Does leader stewardship behavior affect employee creativity? Roles of other orientation and employee well-being

Purpose The aim of this paper is to examine a multi-mediation model linking leader stewardship behavior to employee creativity through two mechanisms: (1) Employees emulate supervisors’ stewardship behavior – such as prioritizing others over self-interest – which fosters their other orientation. This orientation may, in turn, enhance employee well-being and ultimately promote creativity. (2) Leaders serving as stewards may enhance employee well-being, thereby stimulating their creativity. Design/methodology/approach Using a sample of multi-source and multi-wave data from 521 subordinates and 174 team supervisors, and multi-level mediation analysis, we test the hypotheses. Findings First, leader stewardship behavior is positively related to employees’ other orientation, then in turn affects employee well-being. Other orientation mediates the positive relationship between leader stewardship behavior and employee well-being. Furthermore, the results reveal a chain-mediating effect of other orientation and employee well-being in the leader stewardship behavior-employee creativity relationship. Second, leader stewardship behavior is positively related to employee well-being, then in turn affects employee creativity, that is, employee well-being mediates the positive relationship between leader stewardship behavior and employee creativity. Research limitations/implications We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings. Originality/value First, this study broadens the scope of the research on stewardship behavior by exploring its effects on individuals within teams. Second, it unveils the “black box” between leader stewardship behavior and employee creativity. Third, it enriches the literature on team leadership by focusing on leader stewardship behavior at the team level which fills the gap regarding the effects of team supervisors’ stewardship behavior.