An Empirical Investigation of the Relationships Among Authentic Leadership, Mindfulness, and Job Involvement

An Empirical Investigation of the Relationships Among Authentic Leadership, Mindfulness, and Job Involvement

Rikki Charlene Hummel | 2021

Abstract

Organizational spending on mindfulness training programs for leaders and followers continues to abound, while empirical research on employee mindfulness remains dearth. The current study sought to make a positive contribution to both mindfulness and authentic leadership research in organizations by identifying how mindfulness and authentic leadership are related to positive organizational outcomes like job involvement. A cross-sectional study was completed using a snowball method of sampling controlling for age, gender, supervisor versus nonsupervisor, and industry type (education, health care, manufacturing, and service). The study examined both the relationship between the individual characteristic of employee mindfulness and the workplace outcome of employee job involvement together with the complementary influence of authentic leadership, as perceived by employees. The intent of this study was to determine the presence of mindfulness, without intervention, and the relationship between both authentic leadership and mindfulness on the workplace outcome of job involvement. The study found a significant positive multivariate relationship between authentic leadership and mindfulness and between authentic leadership and job involvement. However, surprisingly, the results showed a significant negative relationship between employee mindfulness and job involvement. Since previous research on mindfulness in workplace literature is quite limited, the current study presents an opportunity to better understand the impact of mindfulness in the work context.