How spiritual leadership affects team safety performance: the role of team reflexivity and work interdependence

Objectives. Frequent occurrence of workplace accidents may be caused by a lack of attention by team members to safety behaviors on the spiritual level. It is very important to investigate the incentive mechanism of spirit factor on team safety performance. Methods. Based on social cognition theory and social interaction theory, this study analyzed matching data from 717 employees across 173 teams, and verified the mechanism underlying team-level spiritual leadership on team safety performance. Results. Spiritual leadership not only helped improved a team’s safety performance, but also affected it through team reflexivity. Meanwhile, work interdependence positively moderated the positive relationship between team reflexivity and team safety performance, as well as the mediating role of team reflexivity. Conclusions. The findings expanded the research scope of leadership style–safety performance at the team level, and provided guidelines for managers to promote safety and healthy development of a team in practice.