Paradoxical leadership behaviour (PLB) represents an emerging leadership construct that can help leaders deal with conflicting demands. In this paper, we report three studies that add to this nascent literature theoretically, methodologically, and empirically. In Study 1, we validate an effective short-form measure of global PLB using three different samples. In Studies 2 and 3, we draw on the job demands–resources model to propose that paradoxical leaders promote followers’ work engagement by simultaneously fostering follower goal clarity and work autonomy. The results of survey data from Studies 2 and 3 largely confirm our model. Specifically, our findings show that PLB is positively associated with follower goal clarity and work autonomy, and that PLB exerts an indirect effect on work engagement via these variables. Moreover, our results support a hypothesized interaction effect of goal clarity and work autonomy to predict followers’ work engagement, as well as a conditional indirect effect of PLB on work engagement via the interactive effect. We discuss the practical implications for leaders and organizations.

中文翻译：

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自相矛盾的领导如何以及何时有益于工作投入：目标明确性和工作自主性的作用

矛盾的领导行为 (PLB) 代表了一种新兴的领导结构，可以帮助领导者处理相互冲突的需求。在本文中，我们报告了三项研究，这些研究从理论上、方法论和实证上为这一新兴文献增添了色彩。在研究 1 中，我们使用三个不同的样本验证了全球 PLB 的有效简短度量。在研究 2 和 3 中，我们利用工作需求-资源模型提出矛盾型领导者通过同时培养追随者目标明确性和工作自主性来促进追随者的工作投入。研究 2 和 3 的调查数据结果在很大程度上证实了我们的模型。具体而言，我们的研究结果表明，PLB 与追随者目标清晰度和工作自主性呈正相关，并且 PLB 通过这些变量对工作投入产生间接影响。而且，我们的结果支持目标明确性和工作自主性的假设交互效应来预测追随者的工作投入，以及 PLB 通过交互效应对工作投入的条件间接影响。我们讨论了对领导者和组织的实际影响。