Engaging leaders, proactive followers: engaging leadership and followers’ job crafting, performance and intrapreneurship

Purpose In the current economy, organizations operate in an unpredictable and changing environment in which employees’ performance and proactivity can represent strategic advantages. However, it is not clear how managers can stimulate the performance and proactivity of subordinates. The purpose of the current study was to investigate the relationships between engaging leadership (an approach to managing people that is focused on fulfilling followers’ psychological needs for autonomy, competence, relatedness and meaningfulness) and subordinates’ job performance and intrapreneurship (organizational venture creation and the strategic renewal generated by employees within the company they work for). Based on the self-determination theory and job demands-resources model, we expected followers’ work engagement and job crafting (changes regarding job resources and demands that employees proactively make) to mediate the link between engaging leadership and followers’ performance and intrapreneurship. Design/methodology/approach A sample of 401 employees completed the study questionnaire. Employees evaluated their direct supervisors’ engaging leadership and reported on their own work engagement, job crafting, performance and intrapreneurship. The proposed relationships were tested using SEM. Findings Results indicated that the relationships between engaging leadership and followers’ job performance and intrapreneurship were mediated by followers’ work engagement and two job crafting components (increasing structural resources and increasing challenging demands). Originality/value This study expands the range of outcomes of engaging leadership. In addition, it provides an explanatory mechanism for the relationship between engaging leadership and followers’ proactivity.