Authentic leadership for creativity and innovation: The moderating role of motivating language

Orientation: Creativity and innovation are essential in coping with a complex business environment that becomes more complex and rapidly changing. Research purpose: To investigate the impact of an authentic leadership style on employee creativity and innovation behaviour in the workplace, using motivating language as a moderator. Motivation for the study: The study is carried out to fill the existing gaps on creativity and innovation by distinguishing both constructs, within the context of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in Indonesia. Research approach/design and method: This study employed a quantitative approach, surveying 350 employees from creative MSMEs in West Java and Central Java, Indonesia. Smart partial least squares (PLS) software analysis was used to analyse the data using a structural equation model for validating the proposed model. Main findings: Authentic leadership positively influences employee creativity and innovative work behaviour in the workplace. In addition, innovative work behaviour is also positively influenced by employee creativity. These positive influences can be strengthened by motivating language from the leader. Practical/managerial implications: Organisations wanting to increase the innovative work behaviour of their employees should select leaders with authentic traits and put them into practice. Interventions to develop leaders’ use of motivating language are required to enable them to encourage the use of their creative ideas. Contribution/value-add: The present study considers how motivating language, which has rarely been examined within the field, can play a significant moderating role in innovative work behaviours.