How does Empathetic Leadership Affect Employees'Workplace Well-Being:Based on the Cognitive-Affective Dual Pathway Mechanism
Research on the relationship between prosocial leadership behaviors and employees'workplace well-being has received considerable attention.Empathetic leadership has emerged as an effective leadership style that strengthens relationships with employees by demonstrating awareness of their situations,understanding their emotions,and evoking emotional resonance.However,research on empathetic leadership is still in its infancy,and there has been no comprehensive empirical exploration of its impact on employees'workplace well-being.To address this gap,a moderated dual mediating model based on cognitive-affective personality system theory was constructed.This model considers relational identification and emotional exhaustion as mediating variables and job embeddedness as a moderating variable,with the aim of uncovering the underlying mechanism and the boundary conditions of the relationship between empathetic leadership and employees'workplace well-being.To test these hypotheses,we designed a three-wave longitudinal data collection design,with samples from high-tech firms engaged in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries in three cities:Shenzhen,Wuhan,and Suzhou.At Time 1,we measured empathetic leadership and control variables.Two months later,at Time 2,we measured relational identification,emotional exhaustion,and job embeddedness.After another two months,we measured employees'workplace well-being at Time 3.After three stages of longitudinal data matching,we ended up with 454 valid samples.We used hierarchical regression analysis and bootstrapping method to test the research hypotheses on Mplus7.0 software.Through three-wave data analysis using SPSS 20.0 and Mplus7.0,we found the following research results:(1)Empathetic leadership had a significantly positive effect on employees'workplace well-being;(2)Empathetic leadership promoted employees'workplace workplace well-being through dual mediating pathways:a cognitive pathway and an affective pathway.Specifically,empathetic leadership not only enhanced employees'relational identification(cognitive pathway),but also reduced their emotional exhaustion(affective pathway),thereby promoting employees'workplace well-being;(3)Job embeddedness positively moderated the relationship between empathetic leadership and relational identification,and negatively moderated the relationship between empathetic leadership and emotional exhaustion;(4)Job embeddedness also positively moderated the indirect effect of empathetic leadership on employees'workplace well-being through relational identification on the cognitive pathway,and negatively moderates the indirect effect of empathetic leadership on employees'workplace well-being through emotional exhaustion on the affective pathway.When employees had higher job embeddedness,empathetic leadership strengthened their relational identification,thus promoting employees'workplace well-being.However,when employees had lower job embeddedness,empathetic leadership alleviated their emotional exhaustion,thereby enhancing employees'workplace well-being.Our findings confirm that empathetic leadership has a significant positive effect on employees'workplace well-being.Based on the cognitive-affective personality system theory,we have constructed a dual pathway of cognitive and affective mediation,which comprehensively reveals the mechanism of empathetic leadership on employees'workplace well-being.This research extends the understanding of empathetic leadership as an emerging leadership style in organizations.In addition,we have identified the boundary condition of the dual pathway mechanism of empathetic leadership on employees'workplace well-being.In terms of practical implications,our research suggests that managers should adopt an empathetic leadership style to enhance employees'workplace well-being in organizations.By focusing on strengthening employees'relational identification and reducing their emotional exhaustion,managers can develop targeted strategies to improve employees'workplace well-being,taking into account their job embeddedness.
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