The Role of Supportive Leadership and Job Design for Proactive Behavior and Self-Organization in Work Groups

Research on group work has shown that supportive leadership helps improve the group’s cooperation and social exchange in groups, which in turn influences the effects of the group work. This study develops a previous model on the relationship between job design, group processes, group initiative and self-organizational activities by including supportive leadership. The hypothesized model was tested using LISREL 8.30 (Jöreskog & Sörbom, 1993) in five different organizational contexts (two types of industry, elderly care, school and nuclear power plant) and in 104 work groups. The results are based on work task analysis (two studies) and questionnaires. The meaningfulness of the model was tested both in contexts where proactive behavior and self-organizational activities are desirable and in a context where proactive behavior can be damaging. Dimensions of job design, supportive leadership, group processes are interrelated and connected to self-organizational activities. Reflectivity and group initiative show the largest effects on self-organizational activities. Job design captured by work task analysis gives a better model fit and has a larger impact on self-organizational activities than self-assessed autonomy. Supportive leadership has an effect on group processes that in turn impact group initiative and self-organizational activities and a direct effect on group initiative as well.