Leading green from the middle: how organizational climate unlocks hospitality sustainability

Purpose While extensive research has examined the influence of senior management on organizational sustainability performance, the critical role of middle managers (MMs) has received limited attention. This study aims to identify organizational climates (OCs) within the hospitality and tourism (H&T) industry that can mitigate the constraining effects of prevalent MM leadership practices on employee pro-environmental behaviors (PEBs). Design/methodology/approach This study used a sequential mixed-methods design, comprising qualitative interviews, a field survey of 686 leader–employee dyads from 59 hospitality organizations, and an experiment with 360 participants from two major H&T corporations in China. Findings Hospitality MMs often adopt middle manager transactional leadership, which creates sustainability challenges. Our results show that OCs with complementary signals can substantially mitigate these effects. Specifically, clan, adhocracy and constructive organizational value climates (COVC) enhance employee PEBs by strengthening psychological empowerment. Practical implications The findings provide practical guidance for hospitality organizations by highlighting the need to train MMs to balance supervision with employee autonomy. Meanwhile, senior executives should recognize that, given the constraints of MM leadership, reshaping OCs through initiatives such as family-supportive policies, innovation-oriented training and empowerment practices may be critical to fostering employee PEBs and, ultimately, advancing organizational sustainability. Originality/value This study advances hospitality leadership research by redirecting attention from senior executives to MMs, a group often neglected in sustainability scholarship. It highlights the dilemmas inherent in MM leadership, demonstrates how MMTSL undermines long-term outcomes and identifies OCs that help mitigate these challenges. By validating the constructive roles of clan, adhocracy and COVC climates within a paradox perspective, the study extends leadership–OC (mis)alignment theory and enriches paradox research in the H&T literature, thereby offering both theoretical contributions and practical guidance.