Positive effects of leader gratitude expression on employee self-development behaviors: the mediating role of work engagement

Previous research has found that gratitude expression from other can motivate employees to contribute more to organizational goals by displaying more OCB or higher work effort. We propose that, however, leader gratitude expression may also bring about benefits to the employees themselves by facilitating their self-development and long-term growth, which was ignored by researchers. Drawing on emotion as social information (EASI) theory, we examine the extent to which leader gratitude expression may enhance employees’ self-development behaviors, defined as proactive and self-starting behaviors that bring the focal employee learning opportunities, skill development and social integration. Using data collected from 182 MBA students from a university in Beijing, China (Study 1), and 255 organizational employees from a variety of industries (Study 2), we found that leader gratitude expression was positively related to employee work engagement, which in turn was positively related to three types of employee self-development behaviors (i.e. feedback-seeking from leader, feedback seeking from peer, and informal learning behavior). Furthermore, employee work engagement mediated the relationship between leader gratitude expression and the three employee self-development behaviors. These findings support the interpersonal benefits of leader gratitude expression on employees’ self-development behaviors, thus contributes to the literature of leader gratitude expression by identifying work engagement as a novel mechanism and self-development behaviors as novel consequences of it. Theoretical contributions and practical implications are discussed.