A Cross-level Study Of Self-sacrificing Leaders On The Proactive Responsibility Behavior Of New Generation Employees

In the new era,the rapid change of enterprise development from speed to quality,coupled with the increasingly turbulent and complex living environment,urgently requires enterprises to promote continuous change,improve management systems,optimize work efficiency,and continuously enhance their adaptability to effectively respond to environmental changes and development requirements.However,to achieve this purpose,not only the participation and efforts of a minority group of business leader is required,but also the taking charge of employees,the main group of the company,whose taking charge is crucial to the survival and development of the company.In today’s corporate environment,new generation of employees,mainly "90","00" and after employees,has become the main force of the enterprise.However,due to the general lack of responsibility awareness and strong self-awareness of this group,their taking charge is not optimistic,which to a certain extent limits the ability of change and adaptability of enterprises.Therefore,how to drive taking charge of new generation of employees has received widespread attention from academia and industry.Taking Charge is a kind of extra-role behavior with initiative and change,and may expose the implementer to many resistances and risks,requiring more than adequate motivation and guidance.Leaders act as guides and value advocate their employees’ behavior in the organization,and employees will be influenced by their supervisors to adjust their behavior on their own or subconsciously.Self-sacrificing leadership,as a leadership style of "self-sacrifice" and "willingness to give",plays an important role in guiding and cultivating employees to take responsibility for their own behavior.However,previous work has focused on the relationship between self-sacrificing leadership and the taking charge of employees,but has not focused on the unique group of the "90","00" and after employees.The existing literature has mainly explored the homogeneous effect of self-sacrificing leadership on employees’ taking charges at the individual level,but ignored the team attributes of self-sacrificing leadership.Therefore,this study aims at investigate the cross-level effects of self-sacrificing leadership on the new generation of employees’ proactive behavior based on the team level,and to investigate the potential cross-level mediating effects of new generation employees’ sense of professional mission,psychological security and leadership taking charge based on social cognitive theory,self-consistency theory and social learning theory,respectively.To identify the processing mechanism of self-sacrificing leaders’ cross-level influence on new generation of employees’ proactive behavior.This study collected valid questionnaires from 48 team leaders and 374 new generation employees in Shanghai,Jiangsu,and Zhejiang,and used data statistical analysis software SPSS17.0 and MPLUS 8.0 to conduct empirical tests.The following conclusions were drawn:(1)Self-sacrificing leadership positively influences the new generation of employees’ proactive behavior across layers.(2)Self-sacrificing leaders positively influence new generation employees’ sense of professional mission across layers,and new generation employees’ sense of professional mission positively influences their proactive behavior,and the sense of professional mission plays a part in mediating the relationship between self-sacrificing leaders and new generation employees’ proactive behavior.(3)Self-sacrificing leaders positively influence the psychological security of "90","00" and after employees across layers,and the psychological security of "90","00" and after employees positively influence their proactive behavior,and the psychological security plays a partially mediating role between self-sacrificing leaders and Taking Charge of "90","00" and after employees.(4)Self-sacrificing leadership positively influences leaders’ proactive behavior,and leaders’ proactive behavior positively influences new generation employees’ proactive behavior across levels,and leaders’ proactive behavior partially mediates the relationship between self-sacrificing leadership and new generation employees’ proactive behavior.The main theoretical contributions of this study are:(1)This study explores the influence of self-sacrificing leadership on the taking charge of "90","00" and after employees,which not only compensates for the limitations of the previous focus on a general group of employees,but also expands the study of the factors influencing the activebehavior of new generation employees.(2)This study explores the influence of team-level self-sacrificing leadership and leader-initiated responsibility behavior on the taking charge of "90","00" and after employees and its mechanisms,which enriches the study of team-level influences on the Taking Charge of new generation employees.(3)This study integrates the dual perspectives(levels)of employee cognition(individual level)and leadership behavior(team level)to reveal the cross-level transmission paths between self-sacrificing leadership and new generation employees’ proactive behavior,which is conducive to systematic interpretation of the internal mechanisms between the two.The main practical countermeasures of this study are:(1)Companies should enhance self-sacrificing leadership style by recruiting/selecting leaders with self-sacrificing spirit and cultivating leaders’ dedication and quality at work,so as to motivate "90","00" and after employees to take responsibility for themselves.(2)Leaders should leading by example in the work and management process and take the initiative to implement responsible behaviors to provide a consistent example for the new generation of employees,thus promoting the generation of responsible behaviors.(3)Enterprise leaders should make employees seek and understand the joy and value of work by improving their understanding of work,creating corporate culture,promoting corporate core values so as to stimulate the new generation of employees’ sense of professional mission,which in turn will lead to the new generation of employees practicing taking charge from the inside out.(4)Leaders should improve the psychological security of "90","00" and after employees by optimizing team construction,creating a trusting and inclusive interpersonal atmosphere,improving training and motivation system to enhance their confidence and courage to take responsibility for their own initiatives,and motivate them to take responsibility for their own initiatives.