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This paper aims to integrate the extant literature on the impact of positive leadership on organisational outcomes within the Australian not-for-profit (NFP) organisations, identifies existing gaps in the literature and proposes a framework capturing feasible pathways for future research on positive leadership in NFP organisations.

This is a systematic review of the existing literature on positive leadership and external/environmental factors and organisational values as applied to Australian NFP organisations mainly based on journal articles.

This paper proposes a plausible conceptual framework postulating how Australian NFP organisations could attain superior performance outcomes when there is a perfect alignment between positive forms of leadership, external/environmental factors and organisational values. We explain the conceptual framework through testable research propositions explaining interrelationships between positive leadership, external/environmental factors, organisational values and organisational performance.

The review focused on two positive forms of leadership (i.e. transformational and servant) and could benefit by including other closely related leadership styles and behaviours (like authentic and ethical leadership). In addition to the positivist paradigm and quantitative approach adopted by this paper, interpretative and critical paradigms and related qualitative approaches may also lend themselves well to exposing pertinent issues and relationships that have not been imagined before in the under-researched NFP sector.

Leaders within NFP organisations need to understand when and how to align positive forms of leadership, external/environmental factors and organisational values to maximise limited resources available to Australian NFP organisations.

This systematic review adds to the limited literature exploring the impact of positive forms of leadership within Australian NFP organisations. The proposed framework offers unique insights into the relationships between positive forms of leadership, external/environmental factors, organisational values and organisational performance.

This paper aims to explore the antecedents and consequences of thriving at work, identifies existing gaps in the literature and proposes a framework, which encapsulates potential pathways for future research on thriving.

This paper follows a rigorous review of the extant literature on thriving mainly based on journal articles published between 2005 and 2020.

The paper proposes a feasible conceptual framework highlighting the antecedents and outcomes of thriving. Specifically, the review illustrates how contextual factors, represented by transformational leadership and organisational virtuousness (OV), act as antecedents of thriving and then proposes potential research direction where thriving is associated with psychological empowerment, psychological capital and innovative work behaviour.

Understanding how and when contextual factors such as transformational leadership and OV promote thriving is important for organisations and leaders who wish to know how and when they can shape resources and organisational features to enable thriving.

This unique review is one of a few studies adding to the growing research on positive psychology at the workplace. The proposed framework and future research directions have the potential to help unpack the unique relationship between work-related contextual factors and thriving.

Recognising the value of positive organisational behaviour at the workplace, this paper aims to provide a major review of the current state of research on positivity, and subsequently proposes new pathways for more theory building relating to important constructs conceptually related to positivity. Following the integration of emerging but disparate research on workplace positivity and related concepts, the paper develops a conceptual framework depicting the relationships amongst authentic leader behaviours, organisational virtuousness, psychological capital, thriving and job performance.

The paper offers a systematic critical review of published studies representing the literature addressing authentic leadership, organisational virtuousness, thriving, psychological capital and job performance. The paper relied on computerised keyword searches in the main business source databases of Emerald, ProQuest, ScienceDirect, EBSCOhost and SpringerLink.

This paper leads to a conceptual framework proposing direct relationships between authentic leadership, psychological capital, organisational virtuousness and job performance. Further, authentic leadership is proposed to potentially nurture organisational virtuousness, psychological capital, employee thriving and job performance, given the theoretical linkages between these conceptually relevant variables related to positivity. Additionally, organisational virtuousness and psychological capital are projected to mediate the relationship between authentic leadership and employee thriving. Finally, organisational virtuousness, psychological capital and employee thriving are designated as mediators of the relationship between authentic leadership and job performance.

This paper proposes a conceptual framework focusing on one form of positive leader behaviour and also assumes specific causal pathways using a positivistic research approach to understanding the leadership–performance relationship. The paper did not examine all possible antecedents of positivity at the workplace.

The proposed conceptual framework should form the basis of many organisational interventions, especially in relation to boosting authentic leadership, organisational virtuousness, psychological capital, employee thriving and job performance. By suggesting the association between authentic leadership, psychological capital and organisational virtuousness, this paper highlights potential benefits from effective leaders’ commitment to enhancing psychological capital and organisational virtuousness and engendering thriving behaviour and job performance.

This novel paper has the potential to stimulate the empirical studies on workplace positivity through the association of authentic leadership, psychological capital, organisational virtuousness and thriving.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the separate and combined effects of transformational leadership behaviour and social processes of leadership on key organisational outcomes within Australian local councils.

A survey research methodology was used to gather quantitative data from employees from nine local councils. Data were analysed using Item clustering analysis for scale construction. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis was employed to test the proposed conceptual framework.

It was found that transformational leadership predicted performance outcomes, collective efficacy/outcomes expectancies and organisational commitment. Social processes of leadership predicted performance outcomes, collective efficacy/outcomes expectancies and organisational citizenship behaviours.

Results indicate that by practising aspects of transformational leadership such as articulating clear standards and expectations for performance and showing recognition to work unit members for specific task or goal achievements, work unit leaders may establish a foundation that later leads to higher performance outcomes. Furthermore, promoting aspects of social processes of leadership such as communication, enhancing adaptability and resolving uncertainties may lead to greater clarification and subsequent higher performance outcomes.

The paper is one of the first to examine the separate and combined effects of transformational leadership behaviour and social processes of leadership on key organisational outcomes in Australian local councils.

This paper aimed to explore the direct and indirect effects of demographic diversity variables on citizenship behaviours, affective commitment, collective efficacy and general productivity.

A self‐report questionnaire was used to gather data from employees in the public sector (local government) of Australia.

Results of the hierarchical regression analyses showed direct and significant relationships between certain demographic diversity variables and several criterion variables. Moving from non‐management to management level was predictive of an increase in organisational citizenship behaviours and affective commitment. Additionally, an increase in tenure within a work unit was predictive of general productivity. Conversely, an increase in organisational tenure was predictive of a decrease in general productivity. Also, an increase in women in a work unit was predictive of a decrease in organisational citizenship behaviours, collective efficacy beliefs and general productivity. Furthermore, an increase in men in a work unit was predictive of a decrease in organisational citizenship behaviours, collective efficacy beliefs and general productivity. Moderated regression analyses indicated that transformational leadership moderated relationships between organisational tenure and organisational citizenship behaviours as well as organisational tenure and general productivity. Finally, transformational leadership moderated relationships between women in work unit and organisational citizenship behaviours, and women in work unit and general productivity.

The authors gathered cross‐sectional data for their research while both of their leadership and performance data were based on participants’ self‐reports. Future research should gather data from multiple sources and employ longitudinal and experimental designs to explore the link between demographic diversity, leadership and organisational outcomes.

Based on the current results, managers need to understand and nurture task‐related demographic diversity (such as gender composition of a workgroup, non‐management vs management level, and tenure in work unit) shown to be positively related to citizenship behaviours, affective commitment and general productivity. Furthermore, organisations should put in place human resource management programs which actively promote transformational leadership in order to lessen or neutralise possible negative effects of demographic diversity on relevant organisational outcomes.

This empirical study adds to the growing research findings regarding the relationship between demographic diversity variables and various organisational outcomes using data from the public sector of Australia.

This paper aims to examine the direct and indirect effects of substitutes for leadership on performance outcomes.

A self‐report questionnaire was distributed to a sample of 177 Australian local council employees. The responses were analysed using ICLUST analysis and hierarchical multiple regression analysis.

The results indicated significant positive effects of some substitutes for leadership on performance outcomes. Furthermore, some substitutes for leadership moderated the effects of transactional leadership behaviours on performance outcomes, whereas another sub‐component of substitutes for leadership moderated the effects of social processes of leadership on performance outcomes. In addition, some substitutes for leadership partially mediated the relationship between transformational leadership and performance outcomes.

The cross‐sectional design of the study reduces the capacity to draw definitive causal inferences.

The current study supports the view that council leaders could have influenced the employees' attitudes, perceptions, and performance by indirectly shaping the environment in which the subordinates worked (i.e. shaping task and organisational characteristics). The study implies the need for leaders in the local councils to understand those substitutes for leadership that mediate the influence of transformational leadership (such as group and work design capacities) and how they can be managed to enhance employee performance outcomes.

This is one of the first Australian studies to comprehensively examine the influence of substitutes for leadership on performance outcomes.

This paper seeks to examine gender‐ and management‐ level differences in perceptions of effective leadership within a framework of new leadership models that focus on the processes of influencing self and others rather than leadership based on hierarchy.

A self‐report questionnaire was distributed to a sample of council employees. The responses were analysed using thematic matrix displays.

Males and non‐management employees (when compared with female and management) perceived effective leadership as that which emphasises fairness, equality and honesty, develops staff, fosters workplace harmony, and is trustworthy. Female employees emphasised communication, decision‐making ability, and supporting the leader as being important to how a work unit could contribute to organizational leadership effectiveness. Employees at the management level underscored vision, supporting the leader, and integrity as being important to how a work unit could contribute to organizational leadership effectiveness. Female and non‐management employees highlighted employee development, contingent reward, communication and vision as being central to how organizational leadership could contribute to the effectiveness of the work unit.

Unlike the literature that differentiates between charismatic and transformational forms of leadership, this paper views these two constructs as both being components of transformational leadership.

Employees’ job engagement is a key driver for organizational success and competitive advantage. Based on Kahn’s engagement theory and social exchange theory, the purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships between job engagement, transformational leadership, high-performance human resource (HR) practices, climate for innovation, and contextual performance.

A questionnaire survey, conducted at two different points in time, was employed to collect data from 394 pairs of Vietnamese university academics and their leaders. Data were analyzed by structural equation modeling (SEM) and multilevel SEM using the Statistical Package for Social Science Version 24 and Mplus Version 7.4.

The findings indicated that transformational leadership and high-performance HR practices were key drivers of employees’ job engagement. A climate for innovation contributed effectively to mediate the effect of transformational leadership on employees’ job engagement. Further, employees’ job engagement was positively and significantly related to contextual performance.

The short time lag between the two data collection phases might limit the ability to reach definite causal conclusions. Future research using a longitudinal design is needed to provide stronger validation for the underlying model.

This study is a rare attempt that investigates the process from which employees’ job engagement is generated and contributes to improve contextual performance in the higher education sector.

This article aims to understand the underlying mechanisms through which transformational leadership influences employee job satisfaction and turnover intentions. Specifically, the study explores the mediation role of employee well-being on the relationships between leadership and both employee job satisfaction and turnover intentions.

Employing a quantitative research method, data were collected from 280 academics and professional staff from an Australian regional university. The Mplus software was used for data analysis.

The results showed that transformational leadership had significant positive impact on employee well-being and job satisfaction while it alleviated employee turnover intentions. Furthermore, employee well-being mediated the effect of transformational leadership on employee job satisfaction and turnover intentions.

The research was cross-sectional, and data were collected from a convenient sample and therefore minimises our ability to generalise the findings to other contexts.

Effective leadership, employee well-being, job satisfaction and employee turnover are of strategic importance in the higher education sector in Australia and internationally. These findings will therefore provide a basis for university policy makers to craft relevant policies that promote effective leader behaviours and enhance employee well-being as they facilitate employee job satisfaction and minimise turnover intentions among higher education sector employees (i.e. academics and professional staff).

Our study provides a unique contribution to knowledge as it explains the mediation effect of employee well-being on the relation between transformational leadership a, job satisfaction and turnover intentions.