Authentic leadership and creativity The intervening role of psychological meaningfulness, safety and work engagement

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a conceptual model which explains whether and how authentic leadership, through psychological meaningfulness, safety and work engagement, influences employee creativity. The authors delineate two pathways from authentic leadership to work engagement, which in turn foster creativity. The first pathway illuminates how authentic leadership generates psychological meaningfulness which enhances work engagement and creativity subsequently, while the second elucidates the indirect impact of authentic leadership on creativity via psychological safety and work engagement. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected from 300 employees working in heavy engineering and automobile industry in India. Regression analysis was used to analyze data with the help of SPSS 24. Serial mediation effects were tested with the help of bootstrapping procedures using SPSS process macro (Hayes, 2013). Findings Psychological meaningfulness and work engagement were found to mediate the relationship of authentic leadership with creativity both independently and in series. Psychological safety failed to transfer the effect of authentic leadership on both work engagement and creativity. Practical implications Organizations may reap the benefits of a creative and engaged workforce by selecting, nurturing and developing authentic leaders. Originality/value The study contributes to theory building in the area of authentic leadership by enriching the understanding of the processes carrying the effect of authentic leadership on desirable workplace outcomes. In doing so, the study also explicates the less understood nature of relationship between leadership and creativity.