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Leaders's language and employee proactivity: Enhancing psychological meaningfulness and vitality

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  • Binyamin, Galy
  • Brender-Ilan, Yael

Abstract

Today's volatile environment and pressure for continuous improvement require leaders to play a central role in fostering and nurturing employee proactivity. Effective leaders use their communication skills as a key tool to motivate employees to achieve organizational goals. In this study, we tested a model in which leader motivating language (manifested as direction-giving, empathetic, and meaning-making language) fosters the development of employee proactive behavior by shaping a psychological context of meaningfulness and cultivating a motivational state of employee vitality. The findings indicate that the leader motivating language is related directly and indirectly, through psychological meaningfulness, to employee vitality. We also found that psychological meaningfulness and employee vitality are mediating mechanisms through which leader motivating language can result in enhanced employee proactivity. This study advances theory and research on employee proactivity as a contingency of leadership motivating language by integrating three emerging streams of research—relational leadership, relational communication, and proactivity. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Binyamin, Galy & Brender-Ilan, Yael, 2018. "Leaders's language and employee proactivity: Enhancing psychological meaningfulness and vitality," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 463-473.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:eurman:v:36:y:2018:i:4:p:463-473
    DOI: 10.1016/j.emj.2017.09.004
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    Cited by:

    1. Vaneva, Marjana & Bojadjiev, Marjan I., 2021. "Doing Business in the 'New Normal': COVID-19 School Leaders' Language Manners," Proceedings of the ENTRENOVA - ENTerprise REsearch InNOVAtion Conference (2021), Hybrid Conference, Zagreb, Croatia, in: Proceedings of the ENTRENOVA - ENTerprise REsearch InNOVAtion Conference, Hybrid Conference, Zagreb, Croatia, 9-10 September 2021, pages 401-409, IRENET - Society for Advancing Innovation and Research in Economy, Zagreb.
    2. Xinyue Zhang & Dian Li & Xintong Guo, 2022. "Antecedents of Responsible Leadership: Proactive and Passive Responsible Leadership Behavior," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(14), pages 1-22, July.
    3. Mengru Yuan & Wenjing Cai & Xiaopei Gao & Jingtao Fu, 2020. "How Servant Leadership Leads to Employees’ Customer-Oriented Behavior in the Service Industry? A Dual-Mechanism Model," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(7), pages 1-19, March.

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