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Inclusive Leadership and Taking-Charge Behavior: Roles of Psychological Safety and Thriving at Work

Inclusive Leadership and Taking-Charge Behavior: Roles of Psychological Safety and Thriving at Work fpsyg-11-00062 February 19, 2020 Time: 16:45 # 1 ORIGINAL RESEARCH published: 20 February 2020 doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00062 Inclusive Leadership and Taking-Charge Behavior: Roles of Psychological Safety and Thriving at Work 1 2 2 Hao Zeng *, Lijing Zhao and Yixuan Zhao * 1 2 School of Economics and Management, Jiangxi Science and Technology Normal University, Nanchang, China, Business School, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China Taking charge is an important form of proactive behavior that sustains organizational survival and individual development. Learning how to motivate employees to engage in taking-charge behavior has become one of the hot topics in the field of organizational management. Despite considerable research investigating the factors influencing taking charge, less attention has been paid to leadership-related factors, such as inclusive leadership. Based on the self-determination theory and the social information processing theory, we examined the mediating roles of psychological safety and thriving at work in the relationship between inclusive leadership and taking-charge behavior. We collected data in two stages from 205 pairs of employees and their supervisors at 17 companies Edited by: in mainland China. Specifically, the results revealed that inclusive leadership promoted Giulio Arcangeli, University of Florence, Italy employees’ taking-charge behavior first through psychological safety and then through Reviewed by: thriving at work. The results describe a more detailed mechanism underlying the Luigi Isaia Lecca, formation of taking-charge behavior. The results further deepen our understanding of University of Cagliari, Italy Artur Victoria, the path from inclusive leadership to employee behavior. These findings have theoretical Autonomous University of Lisbon, implications for the taking-charge literature and managerial implications for practitioners. Portugal Keywords: inclusive leadership, taking-charge behavior, psychological safety, thriving at work, self-determination *Correspondence: theory, social information processing theory Hao Zeng [email protected] Yixuan Zhao INTRODUCTION [email protected] In a dynamic, complex, vague, and uncertain environment, many organizations are decentralizing Specialty section: This article was submitted to and beginning to redefine employee work roles. In an increasingly dynamic and changing Organizational Psychology, context, companies not only require employees to efficiently perform tasks within their roles a section of the journal but also expect them to respond to challenges and engage in more proactive behaviors to Frontiers in Psychology build the core competitiveness of the organization. Taking charge is the constructive effort Received: 03 November 2019 of employees to initiate self-improvement, improve organizational operations, and promote Accepted: 10 January 2020 functional changes in the organization (Morrison and Phelps, 1999). Parker and Collins (2010) Published: 20 February 2020 note that employee proactive behavior includes taking-charge behavior, speaking up, problem Citation: prevention, and personal innovation. Chiaburu et al. (2013) argue that taking-charge behavior is a Zeng H, Zhao L and Zhao Y change-oriented, organizational citizenship behavior that aims to identify and implement changes (2020) Inclusive Leadership in work processes, products, and services. Studies have shown that taking-charge behaviors based and Taking-Charge Behavior: Roles on workflow or method improvement can enhance organizational adaptability and long-term of Psychological Safety and Thriving viability (Moon et al., 2008; Parker and Collins, 2010). Employees’ taking-charge behavior not only at Work. Front. Psychol. 11:62. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00062 enables better performance evaluation, job satisfaction, and affective commitment (Kim et al., 2015; Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 1 February 2020 | Volume 11 | Article 62 fpsyg-11-00062 February 19, 2020 Time: 16:45 # 2 Zeng et al. Inclusive Leadership and Taking Charge Behavior Kim and Liu, 2017) but also fosters leadership potential and previously mentioned, social support (i.e., leadership support) builds social networks (Fuller and Marler, 2009). In the Western can improve physical and mental health (Backman et al., 2018; context, taking-charge behavior can lead to positive individual Bakr et al., 2019). Inclusive leaders’ support, fair treatment, and and organizational results. However, Chinese employees are fault-tolerant mechanisms can provide resources for employees more willing to maintain harmony. Taking-charge behavior and effectively predict the perception of psychological safety risks challenging the status quo; this behavior is in conflict (Hirak et al., 2012). Taking-charge behavior challenges the with Confucian culture, which emphasizes “ren qing” (personal status quo, which may cause conflicts and damage interpersonal obligation), “face,” and “guan xi.” The following old Chinese relationships. Chinese people advocate harmony. We speculate saying is related to inclusiveness: “The sea can hold the water that in the Chinese context, psychological safety is an important from 1000s of rivers; it’s big because of its capacity.” Therefore, mediator between inclusive leadership and taking charge. Studies the generation mechanism of taking-change behavior should be have shown that individuals with a sense of psychological safety discussed in depth in the Chinese context. are more likely to voice concerns or participate in creative work By reviewing the literature, we found that previous studies (Carmeli et al., 2010; Bienefeld and Grote, 2014). Third, in mainly examined the factors influencing taking-charge behaviors addition to psychological factors, the black box of the relationship from two aspects. The first aspect involves individual-level between inclusive leadership and taking charge needs to be factors, such as self-efficacy (Moon et al., 2008), responsibility further clarified. Competence and motivation are the two (Morrison and Phelps, 1999), psychological collectivism (Love most important factors influencing proactive behavior (Parker and Dustin, 2014), psychological privilege (Klimchak et al., et al., 2010). Thriving at work is a state of mind resulting in 2016), and prosocial motivation. For example, Mcallister et al. feelings of vitality and learning by individuals. Learning implies (2007) found that role sense and role effectiveness can improving abilities and self-confidence through the acquisition significantly enhance employees’ willingness to engage in take- of knowledge and skills, while vitality represents a feeling of charge behaviors. The second aspect involves contextual factors, energy and enthusiasm (Porath et al., 2012). Niessen et al. (2017) such as organizational support, social support (Backman et al., also noted that the vitality and learning involved in thriving 2018; Feng et al., 2018), leadership support, working conditions at work increase the willingness and ability of employees to (Bakr et al., 2019), distributional fairness, procedural fairness, engage in taking-charge behavior. Thus, our paper speculates and organizational development practice perception (Moon et al., that thriving at work may serve as a bridge between inclusive 2008; Escribano and Espejo, 2010; Dysvik et al., 2016). For leadership and taking-charge behavior. However, the relationship example, on the one hand, high-quality team-member exchanges between inclusive leadership and psychological safety, thriving (LMXs) (Kim et al., 2015) and support from leaders or colleagues at work, and taking-charge behaviors is seldom explored in are crucial factors driving employees to engage in taking-charge existing research. behavior (Love and Dustin, 2014; Backman et al., 2018; Feng To address these research gaps, this research is based on et al., 2018). Social support and favorable work conditions could the self-determination theory (SDT) and social information enhance the level of perceived job security and protect employees processing theory and aims to explore the mechanism by against psychological distress and job strain (Backman et al., which inclusive leadership influences employees’ taking-charge 2018; Bakr et al., 2019). On the other hand, occupational stress behavior while considering the role of psychological safety and in terms of low social support is related to general health (Finstad thriving at work. To ensure that the sample has a certain et al., 2019). Furthermore, the leadership-related factors, such as scope and representativeness, using a structured questionnaire, empowered leadership and transformational leadership (Li et al., we collected data from employees and their supervisors at 17 2015; Li J. et al., 2016), had been mentioned. Generally, there is a companies in China. The proposed serial mediation model lack of research concerning the factors influencing taking-charge was tested through an analysis of two-wave surveys. To reveal behavior from the leadership level. In the Chinese context, we causality among the variables and avoid common method bias, aim to discuss whether and the extent to which taking-change we utilize supervisor–subordinate dyad data. behavior depends on the support and understanding of leaders. Despite the mounting empirical evidence showing the direct Development of Hypotheses and indirect effects of leadership on proactive behavior, there are still some gaps in our knowledge regarding the relationship Inclusive Leadership and Taking-Charge Behavior between inclusive leadership and taking-charge behavior. First, In the field of organizational behavior, Nembhard and although we already know that leadership has an impact on Edmondson (2006) first proposed the concept of inclusive taking-charge behaviors, we also aim to investigate whether leadership. Scholars have defined inclusive leadership from three inclusive leaders motivate employees to engage in more proactive perspectives. First, the leader–member relationship perspective behaviors to enact change. Differing from empowered leadership posits that inclusive leadership encourages employees to work and transformational leadership, inclusive leadership not only independently and participate in decision-making. The leaders encourages employees to work independently and participate respect the employees, recognize the value of the employees, in decision-making but also recognizes their contributions, understand the employees’ needs, and provide support and respects them, supports their growth, and embraces their advice (Hantula, 2009; Nishii and Mayer, 2009; Carmeli et al., failures. Second, the mechanism by which leadership impacts 2010). Second, from the perspective of fairness, the key to employee taking-charge behavior is far from fully revealed. As inclusive leadership is to treat employees equally in diverse Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 2 February 2020 | Volume 11 | Article 62 fpsyg-11-00062 February 19, 2020 Time: 16:45 # 3 Zeng et al. Inclusive Leadership and Taking Charge Behavior contexts (Nembhard and Edmondson, 2006). Third, the cultural tolerance, and trust helps enhance employees’ psychological background perspective holds that employees should be inclusive safety and promotes individual learning. When organizations of different values and behaviors and tolerant of failures face change or innovation, employees will eliminate concerns (Tang et al., 2015). Thus, inclusive leadership is a supportive, regarding innovation failure, tend to propose new ideas, use interactive, fair, fault-tolerant leadership style and an important new knowledge, and adopt new methods. Employees are more organizational context variable that has a significant impact on likely to seek their leaders’ help to avoid mistakes, improve its subordinate behaviors (Chen et al., 2002; Gong et al., 2009; their abilities, and build confidence through learning (Spreitzer Carmeli et al., 2013). and Porath, 2014). On the other hand, leaders’ attitude toward According to social information processing theory, the social advice, respect, and trust can enhance employees’ psychological environment contains various types of information that affect safety, promote positive emotions, and increase vitality at work. individual attitudes and behaviors. Individuals adopt appropriate Psychological safety can help employees overcome the anxiety of behaviors through cognitive processing and their interpretation learning. Therefore, this study believes that inclusive leadership of social situations. To a large extent, environmental factors has a positive impact on individuals’ psychological safety, which, determine employees’ attitudes and behaviors (Salancik and in turn, has a positive impact on thriving at work. Pfeffer, 1978). In the workplace, leaders represent an important Hypothesis 2. Psychological safety plays a mediating role source of social information, and employees focus on leaders in the relationship between inclusive leadership and taking- and seek clues from them (Boekhorst, 2015). Compared to other charge behavior in a work setting. leadership styles, inclusive leaders build a supportive atmosphere of equality, tolerance, and respect in the organization. On the one hand, inclusive leaders support their employees’ Inclusive Leadership and Thriving at Work development, provide advice and assistance to their employees, The socially embedded model of thriving at work (Spreitzer and continuously enhance their employees’ ability to take et al., 2005) notes that the social structural characteristics of charge and adapt to the environment. This leadership style work situations and job resources work together to promote provides information that the organization recognizes the thriving individuals. Based on SDT, inclusive leadership is an employees’ values, promotes their growth, and encourages them important organizational context that encourages employees to to contribute; on the other hand, inclusive leaders allow different make decisions and creates an atmosphere of trust, respect, opinions, tolerate employee failures, and encourage innovation, and recognition to meet employees’ autonomy, relatedness, which reduces the psychological and material costs of making and competence, which helps promote thriving at work. an error. These aspects increase the willingness of employees to First, inclusive leadership encourages employees to work engage in taking-charge behavior. In short, employees interpret independently and participate in decision-making and creates a the organizational situation according to the inclusive leadership respectful and supportive atmosphere that satisfies employees’ style, which has a strong prediction effect on taking-charge autonomy. Inclusive leadership forms a powerful force for behavior. Therefore, hypothesis 1 is as follows: thriving. Second, the interactive and fair atmosphere helps create an equal, reciprocal, and pleasing environment. The members Hypothesis 1. Inclusive leadership will be positively related to of the organization tend to establish a type of positive and taking-charge behavior in a work setting. friendly interpersonal relationship, meet the needs of employees’ relations, and enable individuals to experience learning and Mediating Role of Psychological Safety vitality. Once again, a fault-tolerant working style facilitates Psychological safety is the perception of interpersonal risk in the exchange and sharing of information in an organization to the workplace (Edmondson, 1999, 2003). Psychological safety is meet the needs of competent employees. The collision of views a subjective perception of ease and security. When individuals stimulates innovation, promotes additional thriving, and marks feel safe in a work setting, they do not worry about the negative individuals’ growth and progress. influences caused by self-expression, challenging their boss, or Furthermore, the job resources (such as knowledge, emotions, interpersonal conflict (Kahn, 1990); such employees are more and relationship resources) provided by an inclusive leader likely to voice or take the initiative to change. In contrast, help individuals thrive at work. Conservation of resource employees tend to remain silent or engage in evasive, passive theory (COR) argues that individuals strive to acquire, retain, behavior to protect themselves. and preserve crucial resources (Hobfoll, 2002). Individual job As previously mentioned, leadership style is an important resources represent another important antecedent of individual contextual factor. When leaders’ behaviors exhibit more thriving. Inclusive leadership helps employees achieve work openness, accessibility, and availability (Carmeli et al., 2010), goals, reduces job requirements, guards against physical and employees’ psychological safety is significantly improved. psychological depletion, and promotes individual growth and According to social information processing theory, the development (Demerouti et al., 2001). First, leaders are willing characteristics of inclusive leadership become the social to listen to new ideas, encourage new ways of sharing new information that is transmitted to the individuals in the experiences, and help employees access knowledge resources. organization. Other members of the organization will consider Second, a high level of leader–member exchange quality it reasonable and accept such information and follow suit. Thus, (LMX quality), a fair organizational atmosphere, and timely on the one hand, an organizational atmosphere of equality, consultation and feedback are ways for employees to identify with Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 3 February 2020 | Volume 11 | Article 62 fpsyg-11-00062 February 19, 2020 Time: 16:45 # 4 Zeng et al. Inclusive Leadership and Taking Charge Behavior the organization. Members obtain emotional and relationship Hypothesis 4. Psychological safety and thriving at work resources, which, in turn, help individuals grow and develop. continuously mediate the relationship between inclusive Therefore, based on the above analysis, hypothesis 3 is as follows: leadership and taking-charge behavior. Hypothesis 3. Thriving at work plays a mediating role in the relationship between inclusive leadership and taking-charge behavior. MATERIALS AND METHODS Mediating Roles of Psychological Safety and Thriving Participants at Work in the Relationship Between Inclusive This study was conducted in 17 companies located in Jiangsu Leadership and Taking-Charge Behavior and Anhui provinces, China. The industries of these companies Based on hypothesis 1, hypothesis 2, and hypothesis 3, this included trading, manufacturing, construction, etc. With the study further assumes that inclusive leadership motivates assistance of HR managers, we randomly selected and distributed employees to achieve thriving at work by improving the the questionnaires to full-time employees and their direct psychological safety of their subordinates in the work setting supervisors. To reduce common method bias procedurally, we and ultimately adopting taking-charge behavior. Taking charge collected data in two phases with a 1-month interval between the is an organizational citizenship behavior designed to improve phases. The purpose of phase 1 was to collect data related to the organizational operations and promote organizational change independent variable (i.e., inclusive leadership), mediators (i.e., (e.g., workflow, products, and services) (Morrison and Phelps, psychological safety and thriving at work), and control variables, 1999; Chiaburu et al., 2013). whereas the purpose of phase 2 was to acquire data related to the As mentioned above, according to social information outcomes (i.e., taking-charge behavior). processing theory, an inclusive leader provides clues for Of the 320 employees contacted for data collection during the cognitive and behavioral shaping of other members phase 1, 263 employees returned their forms, yielding a response in the organization, laying the foundation for building an rate of 82.2%. Meanwhile, in phase 2, 263 employees were organizational climate. High-quality leader–member exchange contacted for data collection, and 205 employees returned their equality, tolerance, and a respectful organizational atmosphere forms, yielding a response rate of 77.9%. Of the respondents, are conducive to employees showing themselves as much 67.3% were male, and the average age was 33.56 years. Regarding as possible to eliminate the negative effects of interpersonal the education level, 2.4% of the respondents had less than a conflicts, resulting in a more stable sense of psychological primary school degree, 16.1% of the respondents had a high safety. Schein and Bennis (1965) also noted that psychological school or vocational school degree, 78.0% of the respondents had safety in the workplace is a necessary condition for individuals an undergraduate degree, and 3.4% of the respondents had a post- to participate in change. Second, psychological safety has a graduate degree. Finally, the average organizational tenure of the positive impact on thriving at work. Based on SDT, psychological respondents was 6.79. safety can create a work situation that meets individuals’ competency, autonomy, and relatedness. Studies have shown that Measures psychological safety has a positive impact on individual learning According to the procedures recommended by Brislin (1986), we and vitality (Kark and Carmeli, 2009). When employees can translated and back-translated the scales from English to Chinese make bold innovations without being blamed even if they make to ensure that the original meaning was retained. Two proficient mistakes, their enthusiasm for learning will increase. When the bilingual organizational behavior researchers conducted the organizational environment shows tolerance for mistakes and translation. Furthermore, in previous studies, the validity of these leaders provide counseling and friendship and develop trust with scales has been verified in the Chinese context (Xu et al., 2019; their employees, employees are more proactive at work and more Yan et al., 2019; Ye et al., 2019). likely to show determination and passion. Third, when employees The items of each measure (taking-charge behavior, inclusive have a higher level of thriving at work, they are more capable leadership, psychological safety, and thriving at work) were and motivated to make changes (Spreitzer et al., 2012). On the assessed on a seven-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = strongly one hand, active learning and innovation motivate employees disagree to 7 = strongly agree. to take charge in relevant areas to resist risks; on the other hand, the vitality of work makes employees look forward to Taking Charge Behavior Scale (TCB; Parker and positive outcomes, and they expect to change their work content and methods to become more autonomous. Empirical studies Collins, 2010) indicate that thriving at work has a significant positive impact We measured employee taking-charge behavior using the three- on employee performance, creativity, and innovation behavior item TCB scale. The items include “How frequently does your (Porath et al., 2012; Jaiswal and Dhar, 2015; Wallace et al., 2016). subordinate try to improve procedures in his/her workplace?,” Li M. et al. (2016) also confirmed that thriving at work is “How frequently does your subordinate try to propose new work significantly positively correlated with employee change-oriented methods that are more effective?,” and “How frequently does your organizational citizenship behavior. Based on the above analysis, subordinate try to implement solutions to pressing organizational this study proposes hypothesis 4 as follows: problems?” In this study, Cronbach’s a of the TCB scale was 0.755. Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 4 February 2020 | Volume 11 | Article 62 fpsyg-11-00062 February 19, 2020 Time: 16:45 # 5 Zeng et al. Inclusive Leadership and Taking Charge Behavior Inclusive Leadership Scale (IL; Carmeli et al., 2010) As shown in Table 2, our four-factor measurement model was the best-fitting model and provided a reasonable fit for the data, Inclusive leadership behavior was measured using the nine-item supporting the unidimensionality of our measures as follows: IL scale. Sample items include “The manager is open to hearing comparative fit index = 0.918 and root mean square error of new ideas” and “The manager encourages me to access him/her regarding emerging issues.” In this study, Cronbach’s a of the IL approximation (90% CI) = 0.056 As some measures (inclusive leadership, psychological safety, scale was 0.891. and thriving at work) are self-reported, we evaluated the impact Psychological Safety Scale (PS; May et al., 2004) of common method bias, which is highly problematic if a single latent factor accounts for the majority of the manifest We measured psychological safety using the three-item PS scale. Sample items include “I’m not afraid to be myself at work,” “I variables’ variance. We tested for common method bias by loading each set of indicators on their latent variables and am afraid to express my opinions at work (r),” and “There is a threatening environment at work (r).” These items assessed loading all items onto a fifth, common method latent variable. However, this five-factor model did not converge, which can whether the individuals felt comfortable to be themselves and express their opinions at work or whether there was a threatening be a widespread problem with a relatively small sample and a large number of items. Then, we conducted a Harman environment at work. In this study, Cronbach’s a of the PS scale was 0.706. single-factor test (for a discussion, see Podsakoff et al., 2003) and found that the items did not significantly load onto a Thriving at Work Scale (TW; Porath et al., 2012) single factor. We concluded that common method bias was We used the 10-item TW scale to measure thriving at work, which not a major concern in our analysis. In the structural model analysis, we used the Hayes macro PROCESS (Hayes, 2013) to included a learning latent factor and vitality latent factor. Sample items include “I find myself learning often” and “I feel alive and estimate all path coefficients while simultaneously controlling for employee age, gender, education, and tenure. Table 3 shows vital.” In this study, Cronbach’s a of the TW scale was 0.820. the results. In our analytical model, we tested for a three- Control Variables path mediated effect (Taylor et al., 2008). The advantage of We controlled for four employee demographic variables, this approach is that we were able to isolate the indirect effect including sex, age, level of education, and organizational tenure. of both mediators as follows: psychological safety (hypothesis Gender was a dummy variable (1 for men and 2 for women). 2) and thriving at work (hypothesis 3). This approach also Age was measured in number of years. Level of education allowed us to investigate the indirect effect passing through both was measured on a scale ranging from 1 (primary school mediators in a series (hypothesis 4; Taylor et al., 2008). Figure 1 or below) to 4 (graduate school). Organizational tenure was illustrates these models. To test our mediation hypotheses, we used the analytical approach outlined by Shrout and Bolger measured using the respondents’ self-reported years of working in the organization. (2002) and Preacher and Hayes (2004). This mediation approach directly tests the indirect effect between a predictor and the Analytic Strategy criterion variables through the mediator via a bootstrapping First, we performed a descriptive analysis, reliability analysis, procedure (Efron and Tibshirani, 1993; Mooney and Duval, and correlation analysis using SPSS19. Second, confirmatory 1993), which addresses some weaknesses associated with the factor analyses (CFAs) were performed to examine the distinctive Sobel test (Shrout and Bolger, 2002; Preacher and Hayes, validity of our current variables, including taking-charge 2004). In Table 3, we provide the estimates of the indirect behavior, inclusive leadership, psychological safety, and thriving effects along with the 95% bias-corrected bootstrapped CIs of at work. Third, we estimated the path coefficients and three- our path estimates. path indirect effects along with the 95% bootstrapped confidence As predicted in hypothesis 1, inclusive leadership toward intervals (CIs) using the method recommended by Shrout employees was positively related to taking-charge behavior. and Bolger (2002) and Preacher and Hayes (2004). To date, Hypothesis 2 stated that psychological safety mediates the path bootstrapping is more advantageous than normal distribution– between inclusive leadership and taking-charge behavior. This based significance tests (Shrout and Bolger, 2002). hypothesis was supported. Hypothesis 3 was supported, as thriving at work mediates the path from inclusive leadership to taking-charge behavior. Hypothesis 4 stated that psychological safety and thriving at work sequentially mediate the relationship RESULTS between inclusive leadership and taking-charge behavior. The Table 1 presents the means, standard deviations, correlations, analyses reported above show that psychological safety mediated and reliability estimates (Cronbach’s a) of all variables. All the relationship between inclusive leadership and thriving at analyses were conducted with structural equation modeling work and that thriving at work mediated the relationship (Mplus 5.21; Muthén and Muthén, 2007). Before forming the between inclusive leadership and taking-charge behavior. We scales for the hypothesis testing, we assessed the construct validity formally tested hypothesis 4 and found that inclusive leadership of our measures using a CFA by comparing the measurement was associated with employees’ higher psychological safety and model with four competing models, which are described in detail thriving at work, which was related to higher levels of taking- in Table 2 (Anderson and Gerbing, 1988). charge behavior. Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 5 February 2020 | Volume 11 | Article 62 fpsyg-11-00062 February 19, 2020 Time: 16:45 # 6 Zeng et al. Inclusive Leadership and Taking Charge Behavior TABLE 1 | Means, standard deviation, correlations, and reliability estimates of the study variables. Variable M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 (1) Age 33.56 7.913 0:060 (2) Tenure 6.789 7.432 0:038 0:736** 0:263** (3) Inclusive leadership 5.176 0.741 0:026 0:012 0:020 0.030 0:891 (4) Psychological safety 5.120 0.639 0:028 0:008 0:090 0.091 0:437** 0:706 (5) Thriving at work 5.270 0.609 0:036 0:044 0:074 0.030 0:579** 0:469** 0:820 (6) Taking-charge behavior 5.247 0.593 0:014 0:001 0:029 0.056 0:428** 0:400** 0:414** 0.755 N = 205; reliability coefficients are presented in bold. **p < 0.01. psychological safety, and thriving at work on employees’ taking- TABLE 2 | Fit indices of the alternative measurement models. charge behaviors in the Chinese context. The results support 2 2 our hypotheses and reveal the following: (1) inclusive leadership Measurement model df $ $ /df CFI TLI RMSEA is positively related to taking-charge behavior; (2) psychological Single factor 270 731.727 2.710 0.779 0.755 0.091 safety is positively related to taking-charge behavior; (3) thriving Two factors 269 645.269 2.399 0.820 0.799 0.083 at work is positively related to taking-charge behavior; and Three factors–1 267 513.385 1.923 0.882 0.868 0.067 (4) psychological safety and thriving at work continuously Three factors–2 267 540.261 2.023 0.869 0.853 0.071 mediate the relationship between inclusive leadership and taking- Four factors 264 435.063 1.648 0.918 0.907 0.056 charge behavior. N = 205. CFI, comparative fit index; TLI, Tucker–Lewis index; RMSEA, root mean a b square error of approximation. All indicators load on a single factor. Inclusive leadership, psychological safety, and thriving at work load on one factor, and Theoretical Implications taking-charge behavior loads on one factor. Inclusive leadership and taking-charge The theoretical contributions of our study mainly include three behavior load on their respective factors, and psychological safety and thriving aspects. First, from the perspective of leadership, the antecedents at work load on one factor. Inclusive leadership and psychological safety load of taking-charge behavior were expanded. As mentioned earlier, on one factor, and thriving at work and taking-charge behavior load on their respective factors. Inclusive leadership, taking-charge behavior, psychological the antecedents of taking-charge behavior are abundant, and safety, and thriving at work load on their respective factors. studies have mainly focused on individual factors, organizational context factors, and leadership. From the perspective of TABLE 3 | Path coefficients and indirect effects in the mediation models. leadership behavior, previous studies have examined the impact of transformational leadership, self-sacrificial leadership, Direct effect Estimate t empowered leadership, benevolent leadership, and abusive leadership on taking-charge behavior. Among these leadership IL ! TC 0.183 (0.062) 2.953 styles, transformational leadership positively affects employees’ Indirect effect Estimate Bootstrap (bias-corrected taking-charge behavior (Li J. et al., 2016; Homberg et al., 2017). bootstrap 95% confidence interval) Self-sacrificial leadership has a significant positive impact on IL ! PS ! TC 0.076 (0.028) [0.031,0.142] employees’ taking-charge behavior. Furthermore, organizational IL ! TW ! TC 0.067 (0.030) [0.016,0.136] identity plays a partial mediating role between these factors IL ! PS ! TW ! TC 0.016 (0.009) [0.004,0.042] (Li R. et al., 2016). Other studies have shown that empowered Total effect 0.159 (0.047) [0.080,0.268] and ethical leaders do not have a significant direct impact on employees’ taking-charge behavior (Lee, 2016; Qian et al., Adapted from “Mediation and the Estimation of Indirect Effects in Political Communication Research,” by A. F. Hayes, K. J. Preacher, and T. A. Myers, in 2018). Xu et al. (2018) also examined the impact of benevolent press; Sourcebook for Political Communication Research: Methods, Measures, leadership on employees’ proactive change behavior. In contrast, and Analytical Techniques, by E. P. Bucy and R. L. Holbert, New York, Ouyang et al. (2015) found that there is a negative relationship NY, United States: Routledge. N = 205. Bootstrap confidence intervals were between abusive supervision and proactive behavior because constructed using 5,000 resamples. Total effect (IL ! TC) = 0.159 (0.047). Standard errors are shown in parentheses. IL, Inclusive Leadership Scale; the style of leadership reduces subordinates’ perceived insider TC, Taking Charge Behavior Scale; PS, Psychological Safety Scale; TW, status within an organization. In addition, Li et al. (2013, 2015) Thriving at Work Scale. tested the relationship between team empowered leadership and employees’ taking-charge behavior. Furthermore, some studies have noted that deep supervisor–subordinate similarity perceived DISCUSSION by employees has a significant impact on employee’s taking- Due to the uncertainty of the external environment and the charge behavior and that supervisors’ inclusiveness acts as a limitation of organizational managers’ energy and capabilities, negative moderator in the relationship between supervisor– organizations expect to develop employees’ proactive behaviors subordinate similarity and taking-charge behavior (Zheng et al., to meet challenges. This study must identify ways to intrinsically 2017). Studies have begun to focus on leaders’ inclusiveness and inspire employees’ taking-charge behavior. The aim of this study its impact on employees’ taking-charge behavior. Differing from was to investigate the effect of inclusive leadership, perceived other types of leadership, inclusiveness is a leadership style in Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 6 February 2020 | Volume 11 | Article 62 fpsyg-11-00062 February 19, 2020 Time: 16:45 # 7 Zeng et al. Inclusive Leadership and Taking Charge Behavior Inclusive Taking Charge Leadership Behavior H1 = Inclusive Leadership → Taking Charge behavior Thriving at Psychological Safety Work Inclusive Taking Charge Leadership Behavior H2 = Inclusive Leadership →Psychological Safety→Taking Charge behavior H3 = Inclusive Leadership →Thriving at Work→Taking Charge behavior H4 = Inclusive Leadership →Psychological Safety→Thriving at Work→Taking Charge behavior FIGURE 1 | Empirical model. which supervisors care about the needs of their subordinates, requirements (competence, autonomy, and relatedness) such are good at listening to the opinions of their subordinates, that employees are more likely to thrive at work. Thus, this study and recognize their subordinates’ contributions. Our findings comprehensively examines the mechanism by which inclusive mainly reveal the positive impact of inclusive leadership on leadership influences taking-charge behavior from both cognitive taking-charge behavior. Thus, in response to the call for more and emotional aspects and expands our knowledge regarding the context models to reveal the relationship between leadership and role of leadership behavior in taking-charge behavior. taking-charge behavior (Xu et al., 2018), this study expanded Third, this study builds a chained mediation model of existing research at the organizational level and provided an inclusive leadership, psychological safety, thriving at work, and application context. taking-charge behavior. Studies have noted that taking-charge Second, based on SDT and social information processing behavior is a challenging, transformative, and risky proactive theory, the variables mediating employees’ psychological behavior (Mcallister et al., 2007; Parker et al., 2010). Therefore, safety and thriving at work were examined. Mediation in whether employees take charge largely depends on the level existing research is usually explained through traditional social of their psychological safety (Carmeli et al., 2010). Existing psychology perspectives, such as the social exchange theory, research shows that social support can protect employees against social identity theory, social cognitive theory, motivation theory, psychological distress (Feng et al., 2018), and inclusive leadership etc. The mediators of the relationship between leadership to subordinates can improve employees’ psychological safety level and taking-charge behavior mainly include psychological (Hirak et al., 2012) and stimulate employees’ state of learning cognitive factors (e.g., role-breadth, self-efficacy, entitlement, (cognition) and vitality (emotion), which, in turn, positively organizational identification, insider status, trust in leader, affects their ability and willingness to engage in taking-charge and identification with leader) (Li et al., 2013, 2015; Ouyang behaviors. The results provide a more detailed mechanism et al., 2015; Lee, 2016; Li J. et al., 2016), motivation (Homberg underlying the formation of taking-charge behavior. et al., 2017), emotion or attitude (e.g., positive affect and work engagement) (Fritz and Sonnentag, 2009; Xu et al., 2018), and Practical Implications individual behavior (e.g., feedback-seeking) (Qian et al., 2018). Our study advances the idea that it is important to practice On the one hand, our research validates the positive impact inclusive leadership to enhance employees’ psychological safety, of inclusive leadership on taking-charge behavior from the thriving at work, and taking-charge behaviors. First, from the perspective of social information processing theory. Studies perspective of the leader, the supervisor should be friendly, have shown that positive leadership can introduce a sense accessible, concerned with the needs of the subordinates, tolerant of job security and job satisfaction (Bakr et al., 2019), and of different opinions, and tolerant of mistakes to a certain extent. the positive impact of inclusive leadership’s fault tolerance Furthermore, leaders should provide support and job resources is highly important. On the other hand, thriving at work is to their subordinates. For example, supervisory mentoring introduced as a mediator based on SDT. Instead of examining is beneficial to subordinates. The supervisor establishes a mediators, such as cognitive and emotional variables, separately, mentoring relationship with subordinates, provides career thriving at work includes the two dimensions of learning and support and psychosocial support, and serves as a role model for vitality, effectively integrating cognitive and emotional factors. subordinates (Scandura, 1992). Research has shown that among Our research finds that inclusive leadership meets employees’ behaviors related to high-quality relationships, holding behaviors Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 7 February 2020 | Volume 11 | Article 62 fpsyg-11-00062 February 19, 2020 Time: 16:45 # 8 Zeng et al. Inclusive Leadership and Taking Charge Behavior are effective job resources helping employees cope with changes research fails to integrate the various influencing factors, such as and challenges (Ragins et al., 2016). individuals and organizations, and thus ignores the interaction Second, from an organizational point of view, we should between individual factors and organizational factors. Future create an inclusive climate and consider a series of measures research may consider combining the causes of different types or through work guidance and caring for employees to improve levels of taking-charge behavior and comprehensively examine employees’ psychological safety to stimulate their willingness to how multiple combinations promote or prohibit taking-charge take charge. Furthermore, training opportunities and supportive behavior. For example, how can leadership be matched with the resources should be provided to enhance their capacities to take traits of employees to motivate employees to taking charge or charge. For example, relevant policies encouraging learning and render the implementation of leadership more effective? innovation should be formulated, new methods and new ways to Third, the mechanism by which leadership mediates taking- solve problems should be adopted, and certain error indicators charge behavior needs to be further explored. Drawing upon SDT should be added to employees’ performance appraisal systems. and social information processing theory, this study examines the Finally, through special training, companies can enhance impact of inclusive leadership on taking-charge behavior at both managers’ inclusive leadership qualities and capabilities. cognitive and psychological levels. Existing research is mainly Organizations can first assess the leadership levels of existing based on the perspective of social exchange theory, social identity management teams and find gaps in their inclusive leadership theory, social cognitive theory, and motivation theory, and future skills to determine the importance and difficulty of leadership research could further expand the theoretical perspective of training. In particular, an understanding of millennials’ values, the relationship between leadership behavior and taking-charge viewpoints, requirements, and behavior patterns in the workplace behavior, such as by examining COR. According to this theory, could help supervisors build an inclusive mindset. For example, resources are “individual characteristics, conditions, energy, etc. it is possible to establish a mentoring relationship between that make individuals feel valuable or a way to obtain them” supervisors and subordinates to strengthen the frequency of (Hobfoll, 1989). Knowledge, skills, development opportunities, communication, expand the scope of mutual learning, form job autonomy, social relations, social support, and optimistic benign interactions, and gain information. personality are all valuable resources for individuals. Inclusive leadership, as a positive leadership behavior, respects the needs of employees, affirms the value of employees, and tolerates the Limitations and Future Research different views of employees. First, inclusive leadership provides Directions positive psychological resources to help employees build a sense Although our research has certain theoretical contributions and of psychological security and self-efficacy. Second, inclusiveness practical implications, there are still some research limitations. is an organizational support factor that increases job autonomy First, one potential disadvantage is related to the design strategy. and is a valuable job resource (De Cuyper et al., 2012). Although we collected data at two time points, the relevant data Therefore, future research could expand from the perspective of are reported by supervisors and subordinates, which may lessen resource gain and loss. transient response biases and common method biases; however, Fourth, future research should continue to explore the the cross-sectional design still limits inferences of causality. outcome variables of taking-charge behavior. In the existing Future studies should use longitudinal studies to confirm literature, more research is concerned with the antecedents of causality in theoretical models. Regarding the sample collection, taking-charge behavior, and exploration of the consequences is we collected data from 17 Chinese companies, but whether scarce. Future research could investigate the positive and negative the effect of inclusive leadership on taking-charge behavior can effects of taking-charge behavior on individuals. For example, be generalized to other samples remains questionable. Future taking-charge behavior may have a negative impact on personal research should collect data more widely in various industries work–family balance (Greenhaus and Powell, 2006). Based on and countries to increase the generalizability of our findings. the integration model of proactive behavior (Bindl and Sharon, In addition, in this study, we did not control for other positive 2010), future research could also test the impact of taking-charge leadership styles (Wang et al., 2019), such as transformational behaviors on outcome variables at the team level (e.g., team leadership, ethical leadership, moral leadership, and benevolent performance and team effectiveness) and organization level (e.g., leadership. Future research should control for the impact of organizational performance and innovation). similar leadership styles on taking-charge behavior to enhance the robustness of the results. Second, this study expands the antecedents of taking-charge behavior but only examines the antecedents from the leadership CONCLUSION perspective. As mentioned before, the antecedents of taking- charge behavior are extremely rich and mainly include individual The present study demonstrates how inclusive leadership factors (such as emotions, cognition, and personality traits) and motivates employees’ taking-charge behavior in the workplace, organizational context factors (such as relationships, working adapting to the dynamic environment. This study provides new conditions, organizational structure, and leadership). Taking- insight into the relationship between inclusive leadership and charge behavior is likely the result of the combined effect taking-charge behavior and helps us better understand the impact of individual factors and the organizational context. Existing of inclusive leadership on proactive behavior. Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 8 February 2020 | Volume 11 | Article 62 fpsyg-11-00062 February 19, 2020 Time: 16:45 # 9 Zeng et al. Inclusive Leadership and Taking Charge Behavior The contributions of this study concern different aspects. First, ETHICS STATEMENT drawing upon SDT and social information processing theory, we establish a chained mediation theoretical model of inclusive The studies involving human participants were reviewed leadership, employee psychological safety, thriving at work, and and approved by the Ethics Committee (HREC) of the taking-charge behaviors. In China’s organizational context, we School of Economics and Management in Jiangxi Science find that inclusive leadership has a positive effect on employees’ and Technology Normal University. The patients/participants taking-charge behavior. Second, in addition to psychological provided their written informed consent to participate in factors, thriving at work lies in the integration of the cognitive this study. and emotional aspects and plays a positive role in the relationship between inclusive leadership and taking-charge behavior. This study further deepens our understanding of the path between AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS inclusive leadership and employee behavior. Third, the potential HZ contributed to the idea and wrote the full manuscript. LZ research value lies in encouraging more organizations to adopt collected the data and run the data. YZ revised the full manuscript an inclusive style of leadership in an era of change to stimulate and proposed improvements. taking-charge behaviors, improve organizational adaptability and innovation, and enhance employees’ satisfaction and personal growth (Kim and Liu, 2017). FUNDING The study was supported by the National Natural Science DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT Foundation of China (71862019, 71702071, 71972139, and All datasets generated for this study are included in the 71832007) and Social Science Projects of Colleges and article/supplementary material. Universities in Jiangxi Province (GL18241). and organizational influences. Group Organ. 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Inclusive Leadership and Taking-Charge Behavior: Roles of Psychological Safety and Thriving at Work

Zeng, Hao; Zhao, Lijing; Zhao, Yixuan
Frontiers in Psychology , Volume 11 – Feb 20, 2020
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fpsyg-11-00062 February 19, 2020 Time: 16:45 # 1 ORIGINAL RESEARCH published: 20 February 2020 doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00062 Inclusive Leadership and Taking-Charge Behavior: Roles of Psychological Safety and Thriving at Work 1 2 2 Hao Zeng *, Lijing Zhao and Yixuan Zhao * 1 2 School of Economics and Management, Jiangxi Science and Technology Normal University, Nanchang, China, Business School, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China Taking charge is an important form of proactive behavior that sustains organizational survival and individual development. Learning how to motivate employees to engage in taking-charge behavior has become one of the hot topics in the field of organizational management. Despite considerable research investigating the factors influencing taking charge, less attention has been paid to leadership-related factors, such as inclusive leadership. Based on the self-determination theory and the social information processing theory, we examined the mediating roles of psychological safety and thriving at work in the relationship between inclusive leadership and taking-charge behavior. We collected data in two stages from 205 pairs of employees and their supervisors at 17 companies Edited by: in mainland China. Specifically, the results revealed that inclusive leadership promoted Giulio Arcangeli, University of Florence, Italy employees’ taking-charge behavior first through psychological safety and then through Reviewed by: thriving at work. The results describe a more detailed mechanism underlying the Luigi Isaia Lecca, formation of taking-charge behavior. The results further deepen our understanding of University of Cagliari, Italy Artur Victoria, the path from inclusive leadership to employee behavior. These findings have theoretical Autonomous University of Lisbon, implications for the taking-charge literature and managerial implications for practitioners. Portugal Keywords: inclusive leadership, taking-charge behavior, psychological safety, thriving at work, self-determination *Correspondence: theory, social information processing theory Hao Zeng [email protected] Yixuan Zhao INTRODUCTION [email protected] In a dynamic, complex, vague, and uncertain environment, many organizations are decentralizing Specialty section: This article was submitted to and beginning to redefine employee work roles. In an increasingly dynamic and changing Organizational Psychology, context, companies not only require employees to efficiently perform tasks within their roles a section of the journal but also expect them to respond to challenges and engage in more proactive behaviors to Frontiers in Psychology build the core competitiveness of the organization. Taking charge is the constructive effort Received: 03 November 2019 of employees to initiate self-improvement, improve organizational operations, and promote Accepted: 10 January 2020 functional changes in the organization (Morrison and Phelps, 1999). Parker and Collins (2010) Published: 20 February 2020 note that employee proactive behavior includes taking-charge behavior, speaking up, problem Citation: prevention, and personal innovation. Chiaburu et al. (2013) argue that taking-charge behavior is a Zeng H, Zhao L and Zhao Y change-oriented, organizational citizenship behavior that aims to identify and implement changes (2020) Inclusive Leadership in work processes, products, and services. Studies have shown that taking-charge behaviors based and Taking-Charge Behavior: Roles on workflow or method improvement can enhance organizational adaptability and long-term of Psychological Safety and Thriving viability (Moon et al., 2008; Parker and Collins, 2010). Employees’ taking-charge behavior not only at Work. Front. Psychol. 11:62. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00062 enables better performance evaluation, job satisfaction, and affective commitment (Kim et al., 2015; Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 1 February 2020 | Volume 11 | Article 62 fpsyg-11-00062 February 19, 2020 Time: 16:45 # 2 Zeng et al. Inclusive Leadership and Taking Charge Behavior Kim and Liu, 2017) but also fosters leadership potential and previously mentioned, social support (i.e., leadership support) builds social networks (Fuller and Marler, 2009). In the Western can improve physical and mental health (Backman et al., 2018; context, taking-charge behavior can lead to positive individual Bakr et al., 2019). Inclusive leaders’ support, fair treatment, and and organizational results. However, Chinese employees are fault-tolerant mechanisms can provide resources for employees more willing to maintain harmony. Taking-charge behavior and effectively predict the perception of psychological safety risks challenging the status quo; this behavior is in conflict (Hirak et al., 2012). Taking-charge behavior challenges the with Confucian culture, which emphasizes “ren qing” (personal status quo, which may cause conflicts and damage interpersonal obligation), “face,” and “guan xi.” The following old Chinese relationships. Chinese people advocate harmony. We speculate saying is related to inclusiveness: “The sea can hold the water that in the Chinese context, psychological safety is an important from 1000s of rivers; it’s big because of its capacity.” Therefore, mediator between inclusive leadership and taking charge. Studies the generation mechanism of taking-change behavior should be have shown that individuals with a sense of psychological safety discussed in depth in the Chinese context. are more likely to voice concerns or participate in creative work By reviewing the literature, we found that previous studies (Carmeli et al., 2010; Bienefeld and Grote, 2014). Third, in mainly examined the factors influencing taking-charge behaviors addition to psychological factors, the black box of the relationship from two aspects. The first aspect involves individual-level between inclusive leadership and taking charge needs to be factors, such as self-efficacy (Moon et al., 2008), responsibility further clarified. Competence and motivation are the two (Morrison and Phelps, 1999), psychological collectivism (Love most important factors influencing proactive behavior (Parker and Dustin, 2014), psychological privilege (Klimchak et al., et al., 2010). Thriving at work is a state of mind resulting in 2016), and prosocial motivation. For example, Mcallister et al. feelings of vitality and learning by individuals. Learning implies (2007) found that role sense and role effectiveness can improving abilities and self-confidence through the acquisition significantly enhance employees’ willingness to engage in take- of knowledge and skills, while vitality represents a feeling of charge behaviors. The second aspect involves contextual factors, energy and enthusiasm (Porath et al., 2012). Niessen et al. (2017) such as organizational support, social support (Backman et al., also noted that the vitality and learning involved in thriving 2018; Feng et al., 2018), leadership support, working conditions at work increase the willingness and ability of employees to (Bakr et al., 2019), distributional fairness, procedural fairness, engage in taking-charge behavior. Thus, our paper speculates and organizational development practice perception (Moon et al., that thriving at work may serve as a bridge between inclusive 2008; Escribano and Espejo, 2010; Dysvik et al., 2016). For leadership and taking-charge behavior. However, the relationship example, on the one hand, high-quality team-member exchanges between inclusive leadership and psychological safety, thriving (LMXs) (Kim et al., 2015) and support from leaders or colleagues at work, and taking-charge behaviors is seldom explored in are crucial factors driving employees to engage in taking-charge existing research. behavior (Love and Dustin, 2014; Backman et al., 2018; Feng To address these research gaps, this research is based on et al., 2018). Social support and favorable work conditions could the self-determination theory (SDT) and social information enhance the level of perceived job security and protect employees processing theory and aims to explore the mechanism by against psychological distress and job strain (Backman et al., which inclusive leadership influences employees’ taking-charge 2018; Bakr et al., 2019). On the other hand, occupational stress behavior while considering the role of psychological safety and in terms of low social support is related to general health (Finstad thriving at work. To ensure that the sample has a certain et al., 2019). Furthermore, the leadership-related factors, such as scope and representativeness, using a structured questionnaire, empowered leadership and transformational leadership (Li et al., we collected data from employees and their supervisors at 17 2015; Li J. et al., 2016), had been mentioned. Generally, there is a companies in China. The proposed serial mediation model lack of research concerning the factors influencing taking-charge was tested through an analysis of two-wave surveys. To reveal behavior from the leadership level. In the Chinese context, we causality among the variables and avoid common method bias, aim to discuss whether and the extent to which taking-change we utilize supervisor–subordinate dyad data. behavior depends on the support and understanding of leaders. Despite the mounting empirical evidence showing the direct Development of Hypotheses and indirect effects of leadership on proactive behavior, there are still some gaps in our knowledge regarding the relationship Inclusive Leadership and Taking-Charge Behavior between inclusive leadership and taking-charge behavior. First, In the field of organizational behavior, Nembhard and although we already know that leadership has an impact on Edmondson (2006) first proposed the concept of inclusive taking-charge behaviors, we also aim to investigate whether leadership. Scholars have defined inclusive leadership from three inclusive leaders motivate employees to engage in more proactive perspectives. First, the leader–member relationship perspective behaviors to enact change. Differing from empowered leadership posits that inclusive leadership encourages employees to work and transformational leadership, inclusive leadership not only independently and participate in decision-making. The leaders encourages employees to work independently and participate respect the employees, recognize the value of the employees, in decision-making but also recognizes their contributions, understand the employees’ needs, and provide support and respects them, supports their growth, and embraces their advice (Hantula, 2009; Nishii and Mayer, 2009; Carmeli et al., failures. Second, the mechanism by which leadership impacts 2010). Second, from the perspective of fairness, the key to employee taking-charge behavior is far from fully revealed. As inclusive leadership is to treat employees equally in diverse Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 2 February 2020 | Volume 11 | Article 62 fpsyg-11-00062 February 19, 2020 Time: 16:45 # 3 Zeng et al. Inclusive Leadership and Taking Charge Behavior contexts (Nembhard and Edmondson, 2006). Third, the cultural tolerance, and trust helps enhance employees’ psychological background perspective holds that employees should be inclusive safety and promotes individual learning. When organizations of different values and behaviors and tolerant of failures face change or innovation, employees will eliminate concerns (Tang et al., 2015). Thus, inclusive leadership is a supportive, regarding innovation failure, tend to propose new ideas, use interactive, fair, fault-tolerant leadership style and an important new knowledge, and adopt new methods. Employees are more organizational context variable that has a significant impact on likely to seek their leaders’ help to avoid mistakes, improve its subordinate behaviors (Chen et al., 2002; Gong et al., 2009; their abilities, and build confidence through learning (Spreitzer Carmeli et al., 2013). and Porath, 2014). On the other hand, leaders’ attitude toward According to social information processing theory, the social advice, respect, and trust can enhance employees’ psychological environment contains various types of information that affect safety, promote positive emotions, and increase vitality at work. individual attitudes and behaviors. Individuals adopt appropriate Psychological safety can help employees overcome the anxiety of behaviors through cognitive processing and their interpretation learning. Therefore, this study believes that inclusive leadership of social situations. To a large extent, environmental factors has a positive impact on individuals’ psychological safety, which, determine employees’ attitudes and behaviors (Salancik and in turn, has a positive impact on thriving at work. Pfeffer, 1978). In the workplace, leaders represent an important Hypothesis 2. Psychological safety plays a mediating role source of social information, and employees focus on leaders in the relationship between inclusive leadership and taking- and seek clues from them (Boekhorst, 2015). Compared to other charge behavior in a work setting. leadership styles, inclusive leaders build a supportive atmosphere of equality, tolerance, and respect in the organization. On the one hand, inclusive leaders support their employees’ Inclusive Leadership and Thriving at Work development, provide advice and assistance to their employees, The socially embedded model of thriving at work (Spreitzer and continuously enhance their employees’ ability to take et al., 2005) notes that the social structural characteristics of charge and adapt to the environment. This leadership style work situations and job resources work together to promote provides information that the organization recognizes the thriving individuals. Based on SDT, inclusive leadership is an employees’ values, promotes their growth, and encourages them important organizational context that encourages employees to to contribute; on the other hand, inclusive leaders allow different make decisions and creates an atmosphere of trust, respect, opinions, tolerate employee failures, and encourage innovation, and recognition to meet employees’ autonomy, relatedness, which reduces the psychological and material costs of making and competence, which helps promote thriving at work. an error. These aspects increase the willingness of employees to First, inclusive leadership encourages employees to work engage in taking-charge behavior. In short, employees interpret independently and participate in decision-making and creates a the organizational situation according to the inclusive leadership respectful and supportive atmosphere that satisfies employees’ style, which has a strong prediction effect on taking-charge autonomy. Inclusive leadership forms a powerful force for behavior. Therefore, hypothesis 1 is as follows: thriving. Second, the interactive and fair atmosphere helps create an equal, reciprocal, and pleasing environment. The members Hypothesis 1. Inclusive leadership will be positively related to of the organization tend to establish a type of positive and taking-charge behavior in a work setting. friendly interpersonal relationship, meet the needs of employees’ relations, and enable individuals to experience learning and Mediating Role of Psychological Safety vitality. Once again, a fault-tolerant working style facilitates Psychological safety is the perception of interpersonal risk in the exchange and sharing of information in an organization to the workplace (Edmondson, 1999, 2003). Psychological safety is meet the needs of competent employees. The collision of views a subjective perception of ease and security. When individuals stimulates innovation, promotes additional thriving, and marks feel safe in a work setting, they do not worry about the negative individuals’ growth and progress. influences caused by self-expression, challenging their boss, or Furthermore, the job resources (such as knowledge, emotions, interpersonal conflict (Kahn, 1990); such employees are more and relationship resources) provided by an inclusive leader likely to voice or take the initiative to change. In contrast, help individuals thrive at work. Conservation of resource employees tend to remain silent or engage in evasive, passive theory (COR) argues that individuals strive to acquire, retain, behavior to protect themselves. and preserve crucial resources (Hobfoll, 2002). Individual job As previously mentioned, leadership style is an important resources represent another important antecedent of individual contextual factor. When leaders’ behaviors exhibit more thriving. Inclusive leadership helps employees achieve work openness, accessibility, and availability (Carmeli et al., 2010), goals, reduces job requirements, guards against physical and employees’ psychological safety is significantly improved. psychological depletion, and promotes individual growth and According to social information processing theory, the development (Demerouti et al., 2001). First, leaders are willing characteristics of inclusive leadership become the social to listen to new ideas, encourage new ways of sharing new information that is transmitted to the individuals in the experiences, and help employees access knowledge resources. organization. Other members of the organization will consider Second, a high level of leader–member exchange quality it reasonable and accept such information and follow suit. Thus, (LMX quality), a fair organizational atmosphere, and timely on the one hand, an organizational atmosphere of equality, consultation and feedback are ways for employees to identify with Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 3 February 2020 | Volume 11 | Article 62 fpsyg-11-00062 February 19, 2020 Time: 16:45 # 4 Zeng et al. Inclusive Leadership and Taking Charge Behavior the organization. Members obtain emotional and relationship Hypothesis 4. Psychological safety and thriving at work resources, which, in turn, help individuals grow and develop. continuously mediate the relationship between inclusive Therefore, based on the above analysis, hypothesis 3 is as follows: leadership and taking-charge behavior. Hypothesis 3. Thriving at work plays a mediating role in the relationship between inclusive leadership and taking-charge behavior. MATERIALS AND METHODS Mediating Roles of Psychological Safety and Thriving Participants at Work in the Relationship Between Inclusive This study was conducted in 17 companies located in Jiangsu Leadership and Taking-Charge Behavior and Anhui provinces, China. The industries of these companies Based on hypothesis 1, hypothesis 2, and hypothesis 3, this included trading, manufacturing, construction, etc. With the study further assumes that inclusive leadership motivates assistance of HR managers, we randomly selected and distributed employees to achieve thriving at work by improving the the questionnaires to full-time employees and their direct psychological safety of their subordinates in the work setting supervisors. To reduce common method bias procedurally, we and ultimately adopting taking-charge behavior. Taking charge collected data in two phases with a 1-month interval between the is an organizational citizenship behavior designed to improve phases. The purpose of phase 1 was to collect data related to the organizational operations and promote organizational change independent variable (i.e., inclusive leadership), mediators (i.e., (e.g., workflow, products, and services) (Morrison and Phelps, psychological safety and thriving at work), and control variables, 1999; Chiaburu et al., 2013). whereas the purpose of phase 2 was to acquire data related to the As mentioned above, according to social information outcomes (i.e., taking-charge behavior). processing theory, an inclusive leader provides clues for Of the 320 employees contacted for data collection during the cognitive and behavioral shaping of other members phase 1, 263 employees returned their forms, yielding a response in the organization, laying the foundation for building an rate of 82.2%. Meanwhile, in phase 2, 263 employees were organizational climate. High-quality leader–member exchange contacted for data collection, and 205 employees returned their equality, tolerance, and a respectful organizational atmosphere forms, yielding a response rate of 77.9%. Of the respondents, are conducive to employees showing themselves as much 67.3% were male, and the average age was 33.56 years. Regarding as possible to eliminate the negative effects of interpersonal the education level, 2.4% of the respondents had less than a conflicts, resulting in a more stable sense of psychological primary school degree, 16.1% of the respondents had a high safety. Schein and Bennis (1965) also noted that psychological school or vocational school degree, 78.0% of the respondents had safety in the workplace is a necessary condition for individuals an undergraduate degree, and 3.4% of the respondents had a post- to participate in change. Second, psychological safety has a graduate degree. Finally, the average organizational tenure of the positive impact on thriving at work. Based on SDT, psychological respondents was 6.79. safety can create a work situation that meets individuals’ competency, autonomy, and relatedness. Studies have shown that Measures psychological safety has a positive impact on individual learning According to the procedures recommended by Brislin (1986), we and vitality (Kark and Carmeli, 2009). When employees can translated and back-translated the scales from English to Chinese make bold innovations without being blamed even if they make to ensure that the original meaning was retained. Two proficient mistakes, their enthusiasm for learning will increase. When the bilingual organizational behavior researchers conducted the organizational environment shows tolerance for mistakes and translation. Furthermore, in previous studies, the validity of these leaders provide counseling and friendship and develop trust with scales has been verified in the Chinese context (Xu et al., 2019; their employees, employees are more proactive at work and more Yan et al., 2019; Ye et al., 2019). likely to show determination and passion. Third, when employees The items of each measure (taking-charge behavior, inclusive have a higher level of thriving at work, they are more capable leadership, psychological safety, and thriving at work) were and motivated to make changes (Spreitzer et al., 2012). On the assessed on a seven-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = strongly one hand, active learning and innovation motivate employees disagree to 7 = strongly agree. to take charge in relevant areas to resist risks; on the other hand, the vitality of work makes employees look forward to Taking Charge Behavior Scale (TCB; Parker and positive outcomes, and they expect to change their work content and methods to become more autonomous. Empirical studies Collins, 2010) indicate that thriving at work has a significant positive impact We measured employee taking-charge behavior using the three- on employee performance, creativity, and innovation behavior item TCB scale. The items include “How frequently does your (Porath et al., 2012; Jaiswal and Dhar, 2015; Wallace et al., 2016). subordinate try to improve procedures in his/her workplace?,” Li M. et al. (2016) also confirmed that thriving at work is “How frequently does your subordinate try to propose new work significantly positively correlated with employee change-oriented methods that are more effective?,” and “How frequently does your organizational citizenship behavior. Based on the above analysis, subordinate try to implement solutions to pressing organizational this study proposes hypothesis 4 as follows: problems?” In this study, Cronbach’s a of the TCB scale was 0.755. Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 4 February 2020 | Volume 11 | Article 62 fpsyg-11-00062 February 19, 2020 Time: 16:45 # 5 Zeng et al. Inclusive Leadership and Taking Charge Behavior Inclusive Leadership Scale (IL; Carmeli et al., 2010) As shown in Table 2, our four-factor measurement model was the best-fitting model and provided a reasonable fit for the data, Inclusive leadership behavior was measured using the nine-item supporting the unidimensionality of our measures as follows: IL scale. Sample items include “The manager is open to hearing comparative fit index = 0.918 and root mean square error of new ideas” and “The manager encourages me to access him/her regarding emerging issues.” In this study, Cronbach’s a of the IL approximation (90% CI) = 0.056 As some measures (inclusive leadership, psychological safety, scale was 0.891. and thriving at work) are self-reported, we evaluated the impact Psychological Safety Scale (PS; May et al., 2004) of common method bias, which is highly problematic if a single latent factor accounts for the majority of the manifest We measured psychological safety using the three-item PS scale. Sample items include “I’m not afraid to be myself at work,” “I variables’ variance. We tested for common method bias by loading each set of indicators on their latent variables and am afraid to express my opinions at work (r),” and “There is a threatening environment at work (r).” These items assessed loading all items onto a fifth, common method latent variable. However, this five-factor model did not converge, which can whether the individuals felt comfortable to be themselves and express their opinions at work or whether there was a threatening be a widespread problem with a relatively small sample and a large number of items. Then, we conducted a Harman environment at work. In this study, Cronbach’s a of the PS scale was 0.706. single-factor test (for a discussion, see Podsakoff et al., 2003) and found that the items did not significantly load onto a Thriving at Work Scale (TW; Porath et al., 2012) single factor. We concluded that common method bias was We used the 10-item TW scale to measure thriving at work, which not a major concern in our analysis. In the structural model analysis, we used the Hayes macro PROCESS (Hayes, 2013) to included a learning latent factor and vitality latent factor. Sample items include “I find myself learning often” and “I feel alive and estimate all path coefficients while simultaneously controlling for employee age, gender, education, and tenure. Table 3 shows vital.” In this study, Cronbach’s a of the TW scale was 0.820. the results. In our analytical model, we tested for a three- Control Variables path mediated effect (Taylor et al., 2008). The advantage of We controlled for four employee demographic variables, this approach is that we were able to isolate the indirect effect including sex, age, level of education, and organizational tenure. of both mediators as follows: psychological safety (hypothesis Gender was a dummy variable (1 for men and 2 for women). 2) and thriving at work (hypothesis 3). This approach also Age was measured in number of years. Level of education allowed us to investigate the indirect effect passing through both was measured on a scale ranging from 1 (primary school mediators in a series (hypothesis 4; Taylor et al., 2008). Figure 1 or below) to 4 (graduate school). Organizational tenure was illustrates these models. To test our mediation hypotheses, we used the analytical approach outlined by Shrout and Bolger measured using the respondents’ self-reported years of working in the organization. (2002) and Preacher and Hayes (2004). This mediation approach directly tests the indirect effect between a predictor and the Analytic Strategy criterion variables through the mediator via a bootstrapping First, we performed a descriptive analysis, reliability analysis, procedure (Efron and Tibshirani, 1993; Mooney and Duval, and correlation analysis using SPSS19. Second, confirmatory 1993), which addresses some weaknesses associated with the factor analyses (CFAs) were performed to examine the distinctive Sobel test (Shrout and Bolger, 2002; Preacher and Hayes, validity of our current variables, including taking-charge 2004). In Table 3, we provide the estimates of the indirect behavior, inclusive leadership, psychological safety, and thriving effects along with the 95% bias-corrected bootstrapped CIs of at work. Third, we estimated the path coefficients and three- our path estimates. path indirect effects along with the 95% bootstrapped confidence As predicted in hypothesis 1, inclusive leadership toward intervals (CIs) using the method recommended by Shrout employees was positively related to taking-charge behavior. and Bolger (2002) and Preacher and Hayes (2004). To date, Hypothesis 2 stated that psychological safety mediates the path bootstrapping is more advantageous than normal distribution– between inclusive leadership and taking-charge behavior. This based significance tests (Shrout and Bolger, 2002). hypothesis was supported. Hypothesis 3 was supported, as thriving at work mediates the path from inclusive leadership to taking-charge behavior. Hypothesis 4 stated that psychological safety and thriving at work sequentially mediate the relationship RESULTS between inclusive leadership and taking-charge behavior. The Table 1 presents the means, standard deviations, correlations, analyses reported above show that psychological safety mediated and reliability estimates (Cronbach’s a) of all variables. All the relationship between inclusive leadership and thriving at analyses were conducted with structural equation modeling work and that thriving at work mediated the relationship (Mplus 5.21; Muthén and Muthén, 2007). Before forming the between inclusive leadership and taking-charge behavior. We scales for the hypothesis testing, we assessed the construct validity formally tested hypothesis 4 and found that inclusive leadership of our measures using a CFA by comparing the measurement was associated with employees’ higher psychological safety and model with four competing models, which are described in detail thriving at work, which was related to higher levels of taking- in Table 2 (Anderson and Gerbing, 1988). charge behavior. Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 5 February 2020 | Volume 11 | Article 62 fpsyg-11-00062 February 19, 2020 Time: 16:45 # 6 Zeng et al. Inclusive Leadership and Taking Charge Behavior TABLE 1 | Means, standard deviation, correlations, and reliability estimates of the study variables. Variable M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 (1) Age 33.56 7.913 0:060 (2) Tenure 6.789 7.432 0:038 0:736** 0:263** (3) Inclusive leadership 5.176 0.741 0:026 0:012 0:020 0.030 0:891 (4) Psychological safety 5.120 0.639 0:028 0:008 0:090 0.091 0:437** 0:706 (5) Thriving at work 5.270 0.609 0:036 0:044 0:074 0.030 0:579** 0:469** 0:820 (6) Taking-charge behavior 5.247 0.593 0:014 0:001 0:029 0.056 0:428** 0:400** 0:414** 0.755 N = 205; reliability coefficients are presented in bold. **p < 0.01. psychological safety, and thriving at work on employees’ taking- TABLE 2 | Fit indices of the alternative measurement models. charge behaviors in the Chinese context. The results support 2 2 our hypotheses and reveal the following: (1) inclusive leadership Measurement model df $ $ /df CFI TLI RMSEA is positively related to taking-charge behavior; (2) psychological Single factor 270 731.727 2.710 0.779 0.755 0.091 safety is positively related to taking-charge behavior; (3) thriving Two factors 269 645.269 2.399 0.820 0.799 0.083 at work is positively related to taking-charge behavior; and Three factors–1 267 513.385 1.923 0.882 0.868 0.067 (4) psychological safety and thriving at work continuously Three factors–2 267 540.261 2.023 0.869 0.853 0.071 mediate the relationship between inclusive leadership and taking- Four factors 264 435.063 1.648 0.918 0.907 0.056 charge behavior. N = 205. CFI, comparative fit index; TLI, Tucker–Lewis index; RMSEA, root mean a b square error of approximation. All indicators load on a single factor. Inclusive leadership, psychological safety, and thriving at work load on one factor, and Theoretical Implications taking-charge behavior loads on one factor. Inclusive leadership and taking-charge The theoretical contributions of our study mainly include three behavior load on their respective factors, and psychological safety and thriving aspects. First, from the perspective of leadership, the antecedents at work load on one factor. Inclusive leadership and psychological safety load of taking-charge behavior were expanded. As mentioned earlier, on one factor, and thriving at work and taking-charge behavior load on their respective factors. Inclusive leadership, taking-charge behavior, psychological the antecedents of taking-charge behavior are abundant, and safety, and thriving at work load on their respective factors. studies have mainly focused on individual factors, organizational context factors, and leadership. From the perspective of TABLE 3 | Path coefficients and indirect effects in the mediation models. leadership behavior, previous studies have examined the impact of transformational leadership, self-sacrificial leadership, Direct effect Estimate t empowered leadership, benevolent leadership, and abusive leadership on taking-charge behavior. Among these leadership IL ! TC 0.183 (0.062) 2.953 styles, transformational leadership positively affects employees’ Indirect effect Estimate Bootstrap (bias-corrected taking-charge behavior (Li J. et al., 2016; Homberg et al., 2017). bootstrap 95% confidence interval) Self-sacrificial leadership has a significant positive impact on IL ! PS ! TC 0.076 (0.028) [0.031,0.142] employees’ taking-charge behavior. Furthermore, organizational IL ! TW ! TC 0.067 (0.030) [0.016,0.136] identity plays a partial mediating role between these factors IL ! PS ! TW ! TC 0.016 (0.009) [0.004,0.042] (Li R. et al., 2016). Other studies have shown that empowered Total effect 0.159 (0.047) [0.080,0.268] and ethical leaders do not have a significant direct impact on employees’ taking-charge behavior (Lee, 2016; Qian et al., Adapted from “Mediation and the Estimation of Indirect Effects in Political Communication Research,” by A. F. Hayes, K. J. Preacher, and T. A. Myers, in 2018). Xu et al. (2018) also examined the impact of benevolent press; Sourcebook for Political Communication Research: Methods, Measures, leadership on employees’ proactive change behavior. In contrast, and Analytical Techniques, by E. P. Bucy and R. L. Holbert, New York, Ouyang et al. (2015) found that there is a negative relationship NY, United States: Routledge. N = 205. Bootstrap confidence intervals were between abusive supervision and proactive behavior because constructed using 5,000 resamples. Total effect (IL ! TC) = 0.159 (0.047). Standard errors are shown in parentheses. IL, Inclusive Leadership Scale; the style of leadership reduces subordinates’ perceived insider TC, Taking Charge Behavior Scale; PS, Psychological Safety Scale; TW, status within an organization. In addition, Li et al. (2013, 2015) Thriving at Work Scale. tested the relationship between team empowered leadership and employees’ taking-charge behavior. Furthermore, some studies have noted that deep supervisor–subordinate similarity perceived DISCUSSION by employees has a significant impact on employee’s taking- Due to the uncertainty of the external environment and the charge behavior and that supervisors’ inclusiveness acts as a limitation of organizational managers’ energy and capabilities, negative moderator in the relationship between supervisor– organizations expect to develop employees’ proactive behaviors subordinate similarity and taking-charge behavior (Zheng et al., to meet challenges. This study must identify ways to intrinsically 2017). Studies have begun to focus on leaders’ inclusiveness and inspire employees’ taking-charge behavior. The aim of this study its impact on employees’ taking-charge behavior. Differing from was to investigate the effect of inclusive leadership, perceived other types of leadership, inclusiveness is a leadership style in Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 6 February 2020 | Volume 11 | Article 62 fpsyg-11-00062 February 19, 2020 Time: 16:45 # 7 Zeng et al. Inclusive Leadership and Taking Charge Behavior Inclusive Taking Charge Leadership Behavior H1 = Inclusive Leadership → Taking Charge behavior Thriving at Psychological Safety Work Inclusive Taking Charge Leadership Behavior H2 = Inclusive Leadership →Psychological Safety→Taking Charge behavior H3 = Inclusive Leadership →Thriving at Work→Taking Charge behavior H4 = Inclusive Leadership →Psychological Safety→Thriving at Work→Taking Charge behavior FIGURE 1 | Empirical model. which supervisors care about the needs of their subordinates, requirements (competence, autonomy, and relatedness) such are good at listening to the opinions of their subordinates, that employees are more likely to thrive at work. Thus, this study and recognize their subordinates’ contributions. Our findings comprehensively examines the mechanism by which inclusive mainly reveal the positive impact of inclusive leadership on leadership influences taking-charge behavior from both cognitive taking-charge behavior. Thus, in response to the call for more and emotional aspects and expands our knowledge regarding the context models to reveal the relationship between leadership and role of leadership behavior in taking-charge behavior. taking-charge behavior (Xu et al., 2018), this study expanded Third, this study builds a chained mediation model of existing research at the organizational level and provided an inclusive leadership, psychological safety, thriving at work, and application context. taking-charge behavior. Studies have noted that taking-charge Second, based on SDT and social information processing behavior is a challenging, transformative, and risky proactive theory, the variables mediating employees’ psychological behavior (Mcallister et al., 2007; Parker et al., 2010). Therefore, safety and thriving at work were examined. Mediation in whether employees take charge largely depends on the level existing research is usually explained through traditional social of their psychological safety (Carmeli et al., 2010). Existing psychology perspectives, such as the social exchange theory, research shows that social support can protect employees against social identity theory, social cognitive theory, motivation theory, psychological distress (Feng et al., 2018), and inclusive leadership etc. The mediators of the relationship between leadership to subordinates can improve employees’ psychological safety level and taking-charge behavior mainly include psychological (Hirak et al., 2012) and stimulate employees’ state of learning cognitive factors (e.g., role-breadth, self-efficacy, entitlement, (cognition) and vitality (emotion), which, in turn, positively organizational identification, insider status, trust in leader, affects their ability and willingness to engage in taking-charge and identification with leader) (Li et al., 2013, 2015; Ouyang behaviors. The results provide a more detailed mechanism et al., 2015; Lee, 2016; Li J. et al., 2016), motivation (Homberg underlying the formation of taking-charge behavior. et al., 2017), emotion or attitude (e.g., positive affect and work engagement) (Fritz and Sonnentag, 2009; Xu et al., 2018), and Practical Implications individual behavior (e.g., feedback-seeking) (Qian et al., 2018). Our study advances the idea that it is important to practice On the one hand, our research validates the positive impact inclusive leadership to enhance employees’ psychological safety, of inclusive leadership on taking-charge behavior from the thriving at work, and taking-charge behaviors. First, from the perspective of social information processing theory. Studies perspective of the leader, the supervisor should be friendly, have shown that positive leadership can introduce a sense accessible, concerned with the needs of the subordinates, tolerant of job security and job satisfaction (Bakr et al., 2019), and of different opinions, and tolerant of mistakes to a certain extent. the positive impact of inclusive leadership’s fault tolerance Furthermore, leaders should provide support and job resources is highly important. On the other hand, thriving at work is to their subordinates. For example, supervisory mentoring introduced as a mediator based on SDT. Instead of examining is beneficial to subordinates. The supervisor establishes a mediators, such as cognitive and emotional variables, separately, mentoring relationship with subordinates, provides career thriving at work includes the two dimensions of learning and support and psychosocial support, and serves as a role model for vitality, effectively integrating cognitive and emotional factors. subordinates (Scandura, 1992). Research has shown that among Our research finds that inclusive leadership meets employees’ behaviors related to high-quality relationships, holding behaviors Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 7 February 2020 | Volume 11 | Article 62 fpsyg-11-00062 February 19, 2020 Time: 16:45 # 8 Zeng et al. Inclusive Leadership and Taking Charge Behavior are effective job resources helping employees cope with changes research fails to integrate the various influencing factors, such as and challenges (Ragins et al., 2016). individuals and organizations, and thus ignores the interaction Second, from an organizational point of view, we should between individual factors and organizational factors. Future create an inclusive climate and consider a series of measures research may consider combining the causes of different types or through work guidance and caring for employees to improve levels of taking-charge behavior and comprehensively examine employees’ psychological safety to stimulate their willingness to how multiple combinations promote or prohibit taking-charge take charge. Furthermore, training opportunities and supportive behavior. For example, how can leadership be matched with the resources should be provided to enhance their capacities to take traits of employees to motivate employees to taking charge or charge. For example, relevant policies encouraging learning and render the implementation of leadership more effective? innovation should be formulated, new methods and new ways to Third, the mechanism by which leadership mediates taking- solve problems should be adopted, and certain error indicators charge behavior needs to be further explored. Drawing upon SDT should be added to employees’ performance appraisal systems. and social information processing theory, this study examines the Finally, through special training, companies can enhance impact of inclusive leadership on taking-charge behavior at both managers’ inclusive leadership qualities and capabilities. cognitive and psychological levels. Existing research is mainly Organizations can first assess the leadership levels of existing based on the perspective of social exchange theory, social identity management teams and find gaps in their inclusive leadership theory, social cognitive theory, and motivation theory, and future skills to determine the importance and difficulty of leadership research could further expand the theoretical perspective of training. In particular, an understanding of millennials’ values, the relationship between leadership behavior and taking-charge viewpoints, requirements, and behavior patterns in the workplace behavior, such as by examining COR. According to this theory, could help supervisors build an inclusive mindset. For example, resources are “individual characteristics, conditions, energy, etc. it is possible to establish a mentoring relationship between that make individuals feel valuable or a way to obtain them” supervisors and subordinates to strengthen the frequency of (Hobfoll, 1989). Knowledge, skills, development opportunities, communication, expand the scope of mutual learning, form job autonomy, social relations, social support, and optimistic benign interactions, and gain information. personality are all valuable resources for individuals. Inclusive leadership, as a positive leadership behavior, respects the needs of employees, affirms the value of employees, and tolerates the Limitations and Future Research different views of employees. First, inclusive leadership provides Directions positive psychological resources to help employees build a sense Although our research has certain theoretical contributions and of psychological security and self-efficacy. Second, inclusiveness practical implications, there are still some research limitations. is an organizational support factor that increases job autonomy First, one potential disadvantage is related to the design strategy. and is a valuable job resource (De Cuyper et al., 2012). Although we collected data at two time points, the relevant data Therefore, future research could expand from the perspective of are reported by supervisors and subordinates, which may lessen resource gain and loss. transient response biases and common method biases; however, Fourth, future research should continue to explore the the cross-sectional design still limits inferences of causality. outcome variables of taking-charge behavior. In the existing Future studies should use longitudinal studies to confirm literature, more research is concerned with the antecedents of causality in theoretical models. Regarding the sample collection, taking-charge behavior, and exploration of the consequences is we collected data from 17 Chinese companies, but whether scarce. Future research could investigate the positive and negative the effect of inclusive leadership on taking-charge behavior can effects of taking-charge behavior on individuals. For example, be generalized to other samples remains questionable. Future taking-charge behavior may have a negative impact on personal research should collect data more widely in various industries work–family balance (Greenhaus and Powell, 2006). Based on and countries to increase the generalizability of our findings. the integration model of proactive behavior (Bindl and Sharon, In addition, in this study, we did not control for other positive 2010), future research could also test the impact of taking-charge leadership styles (Wang et al., 2019), such as transformational behaviors on outcome variables at the team level (e.g., team leadership, ethical leadership, moral leadership, and benevolent performance and team effectiveness) and organization level (e.g., leadership. Future research should control for the impact of organizational performance and innovation). similar leadership styles on taking-charge behavior to enhance the robustness of the results. Second, this study expands the antecedents of taking-charge behavior but only examines the antecedents from the leadership CONCLUSION perspective. As mentioned before, the antecedents of taking- charge behavior are extremely rich and mainly include individual The present study demonstrates how inclusive leadership factors (such as emotions, cognition, and personality traits) and motivates employees’ taking-charge behavior in the workplace, organizational context factors (such as relationships, working adapting to the dynamic environment. This study provides new conditions, organizational structure, and leadership). Taking- insight into the relationship between inclusive leadership and charge behavior is likely the result of the combined effect taking-charge behavior and helps us better understand the impact of individual factors and the organizational context. Existing of inclusive leadership on proactive behavior. Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 8 February 2020 | Volume 11 | Article 62 fpsyg-11-00062 February 19, 2020 Time: 16:45 # 9 Zeng et al. Inclusive Leadership and Taking Charge Behavior The contributions of this study concern different aspects. First, ETHICS STATEMENT drawing upon SDT and social information processing theory, we establish a chained mediation theoretical model of inclusive The studies involving human participants were reviewed leadership, employee psychological safety, thriving at work, and and approved by the Ethics Committee (HREC) of the taking-charge behaviors. In China’s organizational context, we School of Economics and Management in Jiangxi Science find that inclusive leadership has a positive effect on employees’ and Technology Normal University. The patients/participants taking-charge behavior. Second, in addition to psychological provided their written informed consent to participate in factors, thriving at work lies in the integration of the cognitive this study. and emotional aspects and plays a positive role in the relationship between inclusive leadership and taking-charge behavior. This study further deepens our understanding of the path between AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS inclusive leadership and employee behavior. Third, the potential HZ contributed to the idea and wrote the full manuscript. LZ research value lies in encouraging more organizations to adopt collected the data and run the data. YZ revised the full manuscript an inclusive style of leadership in an era of change to stimulate and proposed improvements. taking-charge behaviors, improve organizational adaptability and innovation, and enhance employees’ satisfaction and personal growth (Kim and Liu, 2017). FUNDING The study was supported by the National Natural Science DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT Foundation of China (71862019, 71702071, 71972139, and All datasets generated for this study are included in the 71832007) and Social Science Projects of Colleges and article/supplementary material. Universities in Jiangxi Province (GL18241). and organizational influences. Group Organ. 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What threatens retail employees’ Copyright © 2020 Zeng, Zhao and Zhao. This is an open-access article distributed thriving at work under leader-member exchange? The role of store spatial under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, crowding and team negative affective tone. Hum. Resour. Manage. 58, 371–382. distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original doi: 10.1002/hrm.21959 author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication Xu, Q., Zhao, Y. X., Xi, M., and Zhao, S. M. (2018). Impact of benevolent leadership in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, on follower taking charge: roles of work engagement and role-breadth distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 11 February 2020 | Volume 11 | Article 62

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