Relationships Among Leaders' and Followers' Work Engagement and Followers' Subjective Career Success: A Multilevel Approach

Qishan Chen; Shuting Yang; Jiayu Deng; Liuying Lu; Jingyi He

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.634350

Relationships Among Leaders' and Followers' Work Engagement and Followers' Subjective Career Success: A Multilevel Approach

Front Psychol. 2021 Mar 11:12:634350. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.634350. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Qishan Chen^{1

2}, Shuting Yang³, Jiayu Deng^{1

2}, Liuying Lu^{1

2}, Jingyi He^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences, Ministry of Education, Guangzhou, China.
² Guangdong Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science, Center for Studies of Psychological Application, School of Psychology, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China.
³ Beijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, National Demonstration Center for Experimental Psychology Education (Beijing Normal University), Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.

Abstract

Using a sample of 52 work teams (52 work team leaders and their 348 followers) in China, we investigated the influence mechanism of leaders' work engagement on their followers' work engagement and subjective career success. A multilevel structural equation model (MSEM) was applied to analyze the survey data. The results of this study indicated that leaders' work engagement positively influenced their followers' subjective career success, and this relationship was mediated by the followers' work engagement. Implications of these findings, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed in the final section of the paper.

Keywords: follower; leader; multilevel model; subjective career success; work engagement; work team.