Study On The Influence And Mechanism Of Leadership Style On Civil Servants' Career Adaptability

Career adaptability is a psychosocial construct that denotes an individual's resources for coping with current and imminent vocational development tasks,occupational transitions and personal traumas in their occupational roles that,to a certain extent,alter their social integration.How to develop the civil servants' career adaptability resources remains to be studied.Based on the Career Construction Theory,Job Demand-Resource Theory and the the Psychology of Working Theory,this paper studies the antecedents and outcomes of the civil servants' career adaptability from the perspective of leadership styles.We focus on the influence of two opposite leadership styles and conduct two empirical studies based on the theoretical model.According to the survey data of 558 civil servants,study 1 finds out the influence of constructive leaders represented by transformational leaders on civil servants' career adaptability,job performance and job burnout.According to the survey data of 437 civil servants,study 2 shows the influence of the destructive leadership represented by the leadership ostracism on civil servants' career adaptability,job performance and job burnout.Since the proposed moderated mediation model is validated,we draw conclusions as follows.First,transformational leadership is positively correlated with civil servants' career adaptability,while leadership ostracism is negatively correlated with civil servants' career adaptability.Secondly,the civil servants' career adaptability resources promote their job performance and alleviate their job burnout.Thirdly,the civil servants' proactive behaviors and recovery experiences reinforce their career adaptability.Fourth,transformational leaders promote the civil servants' job performance of and reduce their job burnout by enhancing their career adaptability.The leadership ostracism reduces the civil servants' job performance and increase their job burnout by consuming their career adaptability.Fifth,for the civil servants with high proactive behaviors,the mediating effect of career adaptability between transformational leadership,job performance and job burnout is not salient.Similarly,for the civil servants with a high level of recovery experiences,the mediating effect of career adaptability between leadership ostracism,job performance and job burnout is not significant.It shows that individual self-management supplement the influence of leaders' management,and the interplay of the two takes effect on civil servants' job performance and job burnout.Based on the above research conclusions,the present study proposes the following management implications for the government.First,it is important for the government to attach great importance and develop the civil servants' career adaptability.By doing so,the civil servants can realize individual value and organizational value benefiting from their career development.Second,the government leaders should develop their constructive leadership style,by referring to the transformational leadership.We suggest the governments select and cultivate leaders with high level of inspirational motivation,individualized consideration,idealized influence and moral modeling,so as to motivate their subordinates in their career adaptability resources and eventually achieve the goal of public service.Third,it is important to concern the psychological influence from leadership ostracism,and set up harmonious interpersonal relationship in the public sectors.The destructive behaviors of the leaders should be warned and eliminated.Finally,we advice the civil servants to proactively develop their self-management strategies,like proacitive behaviors and recovery experiences,so as to reach the goal of sustainable development.