A multilevel dual‐process model of leaders' proactive personality and followers' daily job crafting

Abstract

Despite the substantial progress reported in the job-crafting literature, knowledge about how proactive leaders encourage daily job-crafting behaviours in their followers remains limited. This study explores how proactive leaders foster daily job-crafting behaviours among their followers. Grounded in role modelling theory, we propose a multilevel dual-process model that connects leaders' proactive personalities with followers' daily job crafting through two mechanisms: leaders' own job crafting (informative function) and their empowering behaviours (inspirational function). We further hypothesize that proactive leaders employ more empowering strategies when interacting with proactive followers. To validate these hypotheses, we collected daily diary data from 96 leader-follower dyads over 10 consecutive workdays. The results show that proactive leaders not only engage in job crafting themselves but also exhibit empowering behaviours towards proactive followers, enhancing followers' job-crafting activities. This indicates that the confluence of proactive traits in both leaders and followers amplifies a leadership style that emphasizes empowerment, granting followers greater autonomy in their job-crafting endeavours.