The Impact of Leader Behaviours on Employee Creativity: Exploring the Role of Autonomous Self-Regulation and Self-Control

Abstract

Various theoretical perspectives have been used to investigate the processes by which leader behaviours influence employee creativity. Yet despite this, the integration of leadership and creativity literature is theoretically underdeveloped–while the extant literature affirms that leaders' behaviours influence employee creativity, it does not fully explain why and how these effects occur. To address this gap, I developed a new framework that accounts for how leader behaviours influence employee creativity by adopting a self-regulatory lens from the employee's perspective. Doing so helped me to discover a novel explanatory mechanism for these effects. Specifically, I propose a theoretical framework linking servant and abusive leadership styles to employee creativity through two distinct self-regulation processes: autonomous self-regulation and compelled self-control. Servant leadership is proposed to enhance employee creativity through autonomous self-regulation and creative process engagement, whereas abusive supervision is hypothesised to influence creativity via self-control demands, self-control (resource depletion), and creative process engagement. Additionally, the study examines boundary conditions by including employees’ proactive personality and trait self-control. A proactive disposition is expected to strengthen the servant-leadership pathway to creativity, whereas high trait self-control is expected to weaken the abusive-supervision route. Two studies were conducted. The first was a multi-source, cross-sectional study involving 251 employees and their supervisors, where supervisors rated employees’ creativity. The second study employed a diary method, tracking 69 employees daily over ten days. The findings demonstrate that the mediation effect via autonomous self-regulation and creative process engagement (CPE) was supported by the diary study and also emerged in the cross-sectional study once CPE was excluded from the model. In addition, the mediation pathway involving compelled self-control via self-control demands was supported by the cross-sectional study. Trait self-control moderated the mediation chain in the cross-sectional study but not in the diary, and proactive personality did not emerge as a significant boundary condition in either study. These findings offer new insights into the mechanisms linking leadership behaviours to employee creativity. By examining both positive and negative leadership behaviours through a self-regulation lens, this research provides an overall perspective on how leadership influences creativity. Overall, the results provide partial support for the proposed role of self-regulation in explaining the differing effects of servant leadership and abusive supervision on creativity. Theoretical and practical implications, as well as directions for future research, are discussed.