Leader Mindfulness and Employee Performance, and Wellbeing in Pakistani Firms: The Role of Interpersonal Justice, and Employee Stress, and LMX Quality

Purpose: Right mindfulness entails a focus on present-moment events and actions that are directed by ethical principles. How this mindfulness works in an organization to affect employees’ performance in Pakistani corporate environment is still an open question. In this study, we examine the impact of leader mindfulness and employee performance and wellbeing with the mediating role of interpersonal justice, employee stress, and LMX (Leader-member exchange) quality. Employee performance is further measured as in role and extra-role performance. For this, we modified Reb et. al. (2019) framework, to include wellbeing and apply to firms working in the corporate sector of Pakistan.

Design/Methodology/Approach: Data was collected using a close-ended questionnaire from 100 departments/ units working in different businesses, and analyzed using factor analysis, structured equation modeling in Smart PLS.

Findings: The findings of the study show that there is no significant impact of the leader mindfulness on employee in-role, extra-role performance, and employee wellbeing (dependent variables) with interpersonal justice, employee stress, and LMX quality as mediators. But so far as the impact of variables is individually concerned, it’s been observed that employee stress does not have a significant impact on employee in-role performance, extra-role performance and employee wellbeing but employee stress has a significant impact on LMX quality. LMX quality has a significant impact on employee extra-role performance and employee wellbeing but no significant impact of LMX quality on employee in-role performance has been observed. Leader mindfulness doesn’t have any significant impact on employee in-role or extra-role performance, employee wellbeing, employee stress, LMX quality, and interpersonal justice whereas interpersonal justice has a significant impact on employee extra-role performance, employee wellbeing, and LMX quality but not on employee in-role performance.

Practical implications: The findings suggest that since employee stress has an impact on LMX quality, so a leader must lead its team in such a way that they do not feel burdened and stressful for it is going to have a negative impact on the way leader and member communications and ultimately on employee extra-role performance and wellbeing which will hence lower down the productivity of the organization. Interpersonal justice also has a significant impact on employee wellbeing and extra-role performance, so it must be made sure that employees are treated in a fair way, so they will feel satisfied and work effectively and efficiently.

Originality/Value: This is the first study that measured the effect of leader mindfulness on employee performance in Pakistan.