Paradoxical Leadership and Contextual Performance: Mediating Role of Trust and Moderating Role of Agreeableness

Drawing on the leader-member exchange theory, the present study aims to examine the effect of paradoxical leadership on employee’s contextual performance. In a similar vein, the current study also analyzes the mediating role of employee’s trust in the leader and moderating role of agreeableness in the relationship between paradoxical leadership and contextual performance. For this purpose, data were collected form managerial employees of selected restaurants through online and physical surveys. Cross-sectional study design was used for data collection. The questionnaire consisted of 52 items. The valid data used for further statistical analysis consisted of 312 observations. The data were analyzed by the structural equations modelling to validate the measurement model and test the hypotheses. The results revealed that paradoxical leadership has a significant effect on the contextual performance of employees. The test of mediation showed that trust partially mediates between paradoxical leadership and contextual performance relationship. Furthermore, results showed that agreeableness has a moderating effect on the relationship between paradoxical leadership and contextual performance relationship, as the relationship was stronger for higher level of agreeableness. The results provide significant implications and guidelines for managers to critically and better look at the organizational policies for improvement in the workplace environment for promoting employee’s performance and attitude related to the job.