The influence of autonomy and supportive leadership on employee vitality

Most public management studies focus on passive employee outcomes such as job satisfaction and commitment. However, there is much less known about active employee outcomes. Therefore, this study focuses on active employee outcomes within the public sector: employee vitality. Using self-determination theory (SDT), which also has received relatively limited attention in public management, this study investigated two vitality-fostering aspects: autonomy and supportive leadership. According to SDT, situations that support autonomy will enhance a person’s enjoyment of activities and the autonomous self-regulation of behavior. Furthermore, leaders who are supportive show concern for their subordinates and their feelings and enable the intrinsic motivation of their employees. Through their communication and information sharing, supportive leaders increase feelings of self-efficacy and increase the feeling that people are at the origin of their actions. It is hypothesized that employees’ vitality is positively influenced when they have autonomy and have a leader with a supportive leadership style. This was investigated using a multi-method design: a survey amongst 1.502 healthcare sector employees and an experiment using 102 students from a Dutch university. By using a multimethod design, this study answers to calls for 1) more use of multi-method designs and 2) more use of experiments in the public sector. This increases the usable knowledge for public professionals. Results show that that a) autonomy positively influences employee vitality, b) supportive leadership positively influences employee vitality and c) autonomy and supportive leadership do not reinforce their effects on vitality, contrary to expectation. Implications for management scholars and practitioners are discussed.