A multilevel perspective on the relationships between instrumental leadership, affective change commitment and individual support for change

This article in the journal „Gruppe. Interaktion. Organisation. (GIO)“ explored the potential of instrumental leadership in times of change. The instrumental leader seeks opportunities in the environment and uses them strategically, while helping employees to adapt in their day-to-day work. These behaviours are becoming increasingly important in a continuously and more and more unpredictably changing work environment. To investigate whether, how and when instrumental leadership can promote individual change support, a multilevel moderated mediation model is developed. Affective change commitment is considered as the central mechanism to explain the influence of the leaders’ behaviour. To examine the conditions under which instrumental leadership enhances the affective change commitment of the employees, the moderating effect of the leaders’ affective change commitment is analysed. The sample consists of 125 teams composed of one leader, at least two employees (in total 375), and the leader’s supervisor. The results indicate that instrumental leadership is positively related to individual change support via affective change commitment in the team. The indirect effects are strengthened by the leader’s affective change commitment. Implications for leadership and change management literature as well as for practice are discussed.