Fueling the Creative Spark: How Authentic Leadership and LMX Foster Employees’ Proactive Orientation and Creativity

Authentic Leadership

Although the idea of authenticity has a long history, scholarly research applying authenticity to leadership specifically has only occurred in the past two decades. Scholars have articulated numerous definitions and conceptualizations of AL (see Gardner et al., 2011 for a comprehensive review and listing of definitions), making the study of this concept somewhat fragmented (Neider & Schriesheim, 2011; Sumanth & Hannah, 2014). However, consistent across all of these perspectives is a focus on the enhancement and development of employees’ values, motives, emotions, and goals and capitalizing on them for the benefit of the organization (Gardner et al., 2005).

Walumbwa et al. (2008, p. 94) define AL as “a pattern of leader behavior that draws upon and promotes both positive psychological capacities and a positive ethical climate, to foster greater self-awareness, an internalized moral perspective, balanced processing of information, and relational transparency on the part of leaders working with followers, fostering positive self-development.” The four italicized dimensions comprising AL in this definition have been confirmed in subsequent validation research, even across different measures of AL (Neider & Schriesheim, 2011; Steffens et al., 2016). Despite arguments to the contrary, empirical and theoretical research has also evidenced the discriminant validity of AL from other leadership styles, such as transformational, servant, and ethical leadership (Avolio & Gardner, 2005; Liu et al., 2015; Avolio & Mhatre, 2012; Avolio et al., 2018; Banks et al., 2016; Gardner et al., 2011; Lemoine et al., 2019; Walumbwa et al., 2008).

The first dimension, self-awareness, refers to the extent to which leaders are seen as knowing and understanding their inner strengths and weaknesses, motives, and feelings (Gardner et al., 2005). Such leaders are seen to practice deep introspection, gaining an understanding of their true selves and emotions (Ladkin & Taylor, 2010) and enabling them to project that they know and accept their values, feelings, identity, and motives (Avolio & Gardner, 2005; Ilies et al, 2005). Second, an internalized moral perspective involves leaders being seen as guided by internal moral standards and values, rather than external factors or pressures (Gardner et al., 2005), and as exhibiting those values to effect positive change in others (Cianci et al., 2014; Cooper et al., 2005).

Third, AL involves engaging in balanced processing, which refers to followers’ belief that their leader has the capacity and willingness to listen to follower input and conduct an unbiased analysis of all relevant information before reaching decisions (Walumbwa et al., 2008). This helps to signal leaders’ sense of security (or lack thereof) in their own qualifications, expertise, or status and inherent beliefs about the value of others (Avolio & Gardner, 2005; Sparrowe, 2005). Further, by involving followers in ideating and decision-making, AL promotes involvement and engagement (Hsiung, 2012; Wang & Hsieh, 2013). Finally, AL involves the leader demonstrating relational transparency by openly sharing information, motives, thoughts, and emotions with others, allowing others to see them for “who they really are” and what they believe (George, 2003). Importantly, transparency involves providing followers with greater information, promoting follower situational awareness.

We focus on AL as the focal leadership theory for three reasons. First, we suggest its components (e.g., balanced processing of information and relational transparency) are highly applicable for driving followers’ energizing, proactive orientation, and thereby creativity (Avolio & Gardner, 2005). Second, recent studies have shown only moderate positive levels of association between AL and employee creativity (Černe et al., 2013; Duarte et al., 2021; Li et al., 2014; Rego et al., 2012; Rego et al., 2014), suggesting other intervening and conditional factors are at work. We seek to advance this literature by introducing and testing mediating and moderating factors to increase theoretical and empirical understanding of AL's effects. Third, research on AL is still in its nascent stages, despite scholars’ heightened interest in this theory in recent years (see Gardner et al., 2011 for a review and Hoch et al., 2018 for a meta-analysis). The current framework can thus help expand the nomological network of constructs related to AL, linking it indirectly through a proactive orientation to creativity under varying conditions of LMX, helping to expand this emerging theory.

AL and Employee Creative Performance

As defined in the literature, creative performance has two essential components—perceived novelty and usefulness (Amabile, 1996). The extant literature and its comprehensive reviews (narrative and systematic) of George (2007), Shalley et al. (2004), Zhou and Hoever (2014), Hughes et al. (2018) , and Lee et al. (2020) all acknowledge the critical role of the work context in prompting and enabling employees to generate creative output. One of the key elements of the workplace context is leadership, and limited research has established tentative linkages between AL and employee creativity (e.g., Černe et al., 2013). While this line of inquiry has provided initial evidence of the direct link between AL and creative performance (e.g., Rego et al., 2012, 2014), it has neglected to consider the possible interplay of leadership styles predicting creativity and the motivational mechanisms behind these effects. To address these limitations, we first hypothesize a direct link between AL and creativity, followed by a discussion of how a proactive orientation and LMX help to explain and amplify, respectively, the impact of AL on followers’ creative performance.

We base our first hypothesis on social exchange theory (Blau, 1964; Cropanzano & Mitchell, 2005). When leaders practice behaviors aligned with the four dimensions of AL described above, we suggest followers will be both emboldened and motivated to reciprocate such positive leadership by engaging in their work more fully to contribute to the organization. Such contributions would be reflected in various performance domains, including creative performance. This positive effect is likely due first to the leader transparently sharing information with their followers and utilizing their followers’ ideas more frequently (Rego et al., 2012). Followers should thus feel a sense of involvement and as having input into the goals being pursued and the way work gets done and, further, feel that their ideas and input have instrumentality (Avery & Quiñones, 2002). Thus, by being relationally transparent with followers and considering their input in a measured, balanced way, leaders are more likely to cultivate a drive for reciprocity in followers, fueling their desire to give back in the form of good ideas (i.e., novel and useful solutions).

Further, leaders who behave authentically tend to project moral perspective and thus engage with followers in supportive, pro-social, and ethical ways (Cianci et al., 2014; Hannah et al., 2005). Such positive interpersonal treatment should increase followers’ desire to serve the leader in return (Eisenberger et al., 1990), by contributing ideas to improve the workgroup's performance. As followers observe their leader demonstrate service to both them and to the organization, normative influence should prompt them to follow suit and reciprocate creative effort on behalf of the organization (Bandura, 1977; Eisenberger et al., 1990). This logic complements existing studies reporting positive links between AL and creative performance (cf. Rego et al., 2014; Zubair, 2015; Semedo et al., 2017; Xu et al., 2017) and conceptualizes this relationship based on the social exchange perspective:

Hypothesis 1: AL will be positively associated with follower creative performance.

Proactive Orientation as a Mediator Between AL and Creativity

Informed by social exchange theory (Blau, 1964; Cropanzano & Mitchell, 2005) and the theory of proactive motivation (Parker et al., 2010), we theorize that followers of authentic leaders will be more likely to enact creative performance because they feel energized and empowered, with a drive to reciprocate and contribute back to the leader and/or workgroup. This suggests followers will activate a higher level of proactive orientation that sparks the intrinsic drive to ideate and suggest new ways to improve the organization and/or their work. To better understand why a proactive orientation may serve as an important mediator in this way, recall that it can be conceptualized as a psychological state, rooted in a self-initiated, future-oriented cognitive and behavioral process that involves setting proactive goals and working to achieve them (Benson-Greenwald & Diekman, 2022; Grant & Ashford, 2008; Han et al., 2019; Parker et al., 2010).

Gardner et al. (2005) suggested that authentic leaders seek to promote their followers to also be authentic and bring and use their full talents and strengths at work. They do so in part through balanced processing—by not thinking they have all the “answers” and instead, allowing followers to determine to a greater extent how to approach their own work and granting them input into other work processes and decisions. Authentic leaders thus allow their followers to bring more of their whole selves to the workplace, including their portfolio of knowledge, strengths, and abilities (Gardner et al., 2005). When leaders promote their followers to engage authentically and somewhat independently in their work without micromanagement, followers should feel empowered to proactively employ their talents and strengths and apply them to the tasks of problem-solving and idea implementation (Crant, 2000; Parker et al., 2006).

With such freedom, however, comes accountability and responsibility, which should create a drive within followers to reciprocate the confidence and support their leader places in them by having a proactive orientation to deliver results in return (Aselage & Eisenberger, 2003). This is, in part, because when individuals are given the freedom to determine how work is done, there is a normative expectation that they must also underwrite and take greater responsibility for any failures than when they are merely “following orders” (Meyer & Parfyonova, 2010; Pearce & Gregersen, 1991). Thus, promoting followers to be authentic in their work should engender both intrinsic motivation and a normative expectation to develop a proactive orientation, leading to extra-role outputs, such as creative performance, to ensure success is met. Supporting this assertion, Ramamoorthy et al. (2005) found that when followers received support, fair treatment, and autonomy, they felt a proactive obligation to innovate, resulting in innovative work behavior. This logic is also consistent with Grant and Ashford's (2008) theorizing as to how proactivity can be fueled through various situational antecedents, including a sense of accountability and autonomy.

Further, creativity inherently imposes risk as new methods or ideas are experimented with and tested. Followers would be reluctant to assume the risks inherent in taking proactive initiative if they feel they work in a climate of fear (Ashkanasy, 2003) where shortcomings or failures will be punished. We described above that authentic leaders have higher moral perspective and thus act in supportive and pro-social ways (Cianci et al., 2014; Hannah et al., 2005). Coupled with their enhanced balanced processing, AL should reduce followers’ fear of the leader's reactions to failure and engender reciprocation (Eisenberger et al., 1990), thus promoting a proactive orientation. Fear reduction should also be promoted through leaders’ transparency (Gardner et al., 2005), enhancing followers’ situational awareness of what they ultimately need to achieve and removing fear of the leader having hidden agendas or undisclosed motives. Further, by minimizing expressions of inappropriate feelings (e.g., rants and anger) through their self-awareness (Kernis, 2003), leaders should embolden followers to be proactive at work and explore ideas more freely without fearing supervisors’ chastisement.

Hypothesis 2: Proactive orientation mediates the relationship between AL and employees’ creative performance.

The Moderating Role of LMX on AL and Proactive Orientation

Although much of the research on AL has demonstrated its positive influence on various organizational phenomena, to date, important boundary conditions that may bolster or limit AL's effects have largely gone unexplored (Avolio & Mhatre, 2012; Gardner et al., 2021). Concerning somewhat similar leadership theories, studies have shown that transformational and ethical leadership styles fail to relate positively to beneficial organizational outcomes, such as citizenship behavior (Avey et al., 2011), commitment (Avolio et al., 2004) and even creativity (Wang & Rode, 2010), when particular boundary conditions are present (e.g., contextual or job-related). We propose that the effects of AL are similarly governed by certain boundary conditions, including LMX, that moderate its positive impact on employees’ proactive work orientation and subsequent creative performance.

It is important for us to clarify up front the modeling of LMX as an exogenous variable, following previous studies (e.g., Piccolo et al., 2008; Piccolo & Colquitt, 2006). ¹ First, there are numerous factors known to drive higher LMX that are distinct from AL, including affect, expectations, contingent reward behavior, and a myriad of other factors (e.g., Wayne et al., 1997). Further, there is a potentially problematic assumption in the AL literature that by being open and transparent, disclosing one's weaknesses, expressing one's values, etc., leaders will be widely seen as being desirable and attractive leaders and will equally resonate across all followers. We know, however, that what constitutes “leadership” emerges through a social process and that followers play a key role in that process. Numerous individual differences influence how followers perceive, interpret, and make attributions regarding leaders’ behaviors (Piccolo et al., 2008; Piccolo & Colquitt, 2006; Shamir, 2007), and followers possess varying mental models as to what, in their minds, constitutes good leadership (Epitropaki & Martin, 2004; Foti & Lord, 1987; Lord et al., 1984). This suggests that just because a leader is transparent, for example, what they say will not positively resonate with all followers. When leaders engage in balanced processing and invite followers into decision-making processes, some followers may see them as being indecisive and/or lacking confidence. When leaders disclose their weaknesses, some followers may see them as being weak. When leaders reveal their values, those values will not be equally attractive to all followers. In other words, when leaders behave “true to themselves,” all followers will not necessarily like or respect the “self” that the leader projects. This suggests leaders’ authentic behaviors may not necessarily encourage a proactive orientation unless followers like, trust, respect, and have a positive working relationship with the leader. Thus, to accurately capture the extent to which leader “liking” and other aspects of relational quality may impact AL's influence on employees’ motivational, proactive state (Mumford & Fried, 2014), we account for this boundary condition through LMX ratings. LMX reflects the extent the follower likes, respects, and trusts and otherwise has a positive view of the leader and their relationship (Sparrowe & Liden, 1997).

When such a positive dyadic relationship exists, prior research suggests followers’ impetus to provide positive exchanges to the leader, and workgroup (as theorized in Hypotheses 1 and 2) is typically amplified (Sparrowe & Liden, 1997). In that sense, the empowering effect of AL on employees’ energizing and their proactive state should be enhanced by LMX. As individuals begin to form stronger social exchange relationships with their immediate supervisor (see Cropanzano & Mitchell, 2005 for a review of the social exchange literature), they are more apt to reciprocate the benefits they receive and more likely to match the support of a supervisor (Cropanzano & Mitchell, 2005). When followers have a strong, positive LMX relationship with their leaders, they seek to do more for them and help to make their organizations more effective (Cropanzano & Mitchell, 2005; Wayne et al., 1997).

On the other hand, however, if LMX is lacking, employees may respond neutrally or unfavorably to strong expressions of AL, since they have limited liking, approval, or respect for the leader's authentic self. Followers would thus hold the leader in less esteem and have lesser attraction to the leader, thus limiting the leader's influence (Hogg, 2001; Hogg et al. 1998; van Knippenberg et al. 2004; Zhang and Chen 2013). Indeed, as suggested by implicit leadership theory (ILT) (Epitropaki & Martin, 2004; Lord & Maher, 1993), different followers often perceive the same leader quite differently, depending on their perceptions of what an ideal leader should be and behave like. When followers see their leaders’ authentic expressions as incongruent with the mental image they hold of an ideal leader, that difference should manifest in lower levels of LMX (Epitropaki & Martin, 2004). This lower trust, respect, and liking for the leader, and thus feeling that less value is gained from interacting with the leader, should limit felt obligation to reciprocate to the leader in low-LMX relationships. In sum, the influence of an authentic leader who does not have a strong LMX relationship with a given follower should be less likely to activate that followers’ proactive orientation, thereby short-circuiting the pathway to higher creative performance.

Hypothesis 3: LMX moderates the relationship between AL and a proactive orientation, such that higher levels of LMX increase a proactive orientation within employees.

Figure 1 illustrates the conceptual model and proposed hypotheses.

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Figure 1.

Conceptual model and hypotheses.

Sample and Procedures

For our initial field study, we collected survey data from 171 employees and their 24 direct supervisors in a Slovenian manufacturing and processing company that produces highly customized bathroom equipment and accessories. Due to the personalized nature of products that the organization makes, employees are required to experiment and engage in divergent thinking and novel ideation to come up with creative solutions best suited for the client(s). Thus, this sample provided a useful setting to test our primary hypotheses.

To minimize common method bias, data were collected using two questionnaires—one for employees to assess their proactive orientation and their leaders’ perceived authenticity and another for supervisors to assess their employees’ creative performance. A translation-back translation procedure (Brislin, 1986) was used to convert the scales from English to Slovenian and back to English. Questionnaires included team and employee identification codes to guarantee employees’ anonymity, while allowing for the matching of supervisors to employees.

Work units were organized into 32 teams, ranging from two to 18 employees per team. The average number of responses per team was 12.56 employees. In total, 24 teams fully participated by providing both supervisor and employee responses, representing a 71.25 percent response rate of supervisors’ direct reports. Nearly 66 percent of participants were male and on average 28.7 years old (standard deviation [SD]  =  5.89), with a mean work tenure of 5.52 years (SD  =  4.57). Employees’ mean dyadic tenure with their supervisor was 3.97 years (SD  =  3.61).

Measures

Unless otherwise noted, seven-point Likert scales ranging from 1 (“Strongly disagree”) to 7 (“Strongly agree”) were used in this study.

Authentic Leadership was measured using the AL inventory (ALI), a 16-item scale developed by Neider and Schriesheim (2011) (α  =  .94). Sample items include “My leader describes accurately the way that others view his/her abilities,” and “My leader is clearly aware of the impact he/she has on others.”

Employee Creative Performance was rated by direct supervisors and measured using the 13-item instrument developed by Zhou and George (2001) (α  =  .96). Sample items include “This employee…Comes up with new and practical ideas to improve performance” and “Searches out new technologies, processes, techniques, and/or product ideas.”

Proactive Orientation was measured using the four-item scale adopted by Detert and Burris (2007) (α  =  .78). The scale opened with a statement referring to employees’ work environment (“At work…”), and sample items include “If I see something I don't like, I fix it,” and “When I have a problem, I tackle it head on.”

Controls. We controlled for several demographic variables: age, gender, education, expertise (for which a proxy of years of work experience was used), and dyadic tenure (how long an employee has worked with their supervisor). As they may provide some indication of the creativity required for a given position (e.g., more experienced or educated employees may be assigned more complex or ambiguous tasks) as well as employees capabilities to meet those demands (Unsworth et al., 2005) and complement or replace the role of leadership in driving creative performance (Whittington et al., 2004; Chullen et al., 2010), we also controlled for task variety (α  =  .71) and job autonomy (α  =  .68) using items from Hackman and Oldham's (1980) job characteristics scale. As stated in the introduction, we also controlled for ethical leadership (α  =  .84), using Brown et al.'s (2005) 10-item measure to showcase the predictive power of AL above and beyond ethical leadership.

Sample, Design, and Procedures

We conducted Study 2 with 218 full-time staff employees (e.g., accounting, facilities, and administrative personnel) at a university in the U.S. Participants were offered $20 to come after working hours and complete a paper/pencil workplace survey in person. Participants’ mean age was 38.02 years (SD  =  11.63). Approximately 59 percent of participants were male and averaged 16.13 years of work experience (SD  =  11.5). Employees also worked with their supervisors an average of 2.84 years (SD  =  3.33) (i.e., dyadic tenure). Five-point Likert scales ranging from 1 (“strongly disagree”) to 5 (“strongly agree”) were used in this study.

We introduced the study by explaining to participants that we were interested in studying how people solve business problems within the university. Participants were primed to think creatively by presenting them with a real-life work scenario relevant to their work experience at the university. Participants were then instructed to take 5–10 min to write down as many creative ideas they might have in response to the question: “What are some creative ways to reduce costs and expenses in your work unit (e.g., department)?” Example responses were “Implement a flexible work schedule (e.g., 4- and 10-h workdays),” and “Hire a temp to scan and index most of the documents we have in offsite storage instead of paying to have that stuff sit out there.” To triangulate findings across different measures compared to those used in Study 1 (Donald & Donald, 1959), we asked participants to provide their ratings of their immediate supervisor's AL, using the 16-item Authentic Leadership Questionnaire (ALQ) (Walumbwa et al., 2008; α  =  .93), and their perceptions of LMX, using Graen & Uhl-Bien's (1995) seven-item scale (α  =  .90). In addition, participants rated their levels of proactive orientation using the same four-item scale used in Study 1 (Detert & Burris, 2007) (α  =  .73). Participants also evaluated various controls: demographics (age, gender, and education), work experience, and dyadic tenure (both measured in number of months). Finally, participants again rated their supervisors’ ethical leadership using Brown et al.'s (2005) 10-item measure (α  =  .93) to replicate the unique predictive power of AL above and beyond ethical leadership found in Study 1.

To assess the creativity of the ideas that participants generated, we had two experts serve as independent raters. Rater #1 (Male) had 28 years of professional work experience (total), 16 years with the same current organization as participants and 16 years in a leadership/management role with this organization; Rater #2 (Female) had 19 years of professional work experience (total), 17 years with the same current organization as participants and 17 years in a leadership/management role with the current organization. Both were trained on the coding protocol and were provided with the definition of novelty and usefulness as core attributes of creative ideas (Amabile, 1983), and each rater was tasked with evaluating each participant's creative output on both dimensions on a scale from 1 (Low) to 7 (High). Both expert raters rated the first 20 ideas together with the aim of calibrating on the definitions and assessments, after which they assessed the remaining ideas independently. The two raters’ reliability (ICC[2,2]  =  .69) and agreement (rwg₂  =  .70) were within conventional guidelines (LeBreton & Senter, 2008). Thus, we aggregated both independent raters’ scores to form our dependent variable, creative performance.

Theoretical Contributions

This paper seeks to make several theoretical contributions to the proactivity, creativity, and AL literatures. First, this research addresses calls for researchers to develop the nomological network of the proactivity construct further (Tornau & Frese, 2013). We do so by (1) focusing specifically on the malleable state of employees’ proactive orientation and (2) identifying a new antecedent (AL), outcome (creative performance), and condition under which it emerges (LMX). Anchored in social exchange theory (Spitzmuller & Van Dyne, 2013) and the theory of proactive motivation (Parker et al., 2010), proactive orientation provides an important explanatory mechanism as to why AL positively impacts employees’ creative performance, illuminating AL as a valuable tool for shaping creative performance. Doing so also demonstrates that a proactive orientation serves as an important, yet understudied, mediator linking leadership to employee creative performance. This research therefore addresses scholarly calls to identify additional motivational mechanisms that transfer the effects of AL on creative outcomes (Černe et al., 2013; Zhang et al., 2022) and complements recent research on leadership styles and approaches and the malleability of proactivity (Chen et al., 2018; Huang, 2012; Martin et al., 2013).

A second theoretical contribution we make is to add conceptual clarity around LMX as a boundary condition of the effects of AL on proactivity. We theorized and demonstrated in Study 2 that even leaders who engage in highly authentic actions may not reap positive effects on followers’ proactive orientation. It is only when leaders otherwise have a strong LMX relationship with a given follower, whereby the follower reports high levels of liking, respect, and trust in the leader, that the positive effects of AL occur. Grounded in social exchange theory, we theorized that not all followers would equally like, respect, or trust the “authentic self” a given leader brings to the workplace. And, under such lower-LMX relationships, followers will experience lower felt obligation and need to reciprocate with proactivity and creative responses in the workplace.

To understand this effect, we note the caution made by Hannah et al. (2014) concerning the “new genre” theories of leadership, such as AL; stating that “to properly specify theory, it is critical to distinguish the leader from enacted leadership…[and to not]…improperly anthropomorphize these theories and focus on a ‘type’ of leader” (p. 600). For example, the ALQ (Walumbwa et al., 2008) asks followers questions, such as the frequency with which the leader “Makes decisions based on his or her core values.” That observed behavior does not necessarily mean that the follower sees the leader as being moral. The leader's expressed core values may be more (or less) acceptable and attractive to different followers. Similarly, we noted earlier that the things a leader is transparent about could vary in attractiveness to different followers (e.g., a follower may not care for the ideas a leader expresses, or the “true self” they project). Thus, as LMX reflects the positive bonds and level of attractiveness followers hold toward their leader, it is an important factor that should be considered in future AL research. In this way, our approach addresses a recent critique of the excess positivity related to the study of AL (cf. Alvesson & Einola, 2019) by demonstrating how this empowering leadership style is crucially dependent upon the quality of leader–member interaction for employees to become energized and develop a proactive orientation.

Consistent with prior research that has modeled LMX as a moderator of the effects of transformational leadership (Aryee et al., 2012; Law & Wong, 1999; Piccolo et al., 2008; Piccolo & Colquitt, 2006), we modeled LMX as an exogenous variable in Study 2. Indeed, supplementary analyses in Study 2 showed that LMX did not mediate the effects of AL on creative performance, contrasting results of Xu et al. (2017). While LMX and AL covary, our CFA shows that they are empirically distinct, and as described in the theory section, LMX is driven by many other factors besides a leader's enacted leadership style (see Antonakis, 2017; Fischer et al., 2017). These reasons could explain in part why the effects of AL on creative performance do not transmit through LMX. Additionally, it is possible that LMX may simply not drive either a proactive orientation or creative performance, as the modest and insignificant correlations between these variables from Study 1 and 2, respectively, suggest.

Further, a supplemental goal of this research was to address select recent critiques of AL, its theoretical foundations, and its proposed effects. We first do so by heeding scholarly calls to take a multi-theory approach when empirically testing the influence of AL to assess its unique effects (Banks et al., 2016; Cooper et al., 2005; Hannah et al., 2014). Leadership researchers have typically empirically examined phenomenon through the lens of a singular leadership perspective (e.g., authentic), with few studies attempting to distinguish and discriminate the effects of different forms of leadership in the same investigation (Avolio, 2007; Cooper et al., 2005). To avoid this pitfall, we integrated three leadership constructs in the current model—two behavioral styles (AL and ethical leadership (Brown & Treviño, 2006) across both studies and one relational model (LMX) in Study 2. We controlled for the effects of ethical leadership (significant only in Study 1), given recent studies linking ethical leadership to creative outcomes (Chen & Hou, 2016; Ma et al., 2013), thereby demonstrating across both studies the unique effects of AL, beyond that of ethical leadership, on followers’ proactive orientation and subsequent creative performance. In this way, we contribute by refining the precision of our leadership theories, which has value for both scholars and practitioners seeking to use these leadership styles.

These results should also “shed light (and not just heat)” (Hollenbeck, 2008, pp. 20–21) on arguments that the outcomes of AL are merely affective in nature (Mumford & Fried, 2014) and may not contribute to meaningful work outcomes, such a creative performance (Alvesson & Einola, 2019). Indeed, our reported supplemental test in Study 2 showed that the effects of AL on creative performance are not mediated through LMX, of which liking/attraction is a core component.

Various critiques of the AL literature have centered on construct formulation and measurement. It is of note that the same original four dimensions of AL identified by Walumbwa et al. (2008) when creating the original ALQ were also identified and used by Neider and Schriesheim (2011) when they later created the ALI. Avolio et al. (2018) have also conducted recent empirical tests to reassess the construct validity of the ALQ. Notably, taking a multi-method approach, we found that our model replicated across our two studies using both measures. Additional validation research is, however, warranted on both the ALQ and ALI moving forward.

Finally, theory development is enhanced when leadership researchers demonstrate that different leadership predictors wield their effects through different mechanisms. This helps us better understand and differentiate leadership constructs based not only on their construct discrimination but, importantly, on their divergent predictive outcomes (Bass & Bass, 2009). Here in supplemental tests, we showed across both studies that proactive orientation mediated the effects of AL, but did not mediate the effects of ethical leadership, on creative performance. This should also inform the research on ethical leadership and creativity to consider other unique mediators beyond proactive orientation.

Practical Implications

Given the popularity of AL among practitioners (George, 2003; Smith, 2019), the current investigations have important implications for how managers choose to lead. While we find that AL stimulates employee creative performance through driving a proactive orientation, this effect is only enabled when accompanied by high levels of LMX. While outside the scope of this paper, this finding suggests that leaders should find ways to bolster the level of LMX they establish with followers (Carmeli et al., 2009). Yet, as noted earlier, follower individual differences, such as their ILTs, influence perceptions of their leaders and subsequent levels of LMX (Riggs & Porter, 2017), so some factors driving LMX are outside the influence of leaders. Assuming LMX is established with a follower, our results suggest that to bolster followers’ proactive orientation, leaders should behave in authentic ways (i.e., self-aware, relationally transparent, practice moral perspective, and open to new ideas).

This research also highlights the importance of employees’ proactive orientation in driving employees’ creative performance, a critical outcome for organizations. As proactive orientation stems from other contextual factors beyond leadership (Parker et al., 2006, 2010), managers should not only use AL but find multiple ways to increase their members’ proactive orientation to increase their organizations’ ability to generate the types of ideas that lead to breakthrough innovations. Further, since proactivity has been linked to numerous other important outcomes besides creativity, such as job performance (Glaser et al., 2015), social integration, role clarity, and job satisfaction (Wanberg & Kammeyer-Mueller, 2000), we suspect that by leading authentically, under conditions of high LMX, leaders may reap various additional benefits to the organization beyond creativity (Glaser et al., 2015; Wanberg & Kammeyer-Mueller, 2000).

Limitations and Future Research Directions

Although this study makes important contributions to both theory and practice, it is not without limitations. First, there are numerous antecedents to proactivity, both known and yet to be identified, besides AL (for overviews see Parker et al., 2006, 2010). Thus, while our two studies establish proactive orientation as a significant mechanism linking AL to follower creativity, our findings also raise the possibility that a proactive orientation may operate alongside other unmeasured motivational variables to yield creative performance. This is evidenced by the fact that proactive orientation operated not only as a partial mediator in Study 1 but also as a full mediator in Study 2. These different findings could also be driven by national or organizational culture or other sample differences. In our investigation, Sample 1 was Central European and from a manufacturing facility, while Sample 2 was U.S.-based and represented largely “white collar” knowledge workers. Thus, norms of behavior and proactivity may have differed across samples, as could have receptivity to an authentic form of leadership. Further, the need for and natural outcomes of a proactive orientation may have differed between the knowledge-based work environment versus the manufacturing-based context. Researchers should thus directly explore the antecedents and outcomes of a proactive orientation across various cultures.

The findings of partial mediation in Study 1, however, may also suggest that additional mediators are operating. We theorized here the importance of social exchange and reciprocity in motivating followers to respond proactively to acts of AL. Yet, it is also plausible that highly authentic leaders enhance other factors, such as followers’ self-determination (i.e., meet followers needs for competence, relatedness, and autonomy, Ryan & Deci, 2000) prompting them to generate novel and useful ideas. Researchers should thus consider other motivational and non-motivational mechanisms underpinning the relationship between AL and creative performance and explicitly measure them. Further, we did not directly measure the felt obligation to reciprocate we theorized the follower experiences. Our findings should thus motivate future research to test a serial mediation model including felt obligation or need to reciprocate (i.e., AL → felt obligation → proactive orientation → creative performance).

Although our study identified an important boundary condition of AL as it relates to followers’ proactive orientation (i.e., LMX), we did not test additional moderators that may also help to strengthen this association. Thus, moving forward, it will be important to extend beyond LMX and the increased social exchange that emerges within such dyads to include other individual, relational, and contextual factors that may moderate the effects of AL on followers’ proactive orientation and subsequent creativity. Exploring how other behavioral leadership styles (e.g., ethical, transformational, etc.) interact with these different predictors may also prove beneficial in providing greater theoretical insight into the contextual influences on individuals’ creative performance. Since ethical leadership is also a significant predictor in our Study 1, future research should continue to assess that relationship with creativity and possible mediators of that relationship.

Finally, although we controlled for several variables, including job-related factors (task variety and job autonomy in Study 1), basic demographics, work experience, and ethical leadership (in both studies), future research should refine the current model by modeling relevant individual characteristics (e.g., risk-taking propensity, general intelligence, trait proactivity, curiosity, and openness to experience) as predicting or moderating factors. In addition, although we sought to establish external validity by including two types of field studies (i.e., uncontrolled and controlled tasks), we recognize that AL may yield different effects, depending on the context studied. Since both of our studies were cross-sectional in nature, our ability to infer causality is limited. We thus encourage scholars to constructively replicate our findings with experiments and explore how AL may vary in different organizational settings, industries, and cultures.