Leader emergence as mediator of the relationship between individual career management and career success: a perspective of implicit leadership theory

Purpose This study aims to investigate how individual career management (ICM) affects career success in Chinese organizations. Leader emergence was examined through the theoretical lens of implicit leadership theory as a mediating mechanism of this relationship. In addition, leadership self-efficacy and organizational warmth were analyzed jointly as boundary conditions strengthening the relationship between ICM and leader emergence. Design/methodology/approach To avoid common method bias, the authors adopted a three-wave data collection with a one-month lagged design. A total of 765 questionnaires were distributed and 424 usable questionnaires were collected. Mplus version 8.3 was used to test the hypothesized relationships. Findings Findings indicated that ICM is positively related to subjective career success and objective career success via leader emergence. Moreover, leadership self-efficacy and organizational warmth jointly moderate the relationship between ICM and leader emergence. Originality/value Based on implicit leadership theory, this study identifies leader emergence as a critical mechanism explaining the positive impact of ICM on career success in the Chinese context. Lastly, results stress the simultaneous need for leadership self-efficacy and organization warmth, which can promote high-ICM employees to emerge as leaders.