Premium
Paradoxical leadership in public sector organisations: Its role in fostering employee resilience
Author(s) -
Franken Esme,
Plimmer Geoff,
Malinen Sanna
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
australian journal of public administration
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.524
H-Index - 41
eISSN - 1467-8500
pISSN - 0313-6647
DOI - 10.1111/1467-8500.12396
Subject(s) - public sector , psychological resilience , resilience (materials science) , stakeholder , business , public relations , government (linguistics) , construct (python library) , balance (ability) , work (physics) , political science , social psychology , psychology , mechanical engineering , linguistics , philosophy , physics , neuroscience , computer science , law , thermodynamics , programming language , engineering
Government organisations, and their employees, need to be resilient to manage challenges such as resource constraints, rising demands, and the tensions and contradictions that underlie much public sector work, often stemming from the need to balance different stakeholder interests. Employee resilience, defined as the capacity to continuously adapt and flourish, even in the face of challenge, is an individual level construct that also benefits organisations. Despite its benefits, little is known about how to foster it. This paper explores whether paradoxical leadership (PL) can contribute to employee resilience. PL – the ability to balance competing structural and relational demands over time – may be one means of supporting employee resilience, as it corresponds to the tensions and paradoxes that exist in public sector work. This correspondence between PL and tensions in public administration work means that PL may also help employees behave resiliently. Findings from a quantitative survey ( n = 233) in a large New Zealand public sector organisation indicate that PL antecedes resilience. The effect of PL facets on employee resilience is partially mediated by perceptions of organisational support.