ISSN: 2222-6990
Open access
This conceptual paper explores the impact of contemporary leadership styles—authentic, sustainable, digital, and empowering leadership—on Innovative Work Behaviour (IWB) within organizations, underpinned by Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) theory. Despite the acknowledged importance of leadership in fostering innovation, existing literature presents fragmented views on how these modern leadership paradigms collectively influence IWB. This study addresses this gap by proposing an integrative framework that hypothesizes direct positive relationships between each of these leadership styles and IWB. Drawing on LMX theory, the paper emphasizes the role of high-quality leader-follower relationships, characterized by trust, respect, and mutual obligation, as crucial mechanisms through which leaders can inspire and support employees' proactive engagement in generating, promoting, and implementing novel ideas. The proposed framework highlights how authentic leaders foster psychological safety, sustainable leaders align innovation with long-term goals, digital leaders leverage technology for agile transformation, and empowering leaders enhance autonomy and self-efficacy, all contributing to heightened IWB. The paper outlines a quantitative, cross-sectional methodology using PLS-SEM for future empirical validation. This research aims to provide a more comprehensive understanding of leadership's strategic role in enhancing organizational innovation capacity, offering valuable theoretical contributions and practical insights for fostering a culture of continuous improvement in dynamic work environments.
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