For the past decade, there has been a growing interest in responsible leadership, as a way to answer to the social, environmental, and political scandals as well as to make the stakeholders trust their organizations and leaders (Carroll & Shabana, 2010; Friedland & Jain, 2022). Responsible leadership (RL) has been defined as “a relational and ethical phenomenon that occurs in social processes of interaction with those who affect or are affected by leadership and have a stake in the purpose and vision of the leadership relationship” (Maak & Pless, 2006, p. 103). This means that a responsible leader conceivably shifts the way organizations perceive and are accountable for their stakeholders, and bring change in a societal level, while maintaining the achievement of economic goals. Despite the interest in the topic, there is a lack of research regarding the impact of RL on an individual level of analysis. Taking this into account, this study focuses in understand the impact of RL on behaviors and attitudes of the main stakeholder, the employees (Haque et al., 2018, 2021a; Miska & Mendenhall, 2018; Voetglin et al., 2012, 2020). Previous research has identified a positive and significant relationship between RL and individual performance (IP; e.g., Lin et al., 2020), affective commitment (AC; e.g., Afsar et al., 2020; Haque et al., 2018, 2021a) and individual creativity (IC; e.g., Castro-González et al., 2019). However, to our knowledge, studies that incorporated these four constructs on the same model are inexistent, contributing for the originality of this research. To test the proposed research model, a cross-sectional correlational quantitative study based on an electronic survey to workers was done (n=284). To control for common method bias, the Harman single-factor and marker variable techniques were used (Podsakoff et al., 2003). The results from multiple regression analysis indicated a significant relationship between RL and IP. Furthermore, the indirect effect of AC on the relationship between RL and IP is significant, indicating that RL indirectly influences IP through the promotion of AC. However, the indirect effect of IC on the relationship between RL and IP is not significant, indicating that in this sample RL does not indirectly influence IP by increasing IC at work. As for the third indirect effect, referring to the sequential effect of AC and IC in the relationship between RL and IP, it was significant. This indicates that RL contributes to strengthening the subordinates’ AC to the organization, which increases their IC at work, which, in turn, reinforces their IP. The direct effect of RL on IP is no longer significant when the mediators are present, so there is a full mediation effect. The results obtained are convergent with the results found by previous literature regarding the direct effects between RL and both IP and AC. However, contrary to expectations, the results indicate that RL does not directly affect IC, making the mediating effect not possible (cf. Castro-González et al., 2019). More research is needed to better understand this issue. The results also indicate that the relationship between RL and IP can be sequentially explained by both AC and IC. Despite the previous literature confirming these direct effects, the present study adds to literature by analyzing the constructs’ sequential effects. The implications for practice and theory will be discussed.

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Responsible leadership,Affective commitment,Individual creativity,Individual performance