Leadership behavior: A partial test of the employee work passion model

• Author: Drea Zigarmi,Alice Richardson,Richard Egan
• Published date: 01 September 2019
• Date: 01 September 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/hrdq.21346

QUANTITATIVE STUDY

Leadership behavior: A partial test

of the employee work passion model

Richard Egan

1

| Drea Zigarmi

2

| Alice Richardson

3

1

Department of Marketing and Management,

Business, Government & Law, University of

Canberra, Australia

2

Department of Research, The Ken Blanchard

Companies, Escondido, California

3

National Centre for Epidemiology &

Population Health, ANU College of Health &

Medicine, Australian National University,

Canberra, Australia

Correspondence

Richard Egan, Faculty of Business,

Government and Law, University of Canberra,

Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia.

Email: richard.egan@canberra.edu.au

This study examined empirical associations between employee cog-

nitive perceptions of leader behavior (directive behavior, support-

ive behavior) and leader values (self-concern, other orientation),

employee positive affect and negative affect, and employee work

intentions indicative of (dis)passionate employees. An internet-

based self-report questionnaire survey was administered to

409 employees within three private sector organizations in

Australia. Structural equation modeling indicated that supportive

behavior, other-orientation, and self-concern had respective indi-

rect effects on work intentions through employee positive affect.

Employee positive affect was a stronger predictor of employee

work intentions than was employee negative affect. Implications of

these findings for theory and practice are discussed.

KEYWORDS

affect, intentions, leadership, passion, values

1|INTRODUCTION

It has been said that “passion”permeates nearly all aspects of life (Vallerand, 2015). Vallerand et al. (2003) defined

passion as a strong inclination toward an activity that people like, one that they value, and one in which they are will-

ing to invest time and energy. These authors suggested that to the extent that an individual is passionate about an

activity, overtime, it becomes central to his/her identity. Vallerand et al. (2003) seminal research provided a catalyst

for the study of the psychological construct of passion considering that during the following decade research on pas-

sion was conducted in a variety of domains including romance (Hatfield, Bensman, & Rapson, 2010), education

(Bonneville-Roussy, Vallerand, & Bouffard, 2013), parenting (Mageau et al., 2009), and work (Cardon, 2008; Fernet,

Lavigne, Vallerand, & Austin, 2014; Zigarmi, Nimon, Houson, Witt, & Diehl, 2009). Much of this research examined

the intrapersonal effects of passion, for example, well/ill being, mental health, burnout, motivational factors, cognitive

outcomes, behavior, and performance (Curran, Hill, Appleton, Vallerand, & Standage, 2015). Research investigating

passion's role in interpersonal effects such as leader-follower relations has been less common (Vallerand, 2015).

Within the work domain, scholars have reported that Vallerand et al. (2003) conceptualization of passion is asso-

ciated with positive outcomes such as employee mental health (Forest, Mageau, Sarrazin, & Morin, 2011), entrepre-

neurial success (Cardon, Wincent, Singh, & Drnovsek, 2009), job satisfaction (Thorgren, Wincent, & Sirén, 2013), and

DOI: 10.1002/hrdq.21346

© 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Human Resource Development Quarterly. 2019;30:311–341. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/hrdq 311

performance (Ho, Wong,& Lee, 2011). Notwithstanding, conceptualizationsof work passion that explain its formulation

have largely been absent from the literature (Kocjan, 2015). In response, Zigarmi et al. (2009) proposed an operational

definitionof work passion: "an individual's persistent, emotionally positive,meaning-based, stateof well-being, stemming

from reoccurring cognitive and affective appraisals of various job and organizational situations that result in consistent

and constructive workintentions" (p. 310).A unique aspect of this definition pertains to the incorporation ofthe concept

of appraisal to explain the formulation of work passion. Additionally, examination of empirical relations between key

latent constructs (cognitive, affective, behavioral) identified that affect is central to the formation of work passion

(Zigarmi,Nimon, Houson, Witt,& Diehl, 2011). Overall, researchon work passion is gainingmomentum, however,exami-

nation ofits antecedent determinants is largelyunexplored (Egan,Blackman, & Turner, 2017;Forest et al. 2011).

Concomitantly, within a vast body of research spanning many decades, scholars reported that in the context of

leader-follower relations, leader behavior is empirically related to numerous positive employee and organizational

outcomes, for example, performance (Alimo-Metcalfe, Alban-Metcalfe, Bradley, Mariathasan, & Samele, 2008), group

climate (Salvaggio et al., 2007), leader effectiveness (Morgeson, 2005), follower motivation, follower satisfaction with

leader, and leader job performance (Judge & Piccolo, 2004), and Organizational Citizenship Behaviors (OCB; Piccolo &

Colquitt, 2006). In addition, a growing body of research has focused on relations between leadership, follower emo-

tions, and follower affect (e.g., Gooty, Connelly, Griffith, & Gupta, 2010; Rajah, Song, & Arvey, 2011; To, Tse, & Ash-

kanasy, 2015). Connelly and Gooty (2015) underscored that “affect-laden phenomena”are deeply intertwined with

the process of leading and leader and follower outcomes. Implicit in this focus is the acknowledgement that affective

experiences matter in the workplace because everyday individuals bring their whole self to work—traits, thoughts,

moods, and emotions. This empirical study sought to explore the integration of work passion theory and leadership

theory, a linkage that has received little research attention.

1.1 |Leadership, work passion, and human resource development

The topics of leadership and work passion are especially relevant from a Human Resource Development (HRD) per-

spective because practitioners serve many organizational functions and balance a multitude of responsibilities.

Scholars have suggested that the mission of HRD relates to the simultaneous pursuit of learning, humanistic, and per-

formance outcomes (Chalofsky, 2007; Kuchinke, 2010; Sambrook, 2012). Chalofsky (2007) stated that HRD is pri-

marily concerned with how “people can strive to reach their human potential and enhance their performance

through learning”(p. 437). Chalofsky and Cavallaro (2013) contended that HRD practitioners were challenged with

creating and maintaining organizational cultures that strengthen the fit between self and work where the sense of

self relates to “being able to bring the whole self to the workplace”(p. 333). We believe that integral to the fulfillment

of these purposes is the development of organizational strategic and operational leadership capacity.

This study has relevance and implicationsfor HRD practitioners inasmuchas they have a need for, and responsibil-

ity to, implementdevelopment programs (e.g., leaderand organizational culture)that build leaders' knowledge andskills

to support the humanistic developmentof the follower. Such programs mustbe effective in promoting forms ofleader-

ship that are humane, development centered, and facilitateperformance. HRD practitionerscan benefit from exploring

the use of modelsthat advocate the formation ofemployee work passion througheffective leader behaviors.

1.2 |Purpose

Egan et al. (2017) proposed a synthesis of leadership theory and work passion theory, two distinct but potentially

related areas of research, to provide HRD practitioners with a deeper understanding of how leadership promotes

(or hinders) employees' subjective experience of work passion. These authors used the Employee Work Passion

Appraisal (EWPA) model (Zigarmi et al., 2011) as the theoretical foundation of their hypothesized conceptual frame-

work. A central tenet of the EWPA model is Cognitive Appraisal Theory (CAT; Bandura, 1986; Lazarus & Folkman,

1984), which postulated that humans mentally connect past and present environmental experiences to their values,

312 EGAN ET AL.