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Fostering Sustainable Workplace Through Leaders’ Compassionate Behaviors: Understanding the Role of Employee Well-Being and Work Engagement

Author

Listed:
  • Martina Pansini

    (Department of Human Sciences, LUMSA University, 00193 Rome, Italy)

  • Ilaria Buonomo

    (Department of Human Sciences, LUMSA University, 00193 Rome, Italy)

  • Paula Benevene

    (Department of Human Sciences, LUMSA University, 00193 Rome, Italy)

Abstract

Social sustainability in organizations refers to fostering well-being, inclusion, and the development of supportive relationships that enhance individual well-being and collective resilience. This study explores the relationship between compassionate leadership and work engagement, focusing on the mediating role of employee well-being. Compassionate leaders actively engage with their followers’ needs, offering emotional support and practical help and aligning with social sustainability principles by promoting positive workplace outcomes and fostering a supportive environment. Despite compassionate leadership having generated growing interest, very few studies have adopted a quantitative approach to examining its specific effects on employee outcomes, creating a significant gap in the literature specifically concerning how compassionate leadership affects employee engagement or additional variables, such as employee well-being. Framed in the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) Model, our study addresses this gap by examining whether compassionate leadership can serve as a job resource by increasing work engagement through employee well-being as a personal resource. The study was carried out on a sample of 225 Spanish workers, and the data were examined through a structural equation model (SEM) to test the proposed model. The results showed a good model fit to the data, showing that well-being acts as a key mediator in the relationship between compassionate leadership and job engagement. Although we did not find a direct association between compassionate leadership and engagement, we found that compassionate behaviors significantly improve employee well-being, which in turn promotes higher engagement. These results extend the JD-R model by demonstrating that leaders’ compassionate leadership can serve as a job resource, contributing to a supportive and socially sustainable workplace.

Suggested Citation

  • Martina Pansini & Ilaria Buonomo & Paula Benevene, 2024. "Fostering Sustainable Workplace Through Leaders’ Compassionate Behaviors: Understanding the Role of Employee Well-Being and Work Engagement," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(23), pages 1-16, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:23:p:10697-:d:1538002
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Cristopher J. Tietsort & Sarah J. Tracy & Elissa A. Adame, 2023. "“You Just Don’t Talk about Certain Topics”: How Concerns to Disclose Suffering to Leaders Constrain Compassion at Work," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(5), pages 1-19, March.
    2. Ilaria Buonomo & Martina Pansini & Sara Cervai & Paula Benevene, 2022. "Compassionate Work Environments and Their Role in Teachers’ Life Satisfaction: The Contribution of Perceived Collective School Performance and Burnout," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(21), pages 1-14, October.
    3. Simona De Stasio & Paula Benevene & Alessandro Pepe & Ilaria Buonomo & Benedetta Ragni & Carmen Berenguer, 2020. "The Interplay of Compassion, Subjective Happiness and Proactive Strategies on Kindergarten Teachers’ Work Engagement and Perceived Working Environment Fit," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(13), pages 1-17, July.
    4. Denise Parris & Jon Peachey, 2013. "A Systematic Literature Review of Servant Leadership Theory in Organizational Contexts," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 113(3), pages 377-393, March.
    5. Kan Jia & Tianlun Zhu & Weiwei Zhang & Samma Faiz Rasool & Ali Asghar & Tachia Chin, 2022. "The Linkage between Ethical Leadership, Well-Being, Work Engagement, and Innovative Work Behavior: The Empirical Evidence from the Higher Education Sector of China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(9), pages 1-15, April.
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