How spiritual leadership contributes to followers’ helping behavior

We integrated social information processing theory and the broaden-and-build theory of positive affect to investigate how spiritual leadership affects employees’ helping behavior, thus incorporating both cognitive and affective perspectives. Data were collected from 342 employees of companies operating in three cities in China, who completed scales measuring spiritual leadership, positive affect, and organizational identification, and the 71 immediate supervisors of these employees, who assessed their followers’ helping behavior. The results indicate that spiritual leadership had a significant positive effect on employees’ helping behavior, and that both positive affect and organizational identification mediated this relationship. Our results can be used by managers seeking to promote the effectiveness of spiritual leadership and employees’ helping behavior.