The effect of emotional leadership on the organizational citizenship behavior for the environment of employees from the millennial generation

Abstract

As the main force in the workplace, millennial employees exert significant influence in addressing environmental problems. Based on Self-Determination Theory, this study examines the impact of emotional leadership on the Organizational Citizenship Behavior for the Environment (OCBE) of millennial employees, as well as the roles of intrinsic motivation and perceived positive team climate in this relationship.​Bootstrap analysis of data from 357 Chinese millennial employees reveals three key findings. First, emotional leadership is significantly positively associated with millennial employees’ OCBE. Second, intrinsic motivation mediates this relationship. Finally, perceived positive team climate strengthens the indirect effect of emotional leadership on OCBE through intrinsic motivation. These findings highlight the motivational mechanism and boundary conditions underlying the effect of emotional leadership on millennial employees’ OCBE.

Introduction

As the global economy accelerates, the detrimental effects of environmental pollution have become increasingly evident. Enterprises, as key players in economic activities, are expected to assume greater social and environmental responsibility. The success of corporate environmental initiatives is not solely dependent on regulatory compliance; it also hinges on the proactive engagement of employees [1]. Organizational citizenship behavior for the environment (OCBE) refers to environmentally friendly behaviors that employees voluntarily exhibit, without being directly rewarded or required by the organization, aimed at protecting the environment [2, 3]. It includes a range of actions, such as preventing pollution, advancing green practices and technologies, and motivating others to engage in environmental initiatives [4]. The question of how to motivate employees to adopt OCBE remains a central theoretical and practical challenge in organizational sustainability research [5, 6].

Millennials have become the predominant demographic group in the workforce. However, some research suggests that this cohort is less proactive in adopting behaviors that promote environmental sustainability and energy efficiency than previous generations [7–9]. The millennial generation is often associated with higher levels of narcissism and self-esteem [10] and has developed distinct work values and attitudes [11, 12]. While these characteristics significantly influence millennials’ job performance [13, 14], few studies have examined their effect on OCBE.

The influence of leadership on employee behavior is well-documented [15, 16]. However, research on the relationship between specific leadership styles and OCBE in relation to millennial employees’ characteristics remains insufficient. Specific leadership styles have been identified as key antecedents to OCBE [17–19]. For millennial employees, traditional leadership may not suffice, given their desire for recognition, emphasis on emotional experiences, and pursuit of egalitarian interactions [20]. Since millennials’ experiences of egalitarianism at work influence their OCBE [21], it is imperative to explore leadership styles that resonate with their needs. Moreover, they are particularly susceptible to stress and burnout [22], which can lead to emotional volatility [23] and increase vulnerability to emotional contagion [24]. Therefore, emotional leadership—characterized by positive emotional interactions and open dialogue—can foster positive emotions among employees and improve their job performance [25], making it a critical factor in shaping millennial employees’ behaviors.

Does emotional leadership only influence millennial employee behavior through an emotional pathway? The mediating mechanisms remain unclear. Leadership typically affects employees via a motivational pathway [26]. According to Self-Determination Theory, fulfilling employees’ basic psychological needs can boost their intrinsic motivation, leading to higher performance [27]. Leaders characterized by emotional leadership excel at regulating employees’ emotions, fostering work enthusiasm and strengthening organizational commitment among subordinates [28]. Additionally, they provide employees with altruistic care and resource support, allow them to arrange work schedules, and enhance their confidence, ultimately improving subordinates’ work autonomy, competence, and relatedness [29, 30]. Such nurtured intrinsic motivation increases employees’ propensity to engage in OCBE [31]. This is particularly relevant for millennial employees, who possess a strong achievement orientation and self-direction—making them more responsive to intrinsic motivation [32, 33]. With intrinsic motivation ignited, millennials are more likely to contribute to the organization’s environmental objectives and engage in OCBE [34, 35]. Consequently, emotional leadership can intrinsically motivate millennial employees, fostering their OCBE.

In addition, the moderating role of individual-level factors has not been sufficiently explored. Specifically, research has underexplored the moderating role of perceived team climate in the emotional leadership-OCBE relationship. Employees’ perceptions serve as more proximate predictors of behavior than the objective environment itself [36, 37]. Moreover, individuals' assessments and perceptions of the same environmental characteristics are likely to differ from those of others. Based on the research by Li et al. [38], we conceptualize perceived team climate as a construct at the individual level. Perceived team climate is defined as an individual’s subjective interpretation of the team environment [39]. Perceived positive team climate makes employees feel relaxed and happy, fostering enthusiasm and hope for the team [40]. It can exert significant effects on job satisfaction, work engagement, and performance [41, 42], and moderate the effect of leadership on employee attitudes and behaviors [43]. Therefore, it may be a key boundary condition shaping the efficacy of emotional leadership in promoting OCBE through intrinsic motivation among millennial employees.

Based on Self-Determination Theory, this study explores the mechanism underlying the influence of emotional leadership on millennial employees’ OCBE and examines the mediating role of intrinsic motivation and the moderating role of perceived positive team climate. This study contributes to the literature in three ways. First, it finds that emotional leadership affects millennial employees’ OCBE, thereby broadening the nomological network of OCBE antecedents. Research has shown that non-green-specific leadership styles can influence employees’ OCBE. Han et al. confirmed the effectiveness of responsible leadership in promoting OCBE [44], while Ullah et al. extended this finding to a broader spectrum of leadership styles—including responsible, inclusive, authentic, and supportive leadership styles [45]. This study provides new avenues for explaining the antecedents of OCBE. Although emotional leadership is not a green-specific concept, it can activate employees’ discretionary engagement to organizational environmental goals. Second, drawing on Self-Determination Theory, the study demonstrates that emotional leadership affects OCBE by fostering intrinsic motivation, thereby clarifying the mechanism underlying the impact of emotional leadership in this context. Third, perceived positive team climate promotes the relationship between emotional leadership and intrinsic motivation, as well as the mediating effect of emotional leadership on OCBE via intrinsic motivation. These findings not only further extend the understanding of the moderating role of perceived team climate in the relationship between leadership behavior and employees’ work behaviors but also deepen our knowledge of the effects of emotional leadership in specific contexts.

Literature review and hypotheses

The millennial generation is becoming the core of the labor force [46]. They are gradually shifting from “workplace backbone” to “senior management”. By 2030, millennials are expected to account for 75% of the global workforce [47]. Millennials are characterized by a strong emphasis on feelings and the pursuit of need satisfaction [47]. They are frequently associated with a propensity for job-hopping, leading to a higher job turnover rate than that of previous generations [48]. Separately, they show a preference for collaborative work environments and value interpersonal relationships [49]. These characteristics underscore the necessity to cultivate an employee-centric work culture, alongside adopting leadership approaches that align with their distinctive preferences [47].

Emotional leadership and millennial employees’ OCBE

Research indicates that employees’ OCBE is influenced by multiple factors at various levels, including the individual level (e.g., environmental awareness and concern [50]) and the organizational level (e.g., organizational support [51], organizational environmental practices [52]). In addition, leadership, particularly the leadership of direct supervisors, plays a critical role [53, 54]. Leaders skilled in motivating their subordinates can effectively stimulate employees’ willingness to engage in extra-role environmental behaviors [55]. Nevertheless, research on this effect among millennial employees is relatively scarce. These employees tend to value emotional experiences and interpersonal relationships at work, prefer equal relationships, and desire recognition [13, 14]. They also exhibit strong mood swings and are easily influenced by their environment [23].

Previous studies have conflated emotional leadership with emotional intelligence [56], but Humphrey views emotional leadership as a multifaceted and multidimensional leadership process [57]. It refers to leaders who possess high levels of emotional intelligence, can recognize the emotional states and changes of subordinates, and have the ability to regulate and manage these emotional states, thereby influencing the work attitudes and behaviors of subordinates [28]. Specifically, this concept’s development follows the trajectory of “empathy—emotional intelligence (EQ)—emotional recognition—emotional expression—emotional regulation—leadership emotional ability—leadership emotional contagion—emotional leadership” [58]. In essence, it is a situational leadership style that combines a leader’s emotional capabilities, emotional contagion, and the management of members’ emotions [58]. Ultimately, it enhances organizational members’ work effectiveness and improves organizational performance [59], thereby preventing or reducing negative emotions among employees and the adverse effects of their negative emotions [60]. Studies have examined the effects of emotional leadership on work engagement, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment [61, 62].

Millennial employees are focused on self-feelings and prefer to obtain positive emotional experiences through interpersonal collaboration [47, 63]. Individuals with high emotional intelligence are skilled at recognizing and managing both their own emotions and those of others [64, 65], and they can also motivate others through emotional contagion and other ways [25]. Notably, managers with high emotional leadership can help their subordinates regulate emotions and provide kindness, support, and trust [66, 67], while the inspiration and psychological encouragement provided by leaders can boost the performance of millennial employees [66]. Moreover, leaders’ emotional labor affects the proactive innovation behavior of other colleagues [68], and their positive emotions are conducive to improving employees’ OCBE [69]. In summary, leaders with high emotional leadership may enhance millennial employees’ OCBE by influencing and managing their emotions, as well as providing caring support. This study proposes the following hypothesis.

• Hypothesis 1 (H1): Emotional leadership has a significant positive effect on millennial employees’ OCBE.

The mediating role of intrinsic motivation

Motivation is the main driving factor for individuals to take actions and reach their goals [70], which mainly includes intrinsic and extrinsic motivation [27]. Intrinsic motivation refers to an individual’s willingness to work because of an interest in the work itself, and it is based on humans’ inherent tendency to be proactive [27]. Self-Determination Theory posits that intrinsic motivation is nurtured when the work environment addresses their fundamental psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness [27]. Within work environments, leadership emerges as a pivotal environmental factor that influences the intrinsic motivation of employees [71]. Specifically, both transformational and ethical leadership exert a positive influence on employees’ intrinsic motivation through the fulfillment of their fundamental psychological needs [72, 73].

The following behaviors are commonly associated with emotional leadership: emotionally oriented task setting, relationship management, morale-boosting, the provision of caring and support, open communication, and tactful interaction [59]. Emotional leadership can effectively meet the fundamental psychological needs by empowering employees to have control over their work schedules, thus satisfying the need for autonomy [28, 59]; by bolstering their self-confidence and morale to undertake challenging tasks, addressing the need for competence [29], and by offering altruistic care and robust emotional and informational support, fulfilling the need for relatedness [74]. Satisfying these three needs, in turn, stimulates employees’ intrinsic motivation [75]. Notably, millennial employees value emotional experiences and interpersonal relationships at work, and they prefer equal hierarchical relationships and desire recognition. Given their heightened psychological sensitivity, leaders who use motivational language, understand their situation, and provide support can effectively reduce their emotional exhaustion; notably, empathetic leadership—another leadership style that focuses on and manages subordinates’ emotions— is positively correlated with employee job satisfaction [47]. Consequently, emotional leadership is an effective means of increasing their intrinsic motivation.

Researchers have confirmed that organizational citizenship behavior is more closely linked to intrinsic motivation than extrinsic motivation [76], and OCBE is a specific form of Organizational Citizenship Behavior toward the environment [77, 78]. Intrinsic motivation also has a stronger influence on pro-environmental behavior than extrinsic motivation [79]. Specifically, the fulfillment of autonomy needs enables employees to engage in voluntary and spontaneous actions [80]. Satisfaction of competence needs allows employees to believe they possess the capability to take meaningful actions and exert positive influence [80]. Meanwhile, fulfillment of relatedness fosters a strong sense of organizational identity. Individuals extend their sense of identity to the groups and environments they belong to, thereby developing a sense of stewardship and responsibility toward the organizational environment. Therefore, these psychological state driven by intrinsic motivation enables employees to go beyond mere role-related responsibilities, voluntarily devote extra efforts to collective environmental interests, and ultimately promote the emergence and sustainability of OCBE.

Morever, millennial employees exhibit relatively stronger intrinsic motivation compared to other generations, and as such, effectively stimulating their intrinsic motivation is conducive to enhancing their creativity, initiative, and effortful behavior [81]. OCBE, as a creative and proactive behavior, is particularly driven by intrinsic motivations [82]. Previous studies have verified the significant predictive effect of intrinsic motivation on pro-environmental behavior [83] and green behavior [84], and other environmentally friendly behaviors [85]. Therefore, intrinsic motivation can significantly improve millennial employees’ OCBE. In line with the preceding analysis, this study proposes the following hypothesis.

• Hypothesis 2 (H2): Intrinsic motivation mediates the relationship between emotional leadership and millennial employees’ OCBE.

The moderating role of perceived positive team climate

Previous research has shown that employees’ perceptions of their work determine the extent to which leadership behavior exerts influence [43]. Given that the team constitutes the most proximal and salient contextual layer for employees’ daily work interactions—where leadership behaviors are most directly enacted and perceived—team-level climate perceptions are more closely intertwined with the translation of leadership influence than organizational-level or department-level climate perceptions. Therefore, this study focuses on perceived team climate, which denotes an individual’s subjective perception of the team environment [39]. As a cognitive construct at the individual level, it affects the motivation, attitude, and values of employees in the organization [43, 86]. Specifically, perceived negative team climate may result in detrimental outcomes such as internal conflict and burnout, which can impede organizational development [87, 88]. Conversely, when employees perceive a positive team climate characterized by mutual encouragement and tolerance, it enhances their motivation and enthusiasm, thereby improving work performance [86]. Perceived positive team climate is associated with positive individual emotions [89], which facilitate the expansion of an individual’s attention and cognitive range [90], enhance trust in others [91], and strengthen reciprocity effects [86].Therefore, when perceived team climate is more positive, employees are more likely to perceive the benefits of emotional leadership and to trust the leader more, thereby increasing their susceptibility to emotional leadership in enhancing their intrinsic motivation. This aligns with findings in related leadership research. When subordinates perceive a high level of organizational support and care, the positive correlation between spiritual leadership and workplace spirituality becomes stronger, and workplace spirituality leads to an increase in intrinsic motivation and enthusiasm for environmental protection [92]. Similarly, a favorable organizational climate amplifies the relationship between ethical leadership and employee work commitment [93], which is a powerful driver of intrinsic motivation [94]. Notably, millennials desire social interaction, engagement, and co-creation of experiences [95, 96], making them more responsive to positive team climates; this suggests their intrinsic motivation may be particularly sensitive to the interplay of emotional leadership and perceived positive team climate. Therefore, perceived positive team climate has a strengthening moderating effect on the relationship between emotional leadership and intrinsic motivation, and this study proposes the following hypothesis.

• Hypothesis 3 (H3): Perceived positive team climate moderates the relationship between emotional leadership and intrinsic motivation such that the relationship is stronger when perceived positive team climate is higher.

Moderated mediation effect

Self-Determination Theory posits that these three needs—autonomy, competence, and relatedness—are universal psychological nutrients critical for fostering intrinsic motivation, and when social contexts support these fundamental needs, individuals are more likely to experience sustained intrinsic motivation. Integrating Hypothesis 2 and Hypothesis 3, emotional leadership satisfies employees’ autonomy, competence, and relatedness needs, thereby stimulating intrinsic motivation, which in turn enhances their OCBE. Perceived positive team climate increases employees’ recognition of emotional leadership’s benefits, strengthens their trust in such leaders, and heightens their responsiveness to emotional leadership—ultimately amplifying the effect of emotional leadership on intrinsic motivation. This amplified effect, in turn, strengthens the indirect impact of emotional leadership on OCBE through intrinsic motivation. Supporting this logic, scholars have validated that positive team climate reinforces the positive relationship between servant leadership and work engagement [97]. Additionally, when positive communication climates are higher, affective commitment drives more proactive employee behavior by boosting intrinsic motivation [94]. Thus, this study further proposes that perceived positive team climate positively moderates the mediating role of intrinsic motivation in the relationship between emotional leadership and millennial employees’ OCBE—specifically, by strengthening the link between emotional leadership and intrinsic motivation. In summary, this study advances the following hypothesis.

• Hypothesis 4 (H4): Perceived positive team climate positively moderates the mediating effect of intrinsic motivation on the relationship between emotional leadership and millennial employees’ OCBE, such that the indirect effect of emotional leadership on OCBE via intrinsic motivation is stronger when perceived positive team climate is higher.

Methods

Sample and data collection

In this study, 400 questionnaires were distributed to millennial employees on-site at a large coal machinery manufacturing enterprise located in Beijing, China. The coal machinery manufacturing industry is currently undergoing a critical phase of green transformation. Environmental protection practices in such enterprises often face significant challenges. The selected sample enterprise is large in scale, with numerous subsidiaries, branches, and divisions—factors that lead to significant differences in the intensity and style of emotional leadership behaviors. This enhances the generalizability of the findings across different leadership scenarios. At the same time, the company’s employees come from different regions of China. This individual-level heterogeneity aligns closely with the characteristics of millennials nationwide. This reduces sample limitations caused by regional uniformity.

Respondents are employees born between 1980 and 1999 who have signed a formal employment contract with the company. A multi-stage sampling strategy was employed.The human resources department provided a stratified sampling frame of all eligible employees across subsidiaries and departments. Stratified sampling was then used, with simple random sampling applied within each stratum to select 35–40 employees per department. This selection process resulted in an initial sample size of 400.

Data collection was conducted via on-site paper-based questionnaires by a trained three-member research team. During the process, researchers verbally explained the research objectives, confidentiality protocols, and principles of voluntary participation. Respondents were given 15 min to complete the questionnaires independently, and researchers were available to clarify ambiguous items without biasing respondents’ answers. Questionnaires were collected immediately to ensure anonymity.

A total of 382 questionnaires were returned. After excluding invalid responses—specifically, questionnaires that (1) selected the same option for 90% or more of the items, (2) had incomplete responses (with less than 90% of items answered), or (3) had scores exceeding 3 standard deviations (based on the distribution of all respondents’ scores) on any given item—357 valid questionnaires were finally obtained.

For the sample demographics, the following characteristics were observed. Male employees accounted for 70.9%, while female employees accounted for 29.1%. Respondents were aged 25–45 years, with 15.4% in the 26–30 years group, 56.6% in the 31–35 years group, 19.6% in the 36–40 years group, and 6.7% in the 41–45 years group. 49.0% of respondents were unmarried, 50.8% were married, and 0.2% were divorced. 32.5% had education at or below junior high school, 44.0% had completed senior high school/secondary vocational school, 19.0% held a junior college degree, 3.1% held a Bachelor’s degree, and 1.4% held a Master’s degree or above.

This demographic distribution aligns with the characteristics of the coal machinery manufacturing industry (e.g., higher male representation) and the millennial workforce. And the sample accurately reflects the educational background of frontline workers in this industry. 76.5% of participants hold a high school diploma or lower, which aligns closely with the national figure of 74.34% for China’s manufacturing sector in 2023 from the CSMAR database.

Frequency of interaction: 5.6% “almost never”, 21.8% “occasionally”, 32.8% “moderately”, 25.2% “frequently”, and 14.6% “always”.

Duration of working with leaders: 69.2% reported 3 years or less, 23.5% reported 4–6 years, 3.4% reported 7–9 years, 2.8% reported 10–12 years, and 1.1% reported 13 years or more.

Measures

This study employed widely used scales with high levels of reliability and validity; all items used 5-point Likert scales, with 1–5 representing “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree” respectively. Emotional leadership was measured using Jin’s revised Emotional Competence Scale [98], with 7 items. Intrinsic motivation was measured using the intrinsic motivation dimension of the Situational Motivation Scale developed by Deci and Ryan [27], with 4 items. Perceived positive team climate was measured using a scale developed by Liu, Sun, & Haertel [99], with 4 items. OCBE was measured using a single-dimensional scale developed by Erdogan et al. [100], with 5 items.

Control variables included two categories: (1) individual demographic variables, such as gender, age, marital status, and education level; and (2) work-related variables, namely the duration of working with the leader and the frequency of interaction with the leader.

Results

Reliability and validity analysis

We used SPSS 26.0 to test the reliability. The Cronbach’s alpha values of all variables exceeded 0.800, indicating the scales have good reliability. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was conducted using Mplus 7.0 to test the discriminant validity among the variables. As shown in Table 1, all items fall into their respective variables. In Table 2, all factor loadings are greater than 0.500, all AVE values exceed 0.500, and all CR values are above 0.800. These satisfy the requirements established by Fornell and Larcker [101]. In Table 3, the HTMT coefficients between variables were below 0.850 [102]. The test results all meet the cutoff values for these parameters, indicating that each variable has good validity.

Table 1.

Validity and reliability analysis

Variables	Items	Factor loadings	Cronbach’s alpha	CR	AVE
Emotional leadership	EL1	0.698	0.898	0.899	0.560
	EL2	0.781
	EL3	0.684
	EL4	0.783
	EL5	0.787
	EL6	0.741
	EL7	0.757
Intrinsic motivation	IM1	0.804	0.918	0.921	0.744
	IM2	0.877
	IM3	0.891
	IM4	0.875
OCBE	OCBE1	0.716	0.824	0.831	0.500
	OCBE2	0.791
	OCBE3	0.676
	OCBE4	0.791
	OCBE5	0.528
Perceived positive team climate	PPTC1	0.794	0.872	0.872	0.631
	PPTC2	0.822
	PPTC3	0.755
	PPTC4	0.805

N = 357; EL is emotional leadership, IM is intrinsic motivation, OCBE is organizational citizenship behavior for the environment, and PPTC is perceived positive team climate

Table 2.

Fornell–Larcker criteria

	EL	IM	OCBE	PPTC
EL	0.748
IM	0.492	0.863
OCBE	0.305	0.339	0.707
PPTC	0.697	0.689	0.190	0.794

EL is emotional leadership, IM is intrinsic motivation, OCBE is organizational citizenship behavior for the environment, and PPTC is perceived positive team climate

Table 3.

HTMT ratio

EL	EL	IM	OCBE	PPTC
IM	0.488
OCBE	0.347	0.367
PPTC	0.688	0.695	0.218

EL is emotional leadership, IM is intrinsic motivation, OCBE is organizational citizenship behavior for the environment, and PPTC is perceived positive team climate

We compared the model fit of all three-factor models with that of the four-factor model, and as shown in Table 4, all fit indices of the four-factor model met the discriminant criteria ( χ²/df = 2.161, RMSEA = 0.057, SRMR = 0.048, TLI = 0.947, CFI = 0.954 ), and significantly outperformed all three-factor models, thus indicating that the four variables exhibited good discriminant validity.

Table 4.

Results of the confirmatory factor analysis of the variables

Model	Factor	χ2	df	χ2/df	RMSEA	SRMR	TLI	CFI
Four-factor	EL、IM、PPTC、OCBE	354.396	164	2.161	0.057	0.048	0.947	0.954
Three-factor	EL+PPTC、IM、OCBE	702.371	167	4.206	0.095	0.073	0.854	0.872
Three-factor	EL、IM+PPTC、OCBE	739.127	167	4.426	0.098	0.078	0.844	0.863
Three-factor	EL、IM+OCBE、PPTC	886.460	167	5.308	0.110	0.098	0.804	0.827
Three-factor	EL+OCBE、IM、PPTC	899.949	167	5.389	0.111	0.099	0.800	0.824
Three-factor	EL、IM、PPTC+OCBE	936.902	167	5.610	0.114	0.103	0.790	0.815
Three-factor	EL + IM、PPTC、OCBE	1172.954	167	7.024	0.130	0.091	0.725	0.759

N = 357; EL is emotional leadership, IM is intrinsic motivation, OCBE is organizational citizenship behavior for the environment, and PPTC is perceived positive team climate; + denotes factors combination

Common method bias test

To assess common method bias (CMB), a potential issue when data are collected via self-reported questionnaires, we used a single-factor latent variable approach (i.e., adding one common method factor to the original four-factor model). The fit indices of this modified model (four factors + one common method factor) were as follows: χ² (df = 163) = 263.141, CFI = 0.968, TLI = 0.962, RMSEA = 0.041, and SRMR = 0.044. We then compared these indices with those of the original four-factor model (presented in Table 4: χ²/df = 2.161, CFI = 0.954, TLI = 0.947, RMSEA = 0.057, SRMR = 0.048). Consistent with the criteria proposed by Podsakoff et al. (2003), the reductions in RMSEA (from 0.057 to 0.041, Δ = 0.016) and SRMR (from 0.048 to 0.044, Δ = 0.004) were both less than 0.05, while the increases in CFI (from 0.954 to 0.968, Δ = 0.014) and TLI (from 0.947 to 0.962, Δ = 0.015) were both below 0.10. These results indicate that no severe common method bias was present in the current study.

Correlation analysis

We used SPSS 26.0 to conduct correlation analysis. The descriptive statistics were as follows. Emotional leadership (M = 3.551, SD = 0.693), intrinsic motivation (M = 3.434, SD = 0.782), perceived positive team climate (M = 3.318, SD = 0.783), and OCBE (M = 4.061, SD = 0.486). As shown in Table 5, emotional leadership was significantly and positively correlated with intrinsic motivation (r = 0.442, p < 0.01) and with OCBE (r = 0.297, p < 0.01). Intrinsic motivation was significantly and positively correlated with OCBE (r = 0.319, p < 0.01). This initially confirms the hypotheses.

Table 5.

Correlation coefficients of the study variables

Variables	M	SD	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
1. Gender	1.290	0.455
2. Age	2.230	0.849	-0.063
3. Marital status	1.510	0.506	-0.126*	0.474***
4. Education	1.970	0.875	-0.126*	-0.066	0.150**
5. Duration	1.430	0.785	-0.015	0.295***	0.304***	0.073
6. Interaction	3.210	1.112	-0.006	0.020	0.010	-0.083	0.078
7. Emotional leadership	3.551	0.693	-0.080	-0.061	-0.059	0.112*	-0.087	0.291***
8. Intrinsic motivation	3.434	0.782	-0.052	0.038	0.051	0.139**	0.073	0.205***	0.442***
9. Perceived positive team climate	3.318	0.783	-0.046	-0.061	-0.054	0.137**	-0.025	0.231***	0.611***	0.623***
10. OCBE	4.061	0.486	0.008	0.009	0.007	0.076	0.041	0.153**	0.297***	0.319***	0.185***

N = 357; * Significant correlation at the 0.05 level (bilateral), ** Significant correlation at the 0.01 level (bilateral), *** Significant correlation at the 0.001 level (bilateral)

Hypothesis testing

To test the hypotheses, we used Hayes’ [103] Process Macro for SPSS 26.0 (Model 7) to conduct 5,000 bootstrap resamples. Detailed results are presented in Tables 6, 7, 8 and 9.

Table 6.

Bootstrap analysis table

Control variables	Intrinsic motivation			OCBE
	b	Se	p	b	Se	p
Gender	-0.018	0.071	0.790	0.042	0.054	0.440
Age	0.045	0.044	0.299	0.005	0.033	0.881
Marital status	0.086	0.248	0.248	-0.008	0.057	0.887
Education	0.042	0.038	0.268	0.018	0.029	0.533
Duration	0.058	0.043	0.186	0.022	0.033	0.513
Interaction	0.029	0.030	0.340	0.023	0.023	0.318
Emotional leadership	0.146	0.060	0.016	0.131	0.041	0.001
Intrinsic motivation				0.137	0.035	0.000
Perceived positive team climate	0.558	0.051	0.000
Emotional leadership * Perceived positive team climate	0.178	0.047	0.000
R2	0.432			0.139
F	29.592***			6.991***

Note: N = 357, *** p < 0.001, two-sided test

Table 7.

Direct-indirect effects table

Path	Effect	SE	LLCI	ULCI	Hypothesis
EL→OCBE	0.131	0.041	0.051	0.211	H1
EL→IM→OCBE	0.020	0.011	0.003	0.044	H2

LLCI refers to the lower limit of the confidence interval, and ULCI refers to the upper limit of the confidence interval

Table 8.

The moderating effect of perceived positive team climate

Perceived Positive Team Climate	Effect	SE	LLCI	ULCI
Low(-0.783)	0.007	0.065	-0.121	0.134
Medium(0.000)	0.146	0.060	0.028	0.265
High(+ 0.783 )	0.286	0.076	0.136	0.436

Low perceived positive team climate is represented by -SD (standard deviation), and a high perceived positive team climate is represented by + SD. LLCI refers to the lower limit of the confidence interval, and ULCI refers to the upper limit of the confidence interval

Table 9.

Moderated mediation effect test table

Perceived Positive Team Climate	Effect	SE	LLCI	ULCI	Hypothesis
Low(-0.783)	0.001	0.012	-0.020	0.026	H4
Medium(0.000)	0.020	0.011	0.003	0.044
High(+ 0.783 )	0.039	0.016	0.014	0.076

	Index	SE	LLCI	ULCI
PTM	0.025	0.011	0.005	0.048

Low perceived positive team climate is represented by -SD (standard deviation), and a high perceived positive team climate is represented by + SD. LLCI refers to the lower limit of the confidence interval, and ULCI refers to the upper limit of the confidence interval

Main effect test

After controlling for demographic variables, emotional leadership had a significant positive effect on millennial employees’ OCBE (b = 0.131, Se = 0.041, p < 0.01, LLCI = 0.051, ULCI = 0.211). This confirms H1.

Mediating effect test

After controlling for covariate variables, emotional leadership had a significant positive effect on millennial employees’ intrinsic motivation (b = 0.146, Se = 0.060, p < 0.05). Intrinsic motivation positively predicted millennial employees’ OCBE (b = 0.137, Se = 0.035, p < 0.001). Notably, the direct effect of emotional leadership on OCBE remained significant after controlling for intrinsic motivation (b = 0.131, Se = 0.041, p < 0.01). Thus, intrinsic motivation plays a partially mediating role in the relationship between emotional leadership and OCBE (b = 0.020, Se = 0.011, 95% CI [0.003, 0.044]). This confirms H2.

Moderating effect test

The interaction term between emotional leadership and perceived positive team climate had a significant positive effect on the intrinsic motivation (b = 0.178, Se = 0.047, p < 0.001). This finding indicated that perceived positive team climate can moderate the relationship between emotional leadership and intrinsic motivation. Simple slope analysis was used to analyze the moderating effect of perceived positive team climate. The mean of perceived positive team climate was identified as the medium group, and the mean value of perceived positive team climate plus or minus one standard deviation was used to identify the high and low subgroups. The effect of emotional leadership on the intrinsic motivation was examined in three subgroups, and the results are shown in Table 8; Fig. 1. In both the medium and high perceived positive team climate subgroups, emotional leadership had positive effects on the intrinsic motivation (b = 0.146, 95%CI = [0.028, 0.265], b = 0.286, CI = [0.136, 0.436]). However, in the low perceived positive team climate subgroup, the effect of emotional leadership on intrinsic motivation was not significant (b = 0.007, 95%CI = [-0.121, 0.134]). Therefore, this confirms that as the level of perceived positive team climate increases, the positive effect of emotional leadership on intrinsic motivation gradually increases, indicating that perceived positive team climate positively moderates the relationship between emotional leadership and intrinsic motivation. Accordingly, this confirms H3.

Fig. 1.

The moderating role of perceived positive team climate in the relationship between emotional leadership and intrinsic motivation

Moderated mediation test

The results showed that when the level of perceived positive team climate was low, the effect of emotional leadership on the OCBE via intrinsic motivation was not significant (b = 0.001, 95%CI = [-0.020, 0.026]), while the effects were significant when the level of perceived positive team climate was middle level (b = 0.020, 95%CI = [0.003, 0.044]) and high level (b = 0.039, 95%CI = [0.014, 0.076]). These findings indicated that the effect of emotional leadership on the OCBE via intrinsic motivation gradually increases as the level of perceived positive team climate increases, i.e., perceived positive team climate positively moderates the mediating effect of intrinsic motivation on the relationship between emotional leadership and OCBE. Accordingly, this confirms H4.

The pathways by which emotional leadership impacts millennial employees’ OCBE are shown in Fig. 2.

Fig. 2.

Research model and influence coefficients

Discussion and conclusion

Results

Based on Self-Determination Theory, this study investigates the mechanisms and boundary conditions associated with the effects of emotional leadership on millennial employees’ OCBE. Bootstrap analysis was conducted on questionnaire data collected from 357 millennial employees from a coal machinery manufacturing enterprise in China. The results revealed that emotional leadership effectively promotes millennial employees’ OCBE; Intrinsic motivation mediates the relationship between emotional leadership and millennial employees’ OCBE. Perceived positive team climate enhances the positive effect of emotional leadership on intrinsic motivation, as well as the indirect effect of emotional leadership on OCBE via intrinsic motivation. A notable finding is that when the level of perceived positive team climate was low, the effect of emotional leadership on OCBE through intrinsic motivation was not significant. While both the direct and indirect effects of emotional leadership on OCBE are modest, this nonetheless indicates that OCBE—characterized as a spontaneous, role-transcending, and complex behavior—is shaped by multi-level factors spanning the individual, leadership, organizational, and cultural domains. Consequently, our theoretical model merely uncovers a subset of these underlying mechanisms.

Theoretical implications

The theoretical implications are mainly manifested in the following three aspects.

First, it enriches research on the antecedent variables of OCBE by identifying that emotional leadership promotes OCBE of millennial employees. Existing studies on the antecedents of OCBE mostly focus on traditional leadership styles, such as ethical leadership [17] and environmental leadership [18]. However, research exploring the role of emotional leadership—a style highly aligned with millennials’ emotional needs and interpersonal preferences—remains scarce. This study reveals that emotional leadership is an important factor to promote OCBE for millennial employees, which enriches our understanding of the relationship between emotional leadership and millennials’ OCBE, and confirms previous findings that millennial employees place more importance on emotional experiences and interpersonal relationships at work [20]. Although emotional leadership is not exclusive to the environmental field, it can stimulate employees’ spontaneous commitment to organizational environmental goals by fulfilling their psychological needs. This transmission pathway of “non-specific domain stimuli→general psychological mechanisms→specific domain behaviors” has been validated in previous studies. For example, transformational leadership, though not directly focused on environmental issues, can stimulate psychological states such as “self-identity” and “self-efficacy” that transfer to the environmental field [21]. This study indicates that OCBE is first and foremost “organizational citizenship behavior”, and inevitably influenced by general organizational behavior patterns and non-specific domain leadership. This provides a new pathway for understanding the antecedents of OCBE.

Second, this study identifies intrinsic motivation as a “bridge” between emotional leadership and millennials’ OCBE, thereby opening the “black box” of how emotional leadership influences millennial employees’ OCBE. Most previous studies have identified emotional intelligence or emotions as key factors influencing millennial employees’ proactive behaviors [104, 105], noting that leaders with high emotional intelligence shape employees’ workplace behaviors through emotional contagion [106, 107]. Prior research has neglected the potential motivational pathway, despite millennials’ strong need for self-determination, which makes motivational mechanisms particularly relevant. This has resulted in an inadequate explanation of “how emotional leadership stimulates OCBE by fulfilling their psychological needs”. By adopting Self-Determination Theory as a framework, this study confirms that the motivational pathway—whereby emotional leadership influences millennials’ behaviors through intrinsic motivation—is also valid. Given millennials’ emphasis on psychological needs fulfillment, this study highlights that the motivational pathway significantly mediates the relationship between emotional leadership and employee behavior. This finding suggests that emotional leadership influences employees not only through emotional contagion but also by activating subordinates’ intrinsic motivation, thereby enriching the theoretical connotation of emotional leadership. Additionally, this study deepens the understanding of the mechanisms underlying emotional leadership’s effect on employees’ OCBE, providing a more comprehensive perspective for analyzing how leadership behaviors drive millennials’ environmental behaviors. It also verifies the applicability of Self-Determination Theory in explaining voluntary environmental behavior.

Finally, this study extends research on the moderating role of perceived positive team climate. Existing research has primarily focused on team-level climate, with little attention to individual perceptions. Employees’ perceptions serve as more proximate predictors of behavior than the objective environment itself [36, 37]. The boundary effect of perceived positive team climate on the relationship between emotional leadership and motivation remains unclear, resulting in an incomplete understanding of the situational boundaries of emotional leadership effectiveness. However, this study shows that when perceived positive team climate is low, emotional leadership’s impact on millennial employees’ OCBE through intrinsic motivation is insignificant. One plausible explanation for this result is that employees’ low perceived positive climate may indicate a stressful and unsupportive environment. In such a context, employees tend to deplete more psychological resources and shift their focus from promotion focus to prevention focus. Consequently, they may utilize leaders’ emotional support to restore their well-being rather than channel it into OCBE—an unrewarded extra-role behavior. This finding clarifies a critical boundary condition for emotional leadership. Emotional leadership is not effective in all contexts. Its capacity to stimulate employees’ intrinsic motivation and guide spontaneous eco-friendly behavior depends on a foundational platform of at least a non-negative team climate perception. A high level of perceived positive team climate provides fertile ground for emotional interaction and need-satisfying behaviors by emotional leaders. In such an environment, millennial employees are more likely to perceive leaders’ emotional care and autonomous support, thereby activating their intrinsic motivation more fully and encouraging them to proactively translate this motivation into OCBE. By clarifying this promotional role of perceived positive team climate within the “emotional leadership—intrinsic motivation—OCBE” chain, this study deepens understanding of the conditional nature of emotional leadership’s impact on intrinsic motivation. These findings also offer new insights into millennial employees’ behavioral characteristics: they have higher demands for emotional experiences and workplace interpersonal interactions, and the equal communication and mutual support inherent in a positive team climate align closely with their psychological needs. In such contexts, employees are more sensitive to leaders’ emotional signals and exhibit stronger intrinsic motivation. Overall, this study enriches research on the moderating role of perceived team climate in the relationship between supervisory leadership and employee attitudes and behaviors, helping to deepen understanding of emotional leadership’s effects in specific contexts.

Practical implications

In light of the findings, this study has the following managerial implications.

To enhance supervisors’ emotional leadership, organizations should conduct an assessment to clarify their current emotional leadership levels by adopting self-assessment tools and peer evaluation. Second, deliver gap-specific training. For example, supervisors with low empathy can participate in role reversal exercises with subordinates to experience each other’s work challenges firsthand; this helps them develop a deeper understanding of subordinates’ needs, addressing their empathy deficit. Third, strengthen positive emotional contagion and mitigate negative emotions. Supervisors should use positive emotional language in team interactions, organize team-building activities focused on emotional connection, and avoid impulsive responses to negative emotions—instead, they should delay reactions until calm and resolve issues through rational communication.

To enhance millennial employees’ intrinsic motivation, organizations can design interventions aligned with the three core psychological needs outlined in Self-Determination Theory. First, meet autonomy needs by granting work choice. For environmental protection-related tasks, organizations should proactively solicit and carefully consider millennial employees’ input. Specifically, they can allow employees to make decisions about implementation details within the framework of the organization’s overarching principles—this empowers employees to exercise control over their tasks, directly satisfying their autonomy needs. Second, foster competence through tangible support and recognition. When employees take on challenging environmental projects, organizations should provide necessary resources (e.g., time coordination, technical guidance) to ensure task success. Additionally, leaders should deliver timely, specific, and positive feedback on employees’ environmental proposals or their engagement in OCBE—this recognition of employees’ capabilities reinforces their sense of competence. Third, fulfill relatedness needs via caring, trust-based interactions. Leaders should hold regular open dialogues to proactively inquire about millennial employees’ experiences (e.g., feelings, obstacles, ideas) during their participation in OCBE. They should also sincerely express concern for employees’ well-being and explicitly emphasize the value of each employee’s contributions to environmental initiatives, addressing employees’ need for relatedness.

Adjust emotional leadership behaviors based on employees’ perceived team climate. As demonstrated in the findings, perceived team climate moderates the influence of emotional leadership. Thus, managers should dynamically adjust their emotional leadership behaviors according to the team climate employees perceive. When employees perceive a low-positive climate, leaders should strengthen emotional activation and climate enhancement, for example, alleviating employees’ negative emotions through one-on-one caring conversations, and highlighting small team wins in environmental efforts to amplify positive elements. When employees perceive a highly positive climate, leaders should shift focus to the motivation-catalyzing function of emotional leadership. Specifically, they should link employees’ intrinsic motivation to concrete environmental tasks, for example, by allowing them to independently design departmental emission reduction plans that align with their personal environmental values. This task autonomy not only satisfies employees’ need for autonomy but also enhances their sense of ownership and commitment toward environmental goals.

Limitations and directions for future research

Due to the limitations of conditions, this study has the following deficiencies.

First, the data regarding all variables were self-reported and collected at the same time point, which may introduce common method bias and potentially inflate the observed relationships between variables. Although statistical tests indicated no severe common method bias, future studies may adopt more advanced methods—such as longitudinal designs and multi-source data—to better mitigate common method bias and establish causal relationships. In particular, having supervisors evaluate subordinates’ OCBE would significantly strengthen the validity of the findings. Since OCBE represents observable extra-role behaviors, supervisor ratings can provide a more objective measure. At the same time, subordinates could be asked to assess their supervisors’ emotional leadership, thereby establishing a dual-source data structure that mitigates common method bias.

Second, the generalizability of the findings may be constrained by the sampling strategy. Although selecting a large manufacturing enterprise with internal diversity helps to mitigate biases from uniform leadership and enhances internal heterogeneity, the use of a single-enterprise sample remains a notable limitation. The organizational culture, management policies, and industry-specific characteristics of this single context may limit the extrapolation of the results to other organizations, especially those service or high-tech industries. Future research should therefore test the robustness of this model by recruiting multi-organization samples across various industries, cultural settings. Subsequent research may also adopt a multi-generational comparative design to validate the universality and differences in the impact of emotional leadership on OCBE across different generational groups, thereby providing a basis for implementing generation-differentiated leadership strategies.

Additionally, this study explored the effect of emotional leadership on the OCBE of millennial employees from the perspective of Self-Determination Theory, and potential mechanisms drawn from other theories could be explored in the future. For example, based on Job Demand-Resource Theory, future research could investigate whether emotional leadership has an impact on OCBE by enhancing the psychological resources of millennial employees, such as self-efficacy, under conditions of high job demands.

Finally, this study only examined perceived positive team climate at the individual level. Although individual perception serves as the direct driver of behavior (rather than the objective team emotional climate), subsequent research should treat team climate as an organizational-level variable and employ multilevel linear models to test its effect. In addition, employees with different traits exhibit different reactions to the superior leadership style, so the moderating role of individual traits such as emotional susceptibility should be considered in future research to provide guidance regarding the appropriate leadership styles for millennial employees with different characteristics.

Conclusion

As millennials become the core of the workforce, their role in OCBE grows increasingly critical. However, research has found that their actual engagement in organizational environmental actions remains relatively low. Given millennials’ emphasis on workplace emotional experiences and their desire to build positive relationships with supervisors, emotional leadership emerges as a key factor for organizations to facilitate their OCBE participation. Leaders with high emotional leadership can enhance millennials’ intrinsic motivation by engaging in positive emotional interactions, addressing their needs, and providing open communication channels and sufficient support. These behaviors satisfy millennials’ basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness, which fosters their engagement in OCBE. Furthermore, millennials perceive a positive team climate, they are more receptive to the influence of emotional leadership—this may be because perceived positive team climates strengthen trust, making millennials more likely to recognize and internalize leaders’ positive behaviors. This heightened receptivity further boosts their intrinsic motivation, ultimately enhancing their OCBE.

This study makes two key contributions: first, it extends research on the antecedents of millennials’ OCBE by identifying emotional leadership as a critical predictor; second, it uncovers the motivational mechanism and the individual-level boundary condition underlying emotional leadership’s effect on millennials’ OCBE. Understanding these specific mechanisms is essential for organizations to design targeted strategies to promote OCBE among millennial employees.

Abbreviations

OCBE

Organizational citizenship behavior for the environment

Appendix

Variables	Items
Emotional leadership	My team leader can identify subordinates’ strengths and limitations.
	My team leader can accurately read subordinates’ moods, feelings or nonverbal cues.
	My team leader can give subordinates an opportunity to speak their mind.
	My team leader can accurately assess the underlying or root causes of a subordinate’s problems.
	My team leader can pay attention and listen well.
	My team leader can show sensitivity and understanding.
	My team leader can ask questions to be sure he/she understands another person.
Intrinsic motivation	I think that my job is interesting.
	I have fun doing my job.
	My current job is enjoyable.
	I feel good doing my current job.
Perceived positive team climate	Within the team, we feel highly motivated at work.
	Everyone in the team is full of energy.
	Team members are optimistic and confident.
	Working in the team, we feel hopeful.
OCBE	I often help identify factors that decrease the organization’s environmental impact.
	I often help solve the environmental problems faced by the organization.
	I often help come up with creative suggestions that have the potential to improve the organization’s environmental performance.
	I often assist in creating procedures and policies that protect the environment.
	I often provide ideas about potential new products or services that solve environmental problems.

Authors’ contributions

Jin Wan: conceptualization, methodology, revision. Mingyue Qin: writing manuscript. Wenjun Zhou: data analysis. Kan Shi: participating in manuscript revision.

Funding

This research is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China ( No. 72161014; No. 72162017) and the Social Science Foundation of Jiangxi Province (No. 23ZXSKJD20).

Data availability

The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Declarations

Ethics approval and consent to participate

This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the School of Economics and Management of East China Jiaotong University (No.202301) and complied with the Declaration of Helsinki. The completion of the questionnaire follows the principle of voluntary participation, and the process did not cause any harm to the subjects. Before the start of the formal investigation, the subjects were informed in detail about the purpose of the research, and the procedures were formal and legal. All data collected is strictly confidential and used for academic research only, and there is no conflict of interest in research content and research results.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.