we found that mindfulness curbs this, thereby impeding ERS. This study suggests that mindfulness may act as an anchor in a service work environment.