Time after Time: A daily diary examination of leadership’s sequential impact on flow experiences

We examine the nexus of leadership and flow through the lens of two inherently positive psychological leadership approaches. In so doing, we examine how leaders can craft conditions to make work more conducive to followers’ flow, and the beneficial effects this has on well-being and performance. Data were collected from 40 employees who completed an initial survey and subsequent daily surveys over two weeks (273 data points). Results from hierarchical linear modeling (level-1 days; level-2 persons) suggest that transformational leaders and leader-member exchange (LMX) relationships impact employees’ work characteristics, subsequently impacting daily flow. In turn, followers’ daily flow predicted daily psychological well-being and performance on subsequent days, further evidencing the downstream importance of flow-facilitative leader behaviors. Both transformational leadership and LMX were also found to predict psychological well-being through leaders’ impact on flow preconditions and flow itself in a full multi-stage mediation model.