Imitating and following: The impact of resilient leadership on employee workplace adversarial growth

Adversity does not bring hardship and suffering, but also an opportunity for personal growth and self-improvement. Organizations and managers expect employees to make positive changes in response to workplace challenges and adversity. Based on Social Learning Theory, the study aims to investigate the influence mechanism and boundary condition of resilient leadership on employee workplace adversarial growth through a two-wave survey of 303 Chinese employees. The findings indicate that career optimism mediates the relationship between resilient leadership and employee workplace adversarial growth. Resilient leaders can promote employee workplace adversarial growth by enhancing their career optimism. Stress sensitivity moderates the indirect effect of resilient leadership on employee workplace adversarial growth through career optimism. Individuals with higher stress sensitivity are more likely to demonstrate higher career optimism and workplace adversarial growth due to behavioral modeling of resilient leaders. Managers should cultivate resilient leadership and strive to be resilient supervisors. Employees with stress sensitivity should be highly concerned in organizations. They are more likely to benefit from imitating and following resilient leaders.