You can't make me! The role of self-leadership in enhancing organizational commitment and work engagement

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of self-leadership in enhancing work engagement through the mediating mechanisms of affective, normative and continuance organizational commitment. Design/methodology/approach Data collected from 258 transportation workers were examined in a parallel mediation model in PROCESS. Findings The results of these analyses suggest that the positive relationship between self-leadership and work engagement is partially mediated by affective commitment and normative commitment, but not by continuance commitment. Research limitations/implications The findings imply that organizational decision makers should implement practices designed to increase self-leadership in the workplace and enhance employee work engagement. These practices include empowering leadership, recruitment and selection of self-leading employees, and self-leadership training interventions. The study was subject to limitations common to attitudinal survey research. Originality/value This study responds calls to explore the mediating mechanisms through which self-leadership affects organizational outcomes and helps explain why self-leadership affects employee work engagement.