Association Between Green Inclusive Leadership and Organizational Environmental Citizenship Behaviors: Does Green Psychological Climate Matter?

As one of the most serious problems of today, the climate crisis imposes important responsibilities on employees to minimize environmental problems. While organizations are restructuring their environmental goals with the increasingly important awareness of “being green”, realizing these goals is possible with the contribution of employees. At this point, do the green attitudes and behaviors of leaders, as an important representative of organizations, affect the workplace pro-environmental behaviors of employees? The main purpose of the present research is to contribute to the literature on the driving forces of pro-environmental behavior in organizations. Green inclusive leaders (GIL) appear as an external motivational factor that directly affects employees’ organizational environmental citizenship behaviors (OECB). In addition, it is thought that GIL will transform the atmosphere in organizations on green attitudes and behaviors. That is, while the green attitudes and behaviors of inclusive leaders directly affect the OECB of employees, they may be an antecedent for green psychological climate (GPC) in organizations. In addition, these leaders may increase OECB through GPC. For this proposed research model, 295 employees working in the Marmara Region/Türkiye production sector and reporting directly to a manager were reached. Data collected from 295 employees are analyzed using the structural equation modeling and PROCESS Macro-Model 4. The findings confirm the positive relationship between GIL and GPC. In addition, GPC has a positive effect on OECBs, and GPC mediates the relationship between GIL and OECB. Results of the research confirm that GIL who is a relationship-oriented approach are important figures for increasing the desired pro-environmental behaviors in organizations through generally creating an organizational atmosphere accompanied by green attitudes and behaviors. For an organization to be successful in its sustainability goals, each member of the organization must have attitudes and behaviors that will serve this purpose. In other words, organizations and employees must share this purpose, collectively. At this point, the main duty of the leader is to be an example to employees by feeding on new pro-environment ideas, listening to employees with ideas and suggestions, and supporting different perspectives. In this perspective, leaders who set an example for their employees with their pro-environmental behavior can also transform the prevailing atmosphere with their effective communication skills. The findings show that GIL directly affects the OECB and GPC; GPC mediates between GIL and OECB.