How and When Leader Mindfulness Influences Subordinate Interpersonal Behavior: A Mixed-Method Study

Abstract

Although an increasing number of studies have verified the beneficial effects of individual mindfulness in the workplace, little is known about the interpersonal effects of leader mindfulness on employee outcomes. Based on motivated empathy theory and the mindfulness literature, this research seeks to develop and test a moderated serial mediation model that leader mindfulness enhances leader empathic concern, which in turn, improves subordinates’ interpersonal organizational citizenship behavior and decreases their interpersonal counterproductive work behavior via increased subordinate empathic concern. Workplace hindrance stressors within a team moderate the relationship between leader mindfulness and leader empathic concern, and the serial mediation effects of the model. We tested this model using two studies. Study 1 involved a field experiment in which 72 front-line leaders were assigned to either a mindfulness intervention condition or to a waitlist control condition. Study 2 was a three-wave time-lagged survey using a sample of 84 leaders and 697 subordinates from southern China. Both studies provide consistent support for our hypotheses.