Beacons of vision navigate career development: How and when does visionary leadership lead to followers’ career prospect?

Purpose Although visionary leadership has been on the radar of organizational scholars for a long time, limited research has noted its impact on individual career consequences. Based on the model of proactive motivation, this paper investigates how visionary leadership affects individual career prospects within an organization. At the same time, this paper tests the sequential mediating roles of career optimism and career crafting, and the moderating effect of core self-evaluation. Design/methodology/approach Through a vignette experimental study (Study 1) and a field survey study (Study 2), combined with SPSS 26.0 and Mplus 8.0 software, we empirically tested the proposed hypotheses through data analysis. Findings Findings suggest that visionary leadership can positively predict followers’ career development, via the sequential mediating roles of career optimism and career crafting. In addition, followers’ core self-evaluations acted as a boundary condition to enhance the sequential mediated relationship. Originality/value By innovatively exploring the career-related consequences of visionary leadership, our study enriches the application of visionary leadership in career management research. At the same time, our study further complements research on the leadership antecedents of career crafting. In addition, our study extends the model of proactive motivation to career management research, which provides important guidance for understanding the generative process and the consequences of individual proactive career behaviors.