Individual- and Collective-Focused Leadership
A Multi-Method Investigation of Empowering and Identity Leadership, Basic Psychological Need Satisfaction, and Work-Related Outcomes
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12793418 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jona Wölk (Freie Universität Berlin, corresponding author), Rudolf Kerschreiter (0000-0003-0281-0261, Freie Universität Berlin) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Publication date | 2026-03-04 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1548-0518 • E-ISSN: 1939-7089 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/15480518261427516 |
| OpenAlex | W7135028273 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 82 |
Leaders need to consider employees both as distinct individuals and as integral members of a collective to effectively address their needs. Drawing on self-determination theory (SDT), this study examines how individual- and collective-focused leader behaviors address employees’ autonomy, relatedness, and competence need satisfaction, influencing their intentions and behaviors. We propose that individual-focused behaviors (empowering leadership) address employees’ need for autonomy, while collective-focused behaviors (identity leadership) address their need for relatedness. Moreover, we argue that combining empowering and identity leadership addresses employees’ competence need satisfaction. We pre-registered a scenario-based experiment ( N = 226) and a time-lagged field study ( N = 308) to test the following hypotheses: (1) empowering leadership predicts autonomy need satisfaction, reducing turnover intentions; (2) identity leadership predicts relatedness need satisfaction, increasing organizational citizenship behavior (OCB); and (3) empowering and identity leadership interact to predict competence need satisfaction, resulting in higher work effort. Results from both studies support the hypothesized effects, except for the interaction effects in the field study. Together, these findings underscore that it is important for leaders to integrate individual- and collective-focused behaviors to holistically address employees’ psychological needs and foster positive work-related outcomes
Autonomy · Competence (human resources · Empowerment · Identity (music · Organizational citizenship behavior · Self-determination theory · Social identity theory · Transformational leadership · Job Satisfaction and Organizational Behavior · Management and Organizational Studies · Social Power and Status Dynamics
Leadership training design, delivery, and implementation
A Review of Self-Determination Theory’s Basic Psychological Needs at Work
Toward a Theory of Paradox
Motivating and demotivating forces in teams
Beyond Self-Management
Linking Empowering Leadership and Employee Creativity
Leveraging Leaders
Leadership Styles
Using Heteroscedasticity Consistent Standard Errors in the Linear Regression Model
Leader autonomy support in the workplace
Authentic Leadership, Authentic Followership, Basic Need Satisfaction, and Work Role Performance
A century of work teams in the Journal of Applied Psychology.
Common method biases in behavioral research
Common methodological mistakes
The context deficit in leadership research
The source, nature, and direction of work and family conflict
Self-efficacy
Embracing Complexity
The Science of Leadership
Cross-Cultural Leadership
Self-Determination Theory in Work Organizations
Self-Efficacy and Psychological Ownership Mediate the Effects of Empowering Leadership on Both Good and Bad Employee Behaviors
Leadership Styles and Psychological Empowerment
Linking Empowering Leadership to Job Satisfaction, Work Effort, and Creativity
Employee Responses to Empowering Leadership
Enhancing employee creativity via individual skill development and team knowledge sharing
Empowering leadership
A multilevel study of group‐focused and individual‐focused transformational leadership, social exchange relationships, and performance in teams
The general causality orientations scale
Within-person variation in security of attachment
The "What" and "Why" of Goal Pursuits
From “we” to “me
Interpersonal supports for basic psychological needs and their relations with motivation, well-being, and performance
Automation, Algorithms, and Beyond
Who is this "We"? Levels of collective identity and self representations
The need to belong
Back-Translation for Cross-Cultural Research
| Highly cited | No |
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