Leadership, climate, psychological capital, commitment, and wellbeing in a non‐profit organization

Abstract

PurposeThis exploratory study aims to examine the effects of leadership on organizational climate, employee psychological capital, commitment, and wellbeing in a religious/church‐based non‐profit organization.Design/methodology/approachLeadership effects are investigated using established scales including the transformational leadership scale, (TLS), organizational climate questionnaire (OCQ), positive and negative affect scale (PANAS), psychological capital (PsyCap), and organizational commitment. It is a context‐based study that considers a unique organizational culture that comprises social, political, economic, technological, personnel, and personal facets. The survey was administered across a large religious/church‐based non‐profit organization.FindingsThe findings show strong positive relationships between employee ratings of their immediate supervisor's transformational leadership and employee ratings of organizational climate, wellbeing, employee commitment and psychological capital. Additional analyses which explored the impact of demographic variables revealed older employees recorded significantly higher scores on psychological capital than younger employees. These findings inform organizational sustainability where the principles of socially responsible management practices form the heart of responsible stewardship.Research limitations/implicationsRisks of method variance or response biases are likely as all data are drawn from employee surveys, and some selection bias as respondents could not be directly compared with non‐respondents.Originality/valueThis study makes a significant contribution to the non‐profit literature by providing further evidence of the impact of leadership on organizational climate, with the added dimensions of psychological capital, employee wellbeing, and commitment adding to the knowledge of these relationships.