Cross-level effect of resonant leadership on remote engagement: A moderated mediation analysis in the unprecedented COVID-19 crisis

Abstract

Drawing on the theory of intentional change, the study investigated the cross-level indirect effect of resonant leadership on the remote engagement of software professionals through psychological empowerment. We explored how mindfulness buffers the associations between resonant leadership, psychological empowerment, and remote engagement in the context of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). We used a sample of 406 team members nested in 56 teams from 15 large-scale Indian information technology firms during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our empirical strategy is based on hierarchical linear modelling. The findings revealed that the cross-level effect of resonant leadership on work engagement through psychological empowerment is the strongest when subordinates show a lower degree of mindfulness. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to unravel the mechanisms underlying the relationship between resonant leadership, psychological empowerment, work engagement, and mindfulness by empirically validating cross-level mediation and moderation. Moreover, the findings add a new lens to the theory of intentional change through the cross-level effects of resonant leadership on the proposed criterion variables under the bounded conditions of low-intensity mindfulness of subordinates.