How and when paradoxical leadership benefits work engagement: The role of goal clarity and work autonomy

Paradoxical leadership behaviour (PLB) represents an emerging leadership construct that can help leaders deal with conflicting demands. In this paper, we report three studies that add to this nascent literature theoretically, methodologically, and empirically. In Study 1, we validate an effective short‐form measure of global PLB using three different samples. In Studies 2 and 3, we draw on the job demands–resources model to propose that paradoxical leaders promote followers’ work engagement by simultaneously fostering follower goal clarity and work autonomy. The results of survey data from Studies 2 and 3 largely confirm our model. Specifically, our findings show that PLB is positively associated with follower goal clarity and work autonomy, and that PLB exerts an indirect effect on work engagement via these variables. Moreover, our results support a hypothesized interaction effect of goal clarity and work autonomy to predict followers’ work engagement, as well as a conditional indirect effect of PLB on work engagement via the interactive effect. We discuss the practical implications for leaders and organizations. Practitioner points To effectively engage followers in their work, leaders should create work environments in which followers know exactly what to do (i.e., have high goal clarity), but at the same time can determine on their own how to do their work (i.e., have high work autonomy) To foster both goal clarity and work autonomy, leaders should combine communal (e.g., other‐centred, flexibility‐providing) and agentic aspects of leadership (e.g., maintaining decision control and enforcing performance standards). HR departments should design leadership trainings that help leaders to combine seemingly opposing, yet ultimately synergistic behaviours.