Increasing employees’ taking charge behaviors through digital leadership: examining the roles of job crafting and proactive personality

Introduction Digital transformation has fundamentally reshaped organizational environments, placing new demands on both leaders and employees. Although digital leadership has been recognized as a critical driver of organizational change, the micro-level mechanisms through which it influences employee proactive behavior remain insufficiently understood. Drawing on Conservation of Resources (COR) theory, this study investigates how and when digital leadership promotes employees’ taking charge behavior. Methods A three-wave, time-lagged survey design was employed to mitigate common method bias. Data were collected from 370 employees across multiple industries in China, with each wave separated by a two-week interval. Hypotheses were tested using hierarchical regression analysis and the PROCESS macro with 5,000 bootstrap resamples. Results Digital leadership positively predicted employee taking charge behavior. Job crafting partially mediated this relationship, such that digital leadership enhanced taking charge by stimulating employees’ proactive work role adjustments. Proactive personality moderated the first stage of this mediated pathway: the positive effect of digital leadership on job crafting was stronger among employees with higher proactive personality, and consequently, the indirect effect on taking charge was also amplified. Discussion These findings advance COR theory by identifying digital leadership as a multi-dimensional resource supply mechanism in digital transformation contexts. By revealing job crafting as the core resource-conversion carrier and proactive personality as a critical individual boundary condition, this study clarifies the unique behavioral mechanism of digital leadership and offers actionable guidance for organizations seeking to cultivate employee proactive engagement during digital change.