In this chapter, the study reviews literatures about leader mindfulness, employee engagement, leader-follower social capital. All the hypotheses will be provided afterwards.
Leader Mindfulness
Mindfulness has commonly been known as human capability to get their “attention to the experiences occurring in the present moment, in a nonjudgmental or accepting way” (Baer, Smith, Hopkins, Krietemeyer, & Toney, 2006, p.27). It could be judged by two key characteristics: First, a devotion to “here and now” (Brown et al., 2007) is considered. In fact, mindfulness includes an emphasis on the present instead of pondering about the past or doubting about the future. Therefore, being mindful implies a understanding of what is occurring in our surroundings, involving other individuals, things, or events (Barnes, Brown, Krusemark, Campbell, & Rogge, 2007). In contrast, a lack of mindfulness is depicted as little or no attention, more precisely as performing behaviors in an instinctive way, as well as a separation from duties and happenings (Brown & Ryan, 2003).
Second, mindfulness entails a “nonjudgmental and observing stance”. Hence, mindfulness has been described as an alignment that emphasizes precisely perceiving instead of evaluating and promptly judging (Weick & Putnam, 2006). Mindfulness can take place in two distinct modes: (1) as a feature with fairly steady interpersonal variations or (2) as a variable state which permits mindfulness to be enhanced (Good et al., 2016). “From perspective of a trait, prior research indicated that people differ in their ability to be mindful (Davidson, 2010). Actually, some studies have revealed that mindfulness is an important concept for better understanding about stable differences in one’s feelings, attitudes, and behaviors (Chiesa & Serretti, 2009).” In some other researches, mindfulness have been considered as a state and some propose that mindfulness could be trained via quick mindfulness engagements, for example, via guidelines that concentrate our attention to the present (Arch & Craske, 2006; Long & Christian, 2015). “Previous research has presented that such involvements can have exerted positive influences on participants’ feelings and behaviors (Hafenbrack, Kinias, & Barsade, 2014) and that these influences are comparatively durable (Hülsheger et al., 2013). Both the trait and state perceptions of mindfulness are noticed as equally valid and, indeed, as complementary (Good et al., 2016).”
Examining mindfulness is important because it has been demonstrated to have positive impacts at work through enhancing a wide range of critical employee outcomes (Glomb, Duffy, Bono, & Yang, 2011). Mindfulness may be opposite to mindlessness. Mindlessness is described
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as neither having awareness of, nor paying attention to, the events which a person is engaged in or of the personal states (e.g., emotions) that person is undergoing. “Furthermore, some traits of mindlessness can be stated such as doing tasks automatically, daydreaming, pondering about the future, or contemplating the past (Brown & Ryan, 2003). “Writings on the state of being fully in the current moment long time ago in reflective traditions have argued that being mindfulness can bring a variety of benefits, especially well-being.” By contrast, a mindfulness study in a Western model is comparatively recent. This study has continuously shown positive relationship between mindfulness and beneficial outcomes.” For instance, it is discovered that mindfulness reduces constant pain (Kabat-Zinn, Lipworth, & Burney, 1985), boosts immunity (Davidson et al., 2003), lessens anxiety (Kabat-Zinn et al., 1992), and increases emotional well-being and useful impact (Brown & Ryan, 2003). A few proofs suggest that nurturing mindfulness abilities via practical practice (e.g., meditation) result in structural adjustments for the “dorsolateral prefrontal area of one’s brain, which is related to positive affects” (Cahn & Polich, 2006).
Recent study suggests that mindfulness may also influence an individual’s relationship quality. For example, Wachs and Cordova (2007) noted that mindfulness improved human’s capability to convey psychological states with others and controlling their anger, which brought about an increase in marital relationship. Other research indicates that mindfulness enhances human’s capacity to handle relationship strain (Barnes et al., 2007). These beneficial effects could be partly since mindfulness may boost empathic care for partners (Block-Lerner, Adair, Plumb, Rhatigan, & Orsillo, 2007). It is additionally argued that mindfulness turns human from an argumentative attitude into a more collaborative attitude in complicated relations such as disputes (Riskin, 2002).
These outcomes from some domains of social life relating to the beneficial effects of mindfulness suggest that mindfulness can also accelerate leadership performance (Reb et al., 2018).
If mindfulness can indeed enhance relationship quality, as the above suggestions, it may be proved to be beneficial for the leader–follower relationship, and as a consequence, for employee positive outcomes at workplace.
As stated above, there is not much theoretical and unexpectedly lesser empirical research has focused on the importance of mindfulness at work. Furthermore, while this research is aiming to make a significant contribution to organizational scholars by examining the function of the quality of attention and consciousness in organizations, it is comparatively silent on the
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interpersonal influences of mindfulness. An interesting issue is whether mindfulness of one organizational member affects the working experiences and outcomes of other organizational members. One kind of members who plays an extremely important part is those in leadership positions. It is generally acknowledged that how leaders perform their leadership through various leadership styles activities influences employee well-being, attitudes, behaviors, and performance (e.g., Gerstner & Day, 1997; Lowe et al., 1996). Although we have heard much about the leader behaviors influencing employees, we still have little empirical research about how leaders’ quality of consciousness, which is also known as leader mindfulness (Reb et al., 2018), impacts their employees. Lots of authors have lately conduct a few studies about benefits of leader mindfulness.
It is said that these benefits include positive consequences for employees such as higher level of performance and better well-being (Boyatzis & McKee, 2005; Carroll, 2008). Nevertheless, empirical validation up to now has been mostly unreliable.
This research focuses on supervisors as leaders. To execute effectively, supervisors are expected to take numerous leadership obligations such as direction providing, support offering, creativity motivating, and feedback delivery to their subordinates (Scandura & Schriesheim, 1994).
This perspective on supervisory management stresses that leadership not only come from one side of the leader but also occur within a dynamic collaboration between supervisor and subordinate, explaining in a particular managerial background. Uhl-Bien (2006) argued that “leadership is relational and cannot be captured by examination of individual attributes alone” (p.671).
Meanwhile, Bennis (2007) indicated that, at a fundamental degree, “leadership is grounded in a relationship” (p.3). “Leader–member exchange theory and relational leadership theory both highlight that the quality of the relationship between leader and follower will facilitate critical employee outcomes such as well-being, job satisfaction, and there is considerable empirical support for this connection (Brower, Schoorman, & Tan, 2000; Dulebohn, Bommer, Liden, Brouer,
& Ferris, 2012; Gerstner & Day, 1997).”
According to the outcomes study of Ehrlich (2017), leader mindfulness can be divided into six broad categories (Figure 2.1.). The model places body, spirit, emotion and mind in the center since these elements are crucial for identifying the significance of being present.
Whenever we appear completely together with those four characteristics, we may certainly connect with others to create interactions and relations. The intimacy of those fundamental characteristics indicates a shared connection. For instance, if we get bodily ill, we frequently
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become impatient and pessimistic. In contrast, if we get stressful, it is likely harsher to be vigorous and optimistic, which aggregates the emotional problem. When there is a close link, we may be aware of how to take the lead and motivate. Nevertheless, only being present is insufficient for full connection. To form strong relations, it is essential for us to own supplemental skills like compassion. Comparably, with the objective of encouragement, we additionally ought to be able to do more than just simple connection. It leads to the need of transmitting a value that encourages others to acknowledge a greater and longer-term purpose.
Figure 2.1. Leader mindfulness model. Adapt from “Leader Mindfulness”, by J. Ehrlich, 2017, Organizational Dynamics, 46(4), p.236.
Employee Engagement
Employee engagement has lately known as a broadly trendy term (Robinson, Perryman, &
Hayday, 2004). “Nonetheless, most of the content about employee engagement could be found in practitioner journals, therefore it tends to be based on practical context rather than theoretical and empirical research. As noticed by Robinson et al. (2004), there has been astonishingly little academic and empirical research on such a popular topic. Engagement is defined by burnout researchers as the positive converse of burnout (Maslach, Schaufelli, & Leiter, 2001). Accordingly, Maslach et al. (2001) noted that engagement is categorized by energy, attachment, and efficacy, which are the straight opposites of three burnout dimensions including exhaustion, skepticism, and inefficacy. Studies on burnout and engagement also found that the key dimensions of burnout - exhaustion and skepticism and those of engagement - vigor and dedication are direct opposites
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(Gonzalez-Roma, Schaufeli, Bakker, & Lloret, 2006). From the academic perspective, engagement is believed to be associated with but different from other concepts in organizational behaviors.
Organizational commitment is also different from engagement such that it indicates one’s attitude and connection towards the organizations. Engagement is not considered as an attitude; it is actually the extent to which one is attentive and immersed in their roles. Besides, while organizational citizenship behavior implicates informal and voluntary behaviors which can help co-workers and organizations, the emphasis of engagement is a person’s formal role performance instead of voluntary and extra-role behaviors.”
Schaufeli & Bakker (2004b) described employee engagement as follows:
Engagement is a positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind that is characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption. Rather than a momentary and specific state, engagement refers to a more persistent and pervasive affective-cognitive state that is not focused on any particular object, event, individual, or behavior. (p.92)
This article recommends one of the most cited definition of employee engagement (Fearon, McLaughlin, & Morris, 2013). “By following it, the author could identify employee engagement as the extent to which employees are all emotionally, physically, and cognitively associated with their job duties (Harter & Schmidt, 2008; Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004a). While the objective of this research is not to concentrate on various approaches applied to explain employee engagement (Shuck, 2011; Shuck & Wollard, 2010; Wollard & Shuck, 2011), it is however valuable to find out how this research’s classification has any connection with prior methods. This definition was initially conceived by Kahn (1990), who put so much focus on the emotional, physical, and cognitive features of employee engagement. Shuck and Wollard (2010) emphasize the usefulness of the engagement idea in HRD area, in which it was perceive as employees’ emotional, cognitive, and behavioral state leading to preferred organizational outcomes. Later, the three dimensions are reflected in Schaufeli Salanova, Gonzalez-Roma, and Bakker (2002) definition. Specifically, the vigor, dedication, and absorption dimensions indicate employees’ enthusiastic, emotional, and cognitive states respectively (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2010; Song, Kolb, Lee, & Kim, 2012).”
Employee engagement consequently is a universal term, hence, extremely engaged employees get higher grade on three facets (Kahn, 1990). It encompasses the concurrent involvement of emotional, physical, and cognitive dynamism in the work context (Rich, Lepine,
& Crawford, 2010). Employees may be believed merged in their responsibilities emotionally,
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physically, or cognitively, but the status of being “engaged” involves all three types of simultaneous involvement (Kahn, 1990). Employee engagement can be conceptually differentiated from related concepts such as job satisfaction, job embeddedness, organizational commitment or work holism (Halbesleben & Wheeler, 2008; Hallberg & Schaufeli, 2006;
Schaufeli, Taris, & Bakker, 2006). Engaged employees accomplish their tasks because they love their work and are drawn towards it, which is also known as intrinsically motivated (Schaufeli &
Bakker, 2010).
Employee engagement additionally implies “the simultaneous employment and expression of a person’s “preferred self” in task behaviors that promote connections to work and to others, personal presence (physical, cognitive, and emotional), and active, full performances” (Kahn 1990, p.700). “Engaged employees entirely exploit themselves in their presentation with robust private energy to their own emotional, physical and cognitive endeavors (Kahn, 1990; Rich et al., 2010).
In other words, they do not only physically show up in the workplace, but more significantly, they are also psychologically existing - more attentive, participated, and concentrated in their task performance. In a nutshell, engaged employees let their full selves to emerge in their jobs (Kahn, 1992; Rich et al., 2010). Moreover, employee engagement is motivational, because it involves the distribution of personal resources to the task performance (Rich et al., 2010), consequently to personal sacrifices (Bakker, Demerouti, & Schaufeli, 2005). It is not surprising, since prior studies proposed that over-engagement at work may endanger one’s non-work relationships as well as commitment (Halbesleben, Harvey, & Bolino, 2009). To sum up, although the concept of engagement in the practitioner literature easily overlaps with some other constructs, it has been described in the academic literature as a unique construct which consists of emotional, cognitive, and behavioral elements connected to individual task performance. Additionally, engagement is different from other workplace constructs, most remarkably organizational citizenship behavior and organizational commitment.
Leader-Follower Social Capital
Social capital can be defined as a broad construct (Nahapiet & Ghoshl, 1998; Payne et al., 2011), combining structural viewpoint such as employees’ positioning in intrafirm networks (Zhang et al., 2009), content-related viewpoint such as the existence of a mutual vision among organizational members (Kristof-Brown et al., 2005), along with relationship dynamic viewpoint such as the credibility of intrafirm exchanges (Bouckenooghe et al., 2013; Gubbins & MacCurtain,
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2008). Because of this research’s attention on the leader–follower association, the author shows interest in not the obligation of employees’ structural positioning in the organization’s larger network but rather two more explicit essentials of leader–follower social capital: goal congruence and social interaction. The reason is two of them could respectively secure critical content- and process-related levels of intrafirm relationships (Payne et al., 2011), and consequently present a thorough imagination of the relational resources implanted in leader–follower connection. Goal congruence describes the content, involving the extent to which both the leader and follower think of the consistent targets in the direction of the organization (Nahapiet & Ghoshal, 1998; Vancouver
& Schmitt, 1991). Social interaction, conversely, implies the process and indicates the extent to which both parties appreciate each other on an individual point via casual contacts getting beyond conventional formal styles (Carmeli et al., 2009; Nahapiet & Ghoshal, 1998). Present research highlights the importance of resilient leader–follower relationships towards effective organizational outcomes (Lazarova & Taylor, 2009; Leana & Van Buren, 1999) without identifying how the social capital rooted in such relationships might contribute to the useful implementation of leader mindfulness (Payne et al., 2011).
Social capital indicates “the sum of the actual and potential resources embedded within, available through, and derived from the network of relationships possessed by an individual or social unit” (Nahapiet & Ghoshal, 1998, p. 243). “This study focuses on two critical aspects of leader–follower social capital, namely, goal congruence and social interaction, which exhibit critical aspects related to the content and process of social capital, respectively (Lazarova & Taylor, 2009; Payne et al., 2011). Goal congruence displays the presence of mutual goals between leader and follower (Vancouver & Schmitt, 1991); specifically, it implies whether followers perceive an overall strong “fit” with the organizations (Kristof-Brown et al., 2005). On the other hand, social interaction displays the existence of a strong relationship between leader and follower (Carmeli et al., 2009), comprising the extent to which both parties personally know each other rather than preserving an arm’s-length relation (Bouckenooghe et al., 2013). Because both components of social capital are equally conducive to motivating high-quality knowledge (Leana & Van Buren, 1999; Nahapiet & Ghoshal, 1998), they may support followers to better recognize the value of the assistances that mindful leaders can produce to their work contexts. Based on this reason, the author derives some hypotheses, which are summarized in the conceptual framework in Figure 3.1.
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This study first provides arguments for the existence of a positive relationship between leader mindfulness and employee engagement, then examine the contingencies of this relationship.
Leader Mindfulness and Employee Engagement
Expanding previous study, this research suggests that leader mindfulness may bring about useful effects through optimistic outcomes in the structural environment as a result of improved relationship quality. Study about leader–member exchange argues that “effective leadership processes occur when leaders and followers are able to develop mature relationships (partnerships) and thus gain access to the many benefits these relationships bring” (Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995, p.225).
A strong theoretical basis for explaining the relationship between leader mindfulness and employee engagement could be recognized in social exchange theory (SET). SET asserts that commitments are generated through a series of collaborations between both parties who are in a state of shared interdependence. SET’s fundamental assumption is that connections may steadily develop into belief, devotion, and mutual obligations as long as both the parties abide by “rules”
of exchange (Cropanzano & Mictchell, 2005). “Rules” of exchange regularly comprise mutuality or repayment in that the activities of one party bring about a reaction and/or reply from the other party. As an example, if one individual receives economic or socioemotional resources from the organization, (s)he feels obliged to reply in a kind manner to repay her/his organization (Cropanzano & Mitchell, 2005). It is in harmony with Robinson et al.’s (2004) explanation of engagement as a shared relationship between employers and employees.
This study suggests that leader with higher level of mindfulness can bring about more employee engagement since mindful leaders are thought to be better capable of delivering support and/or socioemotional resources to their own employees. Kahn (1992) suggested that employees whose state in relationships with a higher level of psychologically present leaders might be given more resources to explore a complete range of their experiences at workplace. Reb et al. (2015) likewise found that mindful leaders, with the exposed presence, can provide their employees with greater resources.” Moreover, mindful people are also better able to be entirely in “here and now”
with others. When supervisors communicate with their subordinates, the supervisor may be noticed by subordinates whether to be fully present with their full being, not only in physical aspect. In case the supervisor is completely present in interaction with the subordinate, the subordinate might feel appreciated and treated respectfully, or with a sensation of interpersonal justice.
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“Based on the study of Saks (2006), a method for employees to pay back the organization is demonstrating their extent of engagement. In particular, employees might choose to engage themselves in different levels in response to all the resources offered by their organization and their supervisors. Making oneself more completely into one’s mission tasks and dedicating greater amount of emotional, cognitive, and physical resources may be a very useful way for an individual to repay the organization’s support. Employees always find it more difficult to measure their levels of job performance even if performance is usually evaluated and considered as the base for compensation and some administrative decisions. Consequently, employees are prone to exchange their own engagement for resources provided by the organization. Drawn all above reasons together, the author proposes the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 1: Leader mindfulness is positively related to employee engagement.
The Role of Leader-Follower Social Capital in the Relationship between Leader Mindfulness and Employee Engagement
“In order to make followers to identify the benefits of leader mindfulness, it is required they must be persuaded that this consciousness-related leadership may improve their own working situation (De Clercq, 2014). This study also argues that those understandings are supposed to emerge to the degree that (a) subordinates perceive their goals to be consistent with those of their supervisors and (b) both the two parties sustain solid personal relationships. Therefore, the author hypothesizes that the levels of goal congruence and social interaction should moderate the relationship between followers’ perceptions of leader mindfulness and their work engagement.”
If leaders and followers have similar goals, the knowledge shared between them is believed to possess high quality, due to the belief that those knowledge sharing lead to more effective goal accomplishment (Leana & Van Buren, 1999; Nahapiet & Ghoshal, 1998). When followers perceive the high goal congruence, they accordingly become more knowledgeable about the process in which organizational decisions are reached (Leana & Van Buren, 1999; Nahapiet &
Ghoshal, 1998), and the thoughtfulness and awareness that mindful leaders dedicate to them seem to be easily interpreted as supportive. Specifically, goal congruence offers more cues to followers
Ghoshal, 1998), and the thoughtfulness and awareness that mindful leaders dedicate to them seem to be easily interpreted as supportive. Specifically, goal congruence offers more cues to followers