Predicting Employee Creativity Based on Inclusive Leadership and Psychological Safety: The Mediating Role of Work Engagement

Katarzyna Nowak; Ryan Stewart

Authors

Katarzyna Nowak Department of Strategic Management, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland Author https://orcid.org/0009-0001-5338-4808
Ryan Stewart Department of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, Canada Corresponding Author https://orcid.org/0009-0000-7132-166X

Keywords:

inclusive leadership, psychological safety, work engagement, employee creativity, structural equation modeling, Canada

Abstract

Objective: This study aimed to predict employee creativity based on inclusive leadership and psychological safety and to examine the mediating role of work engagement among employees working in Canada.

Methods and Materials: The study employed a quantitative, cross-sectional, correlational design. The participants were 312 employees working in public and private organizations in Canada who were recruited using convenience and purposive sampling. Data were collected using the nine-item Inclusive Leadership Scale, the seven-item Psychological Safety Scale, the nine-item Utrecht Work Engagement Scale, and the 13-item Employee Creativity Scale. Data were analyzed using Pearson correlation coefficients, confirmatory factor analysis, and structural equation modeling in IBM SPSS Statistics and AMOS. The significance of indirect effects was examined using bias-corrected bootstrapping with 5,000 resamples and 95% confidence intervals.

Findings: Inclusive leadership significantly predicted work engagement (β = .31, p < .001) and employee creativity (β = .16, p = .005), while psychological safety significantly predicted work engagement (β = .39, p < .001) and employee creativity (β = .20, p = .003). Work engagement was the strongest direct predictor of employee creativity (β = .46, p < .001). Inclusive leadership and psychological safety jointly explained 39% of the variance in work engagement, while the overall model explained 52% of the variance in employee creativity. Bootstrap analysis showed that work engagement significantly mediated the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee creativity (β = .14, 95% CI [.09, .21], p < .001) and the relationship between psychological safety and employee creativity (β = .18, 95% CI [.11, .26], p < .001). Because both corresponding direct effects remained significant, the mediation effects were partial.

Conclusion: The findings indicate that inclusive leadership and psychological safety contribute to employee creativity both directly and indirectly by strengthening employees' work engagement, highlighting the importance of supportive leadership, interpersonal safety, and motivational involvement in fostering workplace creativity.

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