Vigilant Leadership and Employee Proactivity: The Moderating Role of Environmental Uncertainty

It seems today in a world full of upsets there’s only one way to be in business is to continue being changeable, creative, and try to stay on top. The key aspect of it is employee proactiveness or worker’s own and forward looking activities and efforts that he undertakes for making an organization work better. Previous studies acknowledged that transformational leadership and empowerment could improve proactiveness. Nevertheless, it was few studies on vigilance leadership, that is, leaders who were highly alert to external risks and opportunities. To look at how the leader is vigilant and how proactive the employees are. To look at how the environment is uncertain and how it impacts the relationship with the leader being vigilant. We drew on social learning theory and contingency leadership theory to hypothesize that vigilant leadership positively predicts employee proactivity，and that this positive prediction is stronger under greater levels of environmental uncertainty. Collected from 312 people in various industries in China prove both of the hypothesis. They improve leadership and organizational behavior literature by adding contextual factors to the leadership - proactivity link. Practical applications for leadership growth & organizations flexibility aswell.