Reflective commentary on empowering leadership and employee creativity: A dual‐mechanism perspective

Abstract This invited reflective commentary revisits Zhang, Ke, Wang, and Liu's (2018) article on empowering leadership and employee creativity, published in the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology . The original study proposed and tested a dual‐mechanism perspective, demonstrating that empowering leadership simultaneously shapes employees' self‐concept (through organization‐based self‐esteem) and their contextual conditions (through access to resources), and that these pathways interact to influence creative outcomes. Since publication, the article has accumulated approximately 213 citations as of April 2026 across diverse scholarly communities. In this commentary, we reflect on the significant impact of the paper and then outline key directions for future research. We conclude by affirming the continued relevance of the dual‐mechanism framework in a rapidly evolving world of work.