Ilaria Buonomo
Maria Luisa Farnese
Maria Luisa Vecina
Paula Benevene- 1Department of Human Sciences, Libera Università Maria Santissima Assunta (LUMSA) University, Rome, Italy
- 2Department of Psychology, Sapienza University, Rome, Italy
- 3Departamento de Psicología Social, del Trabajo y Diferencial, Universidad Complutense, Madrid, Spain
Recent revisions of the Job Demands Resources (JDR) model acknowledged the importance of personal and organizational dimensions enriching job resources’ effect on work engagement. Consistently, this paper addresses the role of compassion satisfaction, as a job resource, on teacher work engagement, given the saliency of caring in teaching as a helping profession. Furthermore, quiet ego, as a personal dimension, and ethical leadership, as an organizational dimension, are studied as antecedents of compassion satisfaction. Overall, the study verifies with a Structural Equation Model whether and how compassion satisfaction mediates the relationships among work engagement, quiet ego, and ethical leadership. One hundred and eighty-eight Italian teachers took part in the study by completing four scales: the Ethical Leadership Scale, the Quiet Ego scale, the Professional Quality Of Life Questionnaire, and the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale—ultra-short version. The final model showed a good fit to the data: χ2(48) = 75.399, p = 0.007, CFI = 0.979, TLI = 0.971, RMSEA = 0.055 (90% CI = 0.029–0.078, p = 0.342), SRMR = 0.039. Findings showed that teachers’ compassion satisfaction is strongly related to their engagement at school, confirming that teachers’ care toward their students is an important resource supporting their engagement. Furthermore, compassion satisfaction totally mediates the relationship between quiet ego and work engagement (bDIRECT = ns, bINDIRECT = 0.327, p = 0.000). Such mediating path confirms recent expansions of the JDR model about the role of personal resources on job resources and, consequently, on work engagement and confirms the Conservation of Resources theory, stating that personal resources impact work outcomes. At the same time, compassion satisfaction does not mediate the relationship between ethical leadership and work engagement, so that ethical school leaders directly impact teachers’ work engagement. A possible reason for this finding relies on ethical leadership’s role in promoting higher school life participation as a community. More theoretical and practical implications are described in the paper.
Introduction
Work engagement is a positive state of mind, characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption, associated with optimal functioning at work (Schaufeli et al., 2002; Hakanen and Schaufeli, 2012). Considered as an indicator of well-being at work (Schaufeli et al., 2008), work engagement is studied in several occupational contexts, such as profit (Saks and Gruman, 2014; Gilsdorf et al., 2017; Sarwar et al., 2020), non-profit (Vecina et al., 2012, 2013; Dal Corso et al., 2019), health and social services (Mauno et al., 2016; Mostafa and Abed El-Motalib, 2020), educational institutions (Gozukara and Simsek, 2015; Fiorilli et al., 2019b, 2020). When addressing the educational field, the study of work engagement in teachers assumes a particular saliency, in consideration of the intrinsic motivation that characterizes the choice to become an educator (Darling-Hammond and Youngs, 2002; Han and Yin, 2016).
Studies on teachers’ work engagement considered several work-related resources when addressing its antecedents (Skaalvik and Skaalvik, 2014; Eldor and Shoshani, 2016; Minghui et al., 2018; Fiorilli et al., 2019b, 2020; Granziera and Perera, 2019; De Stasio et al., 2020). Such resources, for example, included social support at work (Minghui et al., 2018; Fiorilli et al., 2019b), person-job fit (Rothmann and Hamukang’andu, 2013; Li et al., 2015), or career perspectives (Timms and Brough, 2013). These works built on the Job Demands-Resources (JDR) theory, according to which job resources spark a motivational process in employees, so that the higher the job resources, the higher their energy and motivation toward work (i.e., work engagement), and, likely, the higher their chances to be productive and committed (Schaufeli, 2017). In this framework, indeed, job resources represent aspects of one’s job that may support the achievement of work goals, reduce job demands and the associated strain, or foster employee growth (Schaufeli, 2017). At the same time, the JDR theory individuates a risk path due to the job demands leading to burnout (Bakker and Demerouti, 2007; Schaufeli, 2017). Traditionally, studies on teachers’ well-being are focused on the latter path, namely the job demands-burnout relationship, individuating potential risk factors for teachers’ psychological health (Schwarzer and Hallum, 2008; Skaalvik and Skaalvik, 2009; Kinman et al., 2011; Pas et al., 2012; Buonomo et al., 2017), or protective factors against adverse consequences (Betoret, 2006; Skaalvik and Skaalvik, 2014; Van Maele and Van Houtte, 2015; Buonomo et al., 2017).
This work aims at contributing to the studies focusing on the motivational process described by the JDR, thus individuating factors enhancing teachers’ engagement (Li et al., 2015; Minghui et al., 2018; Zahed-Babelan et al., 2019; De Stasio et al., 2020).
More specifically, our paper indicates compassion satisfaction as a possible job resource impacting teachers’ work engagement. Compassion satisfaction refers to the sense of accomplishment and reward related to the compassionate care given to others in one’s job, as connected with acknowledging its effectiveness (Stamm, 2009). A worker is defined as “compassionate” when he/she perceives others’ suffering, acknowledges its causes, and is motivated to take action and help reduce it (Atkins and Parker, 2012). Compassion satisfaction is frequently studied in medical helping professionals (Mason et al., 2014; Meyer et al., 2015; Kim et al., 2017; Vagharseyyedin et al., 2018; Zhang et al., 2018; Ortega-Campos et al., 2020). At the same time, an emerging interest to study compassion satisfaction in other professional categories arose lately, with specific regard to other types of helping professionals, such as police officers (Chiappo-West, 2017), residential child care professionals (Audin et al., 2018), and teachers (Christian-Brandt et al., 2020). Overall, such studies inform about the protective, resourceful impact of compassion satisfaction on job beliefs and behaviors.
More recent revisions of the JDR acknowledged that other aspects of daily life might influence employee perceived job resources (Schaufeli, 2017). Such dimensions include both personal dispositions, traits, and characteristics (Xanthopoulou et al., 2007, 2009; Schaufeli, 2017), as well as organizational features (e.g., leadership styles, organizational support; Albrecht and Andreetta, 2011; Tuckey et al., 2013; Schaufeli, 2015, 2017). In the current paper, two antecedents of job resources (i.e., compassion satisfaction) are considered: Quiet ego as a personal antecedent and ethical leadership as an organizational antecedent. Authors chose these constructs due to the acknowledgment that teachers are helping professionals and, accordingly, give added saliency to the relational aspects and implications of their job tasks (O’Connor, 2008; Pereira et al., 2015; Eldor and Shoshani, 2016).
Quiet ego is a self-identity in which concerns for the self and others are balanced, and both one’s own’s and others’ growth is promoted (Wayment et al., 2011, 2015; Wayment and Bauer, 2018). Bauer and Wayment described the quiet ego as “an identity that incorporates others without losing the self” (Bauer and Wayment, 2009). Quiet ego is defined by two main stances: (1) balance, intended as the ability to take into account needs, desires, and point of view of the self and others, and to consider their positive and negative aspects; (2) growth, intended as the ability to develop adaptively on the long term, instead of satisfying contextual desires (Wayment et al., 2015). In other words, people with high levels of quiet ego are prone to include others’ instances in their cognitive and emotional processes and care about them while not losing self-attunement and self-caring (Wayment et al., 2015). Previous studies showed that such individuals are more likely to score high in several well-being measures, such as self-esteem, savoring, life satisfaction, and subjective well-being (Wayment et al., 2011, 2015; Wayment and Bauer, 2018).
Overall, such theory suggests that, when individuals have a quiet ego, they are more prone to engage in caring about others, support them, and acknowledge their desires, while avoiding depletion of personal resources (Wayment and Bauer, 2017). Few studies considered such relationships at the workplace (Huffman et al., 2015; Wayment et al., 2019). At the same time, studying the relationship between personal dispositions toward others (i.e., quiet ego) at work is interesting, above all considering the protective role they are usually ascribed to when it comes to prevent adverse work conditions and promote well-being and engagement (e.g., Aw et al., 2020). In the context of this study, the “quiet” identity will be linked with satisfaction due to the rewards after caring about other organizational actors (i.e., compassion satisfaction). Such an approach would deepen our knowledge about other organizational actors’ relationship effects on workers’ well-being and attitudes toward their job experience. More specifically, considered the saliency of caring in the teaching profession (O’Connor, 2008), we want to explore the links between quiet ego and compassion satisfaction in a group of teachers.
Among constructs influencing job resources, organizational dimensions have been recognized a prominent role (Schaufeli, 2017). Workers, indeed, do not work in a vacuum. The deep link with the organizational context is specifically relevant for teachers. Several studies showed that school-related variables (e.g., leadership, collective efficacy, school climate) have a role in how teacher perceive and whether they are engaged in their job (Ware and Kitsantas, 2007; Toytok and Kapusuzoglu, 2016; Koutouzis and Malliara, 2017; Benevene et al., 2019; Fiorilli et al., 2019b; Buonomo et al., 2020b). Among these variables, school principals’ ethical leadership may sustain teachers’ proneness to acknowledge others’ needs and support them (Brown and Treviño, 2006). Ethical leadership, indeed, is “the demonstration of normatively appropriate conduct through personal actions and interpersonal relationships, and the promotion of such conduct to followers through two-way communication, reinforcement, and decision-making” (Brown et al., 2005, p. 120). Such definition encloses three main aspects (Brown et al., 2005; Brown and Treviño, 2006; Benevene et al., 2018). More specifically, ethical leaders should: (1) define an ethical standard; (2) behave accordingly, by making decisions and rewarding who follows such standards; (3) communicate on ethical issues raised by the work in the organization openly, by allowing the employees to express their points of view. According to Brown and Treviño, ethical leaders’ impact on employees’ values and behavioral standards may strengthen their prosocial attitudes at work, either because ethical leaders act as role models, or workers are motivated to reciprocate leaders behaviors (Brown and Treviño, 2006). This consideration is consistent with the Conservation of Resources (COR) theory (Hobfoll, 1989, 2002; Hobfoll and Shirom, 2001), claiming that every individual is motivated to gain and retain resources, such as energies, objects, or skills (Hobfoll, 2002). According to the COR theory, employees with higher resources are not only more prone to deal with unexpected demands and strain but even more likely to gain other resources, creating a gain spiral (Llorens et al., 2007; Salanova et al., 2010). In other words, the COR theory showed that resources do not exist in isolation but are aggregated (Hobfoll, 2002). According to Salanova and colleagues (Salanova et al., 2013), in terms of job well-being, this means that when employees work in a resourceful workplace, they are more likely to be good workers because their positive beliefs and emotions toward work (e.g., work engagement) are promoted and sustained (Salanova et al., 2010). This point suggests that effective, positive leadership could broaden employees’ resources at work, such as compassion satisfaction and work engagement. Furthermore, the COR model posits that personal life and work-life resources are reciprocal and foster one another (Hobfoll, 2002; Salanova et al., 2010). Consistently, positive personal resources (i.e., quiet ego) may enhance resources at work.
Overall, this work contributes to apply JDR and COR theory to the teachers’ work experience, considering whether and how compassion satisfaction (as a job resource) mediated the relationship of quiet ego (as a personal antecedent) and ethical leadership (as a work-related antecedent) on work engagement.
Compassion Satisfaction and Work Engagement
Studies addressing the consequences of compassion satisfaction on employees’ life show a positive association between this construct and positive attitudes toward work, included work engagement (Mason et al., 2014; Meyer et al., 2015; Chiappo-West, 2017; Kim et al., 2017; Audin et al., 2018). Among the mentioned studies, the only one involving teachers did not explore the associations with work engagement and was explicitly related to the care of children with trauma histories (Christian-Brandt et al., 2020). At the same time, studies on the role of caring in teaching inform about the strong motivation in schoolteachers to aim for children’s growth, support, and development (Sutton and Wheatley, 2003; O’Connor, 2008; Eldor and Shoshani, 2016; Buonomo et al., 2019). Such studies suggest that teachers are likely to experience compassion satisfaction and benefit from it.
To the best of our knowledge, studies taking into account work engagement in other professions did not address the associations between compassion satisfaction and each dimension of work engagement (i.e., vigor, dedication, absorption). Nonetheless, it is possible to individuate some mechanisms explaining why compassion satisfaction and work engagement are related. With this regard, some authors claimed that positive emotions are a common point between compassion satisfaction and work engagement (Fredrickson and Losada, 2005; Bakker and Demerouti, 2008; Audin et al., 2018). According to the Broaden and build theory, indeed, workers experiencing positive emotions can broaden their behavioral and cognitive repertoire, and, as a result, work better and more intensely (Fredrickson, 2001). In other words, according to this theory, the positive emotions related to compassion satisfaction may enhance the workers’ amount of vigor and absorption, respectively, described as “high levels of energy and mental resilience while working” and “being fully concentrated and happily engrossed in one’s work” (Bakker and Demerouti, 2008, p. 2). At the same time, Fredrickson’s theory acknowledges the “upward spiral” effect of positive emotions, namely the ability of positive experiences, if repeated over time, to promote emotional well-being, thus resulting in a higher ability to cope with difficulties and give meaning to their experience. In other words, according to the upward spiral effect, the positive emotions related to compassion satisfaction may enhance the workers’ amount of dedication, described as “being strongly involved in one’s work and experiencing a sense of significance, enthusiasm, and challenge” (Bakker and Demerouti, 2008, p. 2).
Overall, previous studies inform about the potential connections between compassion satisfaction and work engagement in teachers. Thus, the following hypothesis was formulated:
H1. Compassion satisfaction is positively related to teachers’ work engagement.
Quiet Ego, Compassion Satisfaction, and Work Engagement
Although most studies on the quiet ego were not specifically focused on work-life, some recent contributions shed new light on the quiet ego’s role in organizations. More specifically, Huffman et al. (2015) and Wayment et al. (2019) underlined that applying the quiet ego construct to organizational life may help practitioners and researchers to vehiculate the importance of balancing the concerns for the self and others for healthier work-life. Furthermore, the authors claimed that quiet ego-based interventions strengthen the relationships between employees and organizations by fostering workers’ positive attitudes toward the organization and compassion toward their colleagues, and, ultimately, organizational knowledge and performance (Huffman et al., 2015). This hypothesis was confirmed in a brief quiet ego intervention held in a group of nurses, where quiet ego-related abilities were associated with lower fatigue due to the care work (Wayment et al., 2019). Overall, the few studies considering the role of quiet ego in organizational contexts suggest that employees with high quiet ego levels feel better at work. These first studies may follow the research direction according to which personal resources impact job resources related to work engagement, as claimed in the JDR model revision (Schaufeli, 2017), and as suggested by the COR theory (Salanova et al., 2010). At the same time, as described, studies on the general population show a link between quiet ego and well-being measures. To the best of our knowledge, current research did not focus on the implication of quiet ego research (or interventions) on schoolteachers, but, building on the mentioned studies, we could hypothesize that:
H2. Quiet ego has a positive association with teachers’ work engagement
At the same time, several studies showed that the association between quiet ego and compassionate care is embedded in the definition of the quiet ego itself (Bauer and Wayment, 2009; Wayment et al., 2015; Wayment and Bauer, 2018). Wayment, indeed, defines the quiet ego as a compassionate self-identity (Wayment et al., 2015). Consistently, it seems reasonable that being highly attuned to compassionate care (because of quiet ego) could be linked to good satisfaction levels for one’s caring behaviors. This idea is consistent with what Bauer and Wayment claimed in 2017: “When a person’s ego is quiet, that person is motivated and able […] to view a situation as an opportunity for prosocial development” (Wayment and Bauer, 2017). Therefore, our third hypothesis is:
H3. Quiet ego is positively associated with teachers’ compassion satisfaction.
Ethical Leadership, Compassion Satisfaction, and Work Engagement
Several studies claimed that the peculiar behaviors (i.e., explicit ethical and value-related messages, intentional role modeling of ethical behaviors, use of reward system to reinforce ethical behaviors) shown by ethical leaders foster employee engagement, either because they share a clear behavioral standard or because they proactively involve workers in the organizational decision making (Engelbrecht et al., 2014; Asif et al., 2019; Mostafa and Abed El-Motalib, 2020; Sarwar et al., 2020; Zeng and Xu, 2020). Overall, such studies confirm the recent extension of the JDR model, according to which leadership may be considered an antecedent of job resources impacting work engagement (Schaufeli, 2017), and the COR theory, as it confirms the creation of gain spirals for employees inserted in a positive workplace (Salanova et al., 2010). The relationship between ethical leadership and work engagement was studied in several organizations, including public (Asif et al., 2019; Mostafa and Abed El-Motalib, 2020) and private (Sarwar et al., 2020) sectors, as well as university teachers (Zeng and Xu, 2020) and helping professionals (Mostafa and Abed El-Motalib, 2020). To the best of our knowledge, previous studies did not consider the relationship between ethical leadership and work engagement in schoolteachers.
Furthermore, most previous studies addressed the links among ethical leadership, work engagement, and organization-related outcomes or antecedents, such as organizational trust, organizational performance, or affective commitment (Asif et al., 2019; Sarwar et al., 2020; Zeng and Xu, 2020), lacking to verify its effect on personal or relational resources at work. At the same time, building on studies on teachers in higher education and helping professionals, it could be hypothesized that ethical leadership boosts teachers’ work engagement. Thus, our hypothesis is that:
H4. Principals’ ethical leadership has a positive association with teachers’ work engagement
Furthermore, literature on ethical leadership shows an association with compassion satisfaction. A seminal work by Brown and Treviño (2006) suggested that ethical leadership is connected with prosocial behaviors at work. The authors provide two possible mechanisms underlining such link: Social learning processes, in which ethical leaders acts as legitimate role models; and social exchange processes, in which worker behave prosocially in light of the trusting, caring and fair treatment they receive from the leader. Consistently, in a recent paper, Zoghbi-Manrique-de-Lara and Viera-Armas (2019) showed that having an ethical leader at work fosters organizational citizenship behaviors toward colleagues in the form of delivering support for their well-being. While these studies suggest a relationship between ethical leadership and supportive behaviors at work, there are no research contributions, to the best of our knowledge, on the relationship between ethical leadership and compassion toward users, patients, clients, or, in the case of teachers, students. At the same time, in consideration of the centrality of caring in the teaching profession, we could expect that:
H5. School principals’ ethical leadership (as perceived by the teachers) is positively associated with teachers’ compassion satisfaction.
Overall, the potentially crucial role of compassion satisfaction, even supported by several studies on the centrality of caring in the teaching profession, suggests that this construct may mediate the impact of both organizational (i.e., ethical leadership) and personal (i.e., quiet ego) resources on work engagement. Thus, the final hypothesis is:
H6. Compassion satisfaction mediated the relationship of school principals’ ethical leadership (as perceived by the teachers) and quiet ego with work engagement.
Figure 1 synthesizes the hypotheses.
Figure 1. Theoretical model and hypotheses. H6 (Compassion satisfaction mediated the relationship of ethical leadership and quiet ego with work engagement) corresponds to the combination of H1, H3, and H5.
Materials and Methods
Participants and Procedure
One hundred and eighty-eight teachers (Female = 85%) from primary and secondary schools in Italy were recruited for this study. They were aged 36–61 years (M = 49.72, SD = 8.87), and more than 70% had a university degree or equivalent. Regarding their work contexts, participants taught in their current schools for 0–36 years (M = 11.73, SD = 9.46), and more than 80% had a permanent contract. Finally, 60% of the teachers taught in a primary school.
Data were gathered online through survey software. The administration of the protocol was anonymous and confidential. Participants were asked to sign an informed consent, which clarified that the research group was independent of their organization and that only the researchers would have had access to the data. Overall, these procedures would address a potential social desirability bias.
Measures
This study involves four variables: Ethical leadership, quiet ego, compassion satisfaction, and work engagement.
Ethical leadership was assessed with the Ethical Leadership Scale (Brown and Treviño, 2006), which includes ten items, measured on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = Totally disagree, 5 = Totally agree). A sample item is: “Our school principal makes fair and balanced decisions” (item 5). In this study, Cronbach’s alpha was 0.961, slightly higher than the internal consistency reported by Brown and Treviño(2006; alpha = 0.92).
Quiet ego was measured with the Quiet Ego Scale (Wayment et al., 2015), which includes 14 items, measured on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = Totally disagree, 5 = Totally agree). A sample item is: “Before criticizing somebody, I try to imagine how I would feel if I were in their place” (item 4). In this study, Cronbach’s alpha was 0.720, slightly lower than the internal consistency reported by Wayment and colleagues (2015; alpha = 0.78).
Compassion satisfaction was measured with a subscale from the Professional Quality Of Life Questionnaire (ProQOL) (Stamm, 2009), which includes 10 items, measured on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = Totally disagree, 5 = Totally agree). This tool is commonly used when evaluating the experience of professionals, like teachers, who provide care to others as part of their job (Pereira et al., 2015). A sample item is: “I get satisfaction from being able to help students” (item 1). Each time the original version of the questionnaire referred to people or patients, the participants were asked about their students instead. In this study, Cronbach’s alpha was 0.888, thus confirming the internal consistency reported by Stamm(2010; alpha = 0.88).
Work engagement was assessed with the ultra-short version of the UWES scale (Schaufeli et al., 2019), which includes three items (one for each work engagement subscale), measured on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = Totally disagree, 5 = Totally agree). A sample item is: “I am enthusiastic about my job” (item 2). In this study, Cronbach’s alpha was 0.844, thus confirming the range of internal consistency measures reported by Schaufeli and colleagues (2019; alpha ranging from 0.77 to 0.88).
Finally, sociodemographic (age, gender, educational level) and work-related (years of experience, type of contract, type of school) data were gathered with a brief ad hoc questionnaire.
Data Analysis
Firstly, three procedures of data exploration were implemented: (a) univariate and multivariate outlier detection, with Mahalanobis’s distance set to p < 0.001 (Gath and Hayes, 2006); (b) score distribution analysis, with skewness and kurtosis cut-off points set to [-2; + 2] (George and Mallery, 2003); (c) missing value analyses (when present, they were omitted listwise) (Little, 1992). After these procedures we deleted 23 subjects, and obtained the sample described in section “Participants and Procedure.”
Secondly, to test the common method variance bias, the Harman’s single-factor test was pursued. Findings showed that the single factor emerging from the exploratory factor analysis only accounted for the 22% of the covariance among the measures, meaning that the are no issues associated with common method variance in the data (Podsakoff and Organ, 1986).
Pearson’s correlations were measured among work engagement, ethical leadership, quiet ego, and compassion satisfaction to verify the associations between the variables and such constructs and demographics (age, gender) and work-related variables (years of experience, primary vs. secondary school).
After such preliminary analyses, a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) (Kline, 2011) was performed in order to examine the measurement model with MPlus version 8 (Muthén and Muthén, 2017). Three item parcels were created for all the administered measures, except for the UWES ultra-short scale, to enhance our model’s reliability and parsimony. Each parcel was created by sequentially summing items assigned based on the highest to lowest item-total corrected correlations (Little et al., 2002, 2013; Coffman and MacCallum, 2005). Parceling allows obtaining less free parameters to estimate and reduce sampling error sources (Little et al., 2002, 2013; Coffman and MacCallum, 2005). The Robust Maximum Likelihood Approach (MLR) was used to deal with non-normality in data (Wang and Wang, 2012).
Next, the structural equation modeling (SEM) approach (Kline, 2011) was implemented. Under the model, Ethical leadership and Quiet ego were directly and indirectly (through Compassion satisfaction) associated with Work engagement. According to a multifaceted approach to the assessment of the fit of the model (Tanaka, 1993), the following indices were used to evaluate the goodness-of-fit: The Chi-square likelihood ratio statistic, the Tucker and Lewis Index (TLI), the Comparative Fit Index (CFI), the Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA), with its confidence intervals, and the Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR). It has to be noted that, according to Kline (2015), the Chi-square index could result significant because of its sample size-sensitive bias. We accepted TLI and CFI values greater than 0.95 (Hu and Bentler, 1998), RMSEA values lower than 0.08 (Browne and Cudeck, 1992; Hooper et al., 2008), and SRMR values lower than 0.08 (Hu and Bentler, 1998; Hooper et al., 2008).
Results
Measurement Model and Correlations Among Work Engagement, Ethical Leadership, Quiet Ego, and Compassion Satisfaction
The measurement model showed a good fit to the data: χ2(48) = 75.399, p = 0.007, CFI = 0.979, TLI = 0.971, RMSEA = 0.055 (90% CI = 0.029–0.078, p = 0.342), SRMR = 0.039. Table 1 shows the correlations among Ethical leadership, Quiet ego, Compassion satisfaction, and Work engagement. As expected, Ethical leadership showed a positive correlation with both Compassion satisfaction (r = 0.218, p < 0.05) and Work engagement (r = 0.256, p < 0.01). Quiet ego showed positive significant associations with Compassion satisfaction (r = 0.476, p < 0.01) and Work engagement (r = 0.424, p < 0.01), too. Correlations among such variables and demographic and work-related variables are not shown, as they were not significant (p > 0.05).
Table 1. Correlations among work engagement, ethical leadership, quiet ego, and compassion satisfaction.
Final Model
The final model (shown in Figure 2), showed a good fit to the data: χ2(48) = 75.399, p = 0.007, CFI = 0.979, TLI = 0.971, RMSEA = 0.055 (90% CI = 0.029–0.078, p = 0.342), SRMR = 0.039. The model showed that Quiet ego is positively associated with Compassion satisfaction (b = 0.546, p < 0.001), and Compassion satisfaction with Work engagement (b = 0.599, p < 0.001), thus confirming H3 and H1.
Figure 2. Results of the structural equation model. Standardized direct effects were reported. ∗p < 0.05, ∗∗p < 0.01. EL, Ethical Leadership; QE, Quiet Ego; CS, Compassion Satisfaction.
The direct association between quiet ego and work engagement (H2) was not confirmed, as these relationships were not significant in the final model. Conversely, findings confirmed an indirect relation, showing that Compassion satisfaction fully mediated the relationship between Quiet ego and Work engagement (bDIRECT = ns, bINDIRECT = 0.327, p = 0.000).
The model also showed that Ethical leadership is positively associated with Work engagement (b = 0.151, p < 0.05), thus confirming H4. The direct association between Ethical leadership and compassion (H5) was not confirmed, as this relationship was not significant in the final model.
Furthermore, findings showed that Compassion satisfaction did not mediate the relationship between Ethical leadership and Work engagement (bINDIRECT = ns). Thus, overall, H6 is partially confirmed.
The percentages of variance explained were 32.8% for Compassion satisfaction and 44.3% for Work engagement.
Discussion
Results confirmed most of our hypotheses. More specifically, findings showed that teachers’ compassion satisfaction is strongly related to high engagement at school (H1), thus suggesting that teachers’ care toward their students is a crucial resource supporting their engagement. Furthermore, the findings showed that the observed association between quiet ego and work engagement (H2) is totally mediated by compassion satisfaction (partially confirming H6), so that quiet ego contributes to a higher compassion satisfaction (H3), and this, in turn, is connected to higher engagement. Finally, compassion satisfaction does not mediate the relationship between ethical leadership and work engagement (partially disconfirming H6 and H5), so that having ethical school leaders directly impacts teachers’ work engagement (H4). The following sections will describe the theoretical and practical implications of such results.
Regarding the mediating role of compassion satisfaction, the first result to be addressed is the total mediation of compassion satisfaction in quiet ego effect on work engagement. Building on the acknowledgment that being compassionate requires not only to feel others’ suffering but also to feel the need to reduce their pain, this result suggests that compassion satisfaction may sustain teacher’s motivation to care about their students, and this, in turn, may strengthen their engagement at school. While the quiet ego foresees a “compassionate” dimension (Wayment et al., 2015), it is interesting to note that even compassion satisfaction has a strong relationship with it. From our results, it seems that being motivated toward other people’s growth and needs (i.e., being compassionate) and even satisfied about one’s own effectiveness in caring about others are deeply connected to the quiet ego. Overall, such a finding confirms Wayment and Bauer (2017) idea that quiet ego motivates people to perceive interactions as prosocial development opportunities. As professionals involved in students’ growth and development (O’Connor, 2008; Eldor and Shoshani, 2016), it is possible that teachers find in compassion satisfaction at school a way to express and commit to their growth and engagement, too. Reframing compassion satisfaction in terms of balance between self and others (as for the quiet ego construct), the personal, self-related sense of accomplishment and pleasure expressed by this construct is balanced by the source of such well-being, namely others and the chance to care about and support them (Stamm, 2009). Overall, our findings suggest that compassion satisfaction may be a work-related experience strongly connected with the dispositional, personal quiet ego construct. Further research could generalize this association, defining, for example, whether and how other helping professionals may show similar findings. At the same time, this mediating path confirms the JDR model’s recent expansions about personal resources’ role on job resources and, consequently, on work engagement (Schaufeli, 2017). Previous studies, indeed, included personality characteristics among such personal resources, using them in the model as antecedents of job resources (Xanthopoulou et al., 2007; Schaufeli, 2017). Consistently, the quiet ego was described as a characteristic adaptation, namely a domain of personality that focuses on values and motives (McAdams, 1995), which, in the case of quiet ego, are related to self and others’ balance and growth (Wayment and Bauer, 2017). Furthermore, this result endorses Salanova et al. (2010) claim on the COR theory regarding personal resources’ impact in work contexts. From a practical point of view, these findings connect with the attention for compassion-based interventions in healthcare organizations. Such interventions may address compassion at different levels of the workplace experience: Individual (on self-compassion and compassion toward others; Scarlet et al., 2017; Wayment et al., 2019), leadership (on the construction of a compassionate leadership style; de Zulueta, 2016), teams (on reflective and supporting compassionate activities, Pepper et al., 2012; Barker et al., 2016), whole organizations (on compassionate culture and values; de Zulueta, 2016). As extensively reported in the literature, building compassionate workplaces boosts employees’ well-being and organizational performance (West et al., 2015; de Zulueta, 2016; Wayment et al., 2019). Further studies could extend such protocols in the educational field. Several studies, indeed, show that social support, empathy and caring among colleagues and from principals at school improves teacher well-being (Pas et al., 2012; Ross et al., 2012; Fiorilli et al.,2019a,b) and productivity (Chan, 2004; Cosner, 2009).
Findings showed a higher significance of the path involving personal resources (i.e., quiet ego) than organizational resources (i.e., ethical leadership). Ethical leadership, indeed, shows poor correlations with compassion satisfaction. Consistently, the final model lacks a mediating effect of compassion satisfaction in the relationship between ethical leadership and work engagement. This finding can be read in the light of current knowledge regarding the prosocial consequences of having an ethical leader. According to the literature addressing this topic, the equity-, group-oriented approach to leadership proposed by ethical leaders may enhance employees’ ability to acknowledge others’ points of view when making important decisions and confronting ethical issues, but not necessarily when considering the caring dimension of work (Brown and Treviño, 2006; Zoghbi-Manrique-de-Lara and Viera-Armas, 2019). Further study could explore whether and how other leadership styles may be more effective for this kind of process. For example, this could be the case for compassionate leadership (West et al., 2015; de Zulueta, 2016), focused on a self-disclosing, caring attitude toward others. Likely, the lack of a clear focus on caring and support in work relationships may explain the missed link between ethical leadership and the feeling of accomplishment from caring for the students. At the same time, the construct of compassion satisfaction regards the satisfying effects of being compassionate toward students, not the compassionate acts themselves. Further studies may consider such a relationship and explore potential mediators of the ethical leadership—compassion (or compassion satisfaction) link.
Apart from the effects of compassion satisfaction, our results underline the role of ethical leadership in enhancing teachers’ work engagement, confirming our hypothesis. In this study, ethical leadership has a unique, although weak, impact on work engagement, even when considering the satisfaction of the helping relationship toward students. This consideration raises a question about the role of organizational dimensions on teachers’ work and occupational well-being. Despite some studies considered such links before (Ware and Kitsantas, 2007; Klassen et al., 2010; Buonomo et al.,2020a,b), most studies on teachers’ well-being and motivation at school focus either on personal variables or on the teacher-student relationship. This tendency is partially due to the teacher autonomy in choosing teaching methods and strategies within the class, which is even legally regulated by the Italian Law (Legislative Decree 297/1994). Such autonomy likely influences teachers’ perceptions of the leader role so that he/she is deemed more as a coordinator than a manager. At the same time, teaching does not occur in isolation because of the presence of a teaching community lead by a principal, as well as of the intricate web of bureaucracy and governmental requirements that regulate the organizational structure and processes within the school (OECD, 2014; Ainley and Carstens, 2018). Thus, a leader managing such collective dimensions by providing and embodying ethical behavioral standards, promoting an open discussion about concerns and needs, and sharing his/her decision-making processes with the school staff, may help teachers feel more attuned to the collective aspects of their job. In other words, ethical leaders may impact school climate and values (e.g., Enwereuzor et al., 2020). In turn, the higher contribution to the school life as a community (integrated to the teacher-student or teacher-class point of view) could enhance teacher work engagement. Consistently, the few studies addressing the role of collective dimensions on teachers’ work engagement show the unique impact of dimensions like school culture (Zahed-Babelan et al., 2019) and goal structures (Ciani et al., 2008; Skaalvik and Skaalvik, 2013) on teachers’ motivation and engagement toward their job. Further studies could verify, first, the role of ethical leadership in promoting teachers’ work engagement and compassion satisfaction with a multi-level approach. This would allow researchers to verify whether the peculiar organizational context would impact such relationships. Secondly, it would be valuable to focus on the theoretical implications and the practical consequences of delivering an ethical leadership-based intervention at school. Such intervention could address deans and their staff and take into account moral reasoning, decision-making processes, interpersonal skills, and, finally, job-related identities (Brown and Treviño, 2006).
Despite the suggestions and implications related to our findings, this work is not without limitations. Firstly, our results are driven on nation-based, cross-sectional data from a relatively small sample. From one side, longitudinal and qualitative works could provide a more deepened understanding of the relationships among the constructs. From the other, it is crucial to acknowledge that a bigger sample would have allowed for a higher representativeness, as well as for comparisons among, for example, teachers working in different types of schools, with different years of experience, or different type of contracts. Furthermore, as all the participants are from Italy, it is likely that the results are influenced by macrosocial and cultural dynamics, too. Secondly, the lack of a multi-informant source for our data may lead to common method bias. At the same time, we tested the significance of this issue with the Harman’s single-factor test, and applied some suggestions from Conway and Lance (e.g., preservation of anonymity, removal of unengaged/outlier responses, testing each scale reliability and the general measurement model) (Conway and Lance, 2010) to address this issue. Nevertheless, it would be interesting to address the role of principals’ leadership styles as perceived by teachers, but even as described by principals themselves. Thirdly, a comparison among the effects of ethical leadership and other leadership styles, such as compassionate, empowering, or transformational leadership, would have helped to clarify the associations between teachers’ perceptions about principals’ leadership styles and their engagement levels, giving a higher contribution to the role of leadership as an antecedent of job resources in the JDR model. Considering the care-centered approach to work frequently reported in teaching, it is likely that other leadership styles would have had a different impact on the studied variables. Finally, the spiral effects postulated in the COR theory, which could be the basis of the leadership-compassion satisfaction-work engagement path reported in the study, could be further analyzed with the implementation of multi-level studies. As per the COR theory recognizes the importance of aggregated personal and organizational resources at work in predicting job well-being, multi-level models would help clarifying how resourceful workplaces explain individuals’ well-being at work, while taking into account personal resources as well (Hardy and Bryman, 2012).
Data Availability Statement
The datasets generated for this study are available on request to the corresponding author.
Ethics Statement
The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by the Ethical Committee for Scientific Research at LUMSA University. The patients/participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.
Author Contributions
IB and PB: study conceptualization and construction. IB and MLV: methodology. IB: statistical analyses. IB and MLF: writing—original draft preparation. IB, PB, MLF, and MLV: writing—review and editing. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Funding
This work was supported by LUMSA University to PB and by Sapienza University to MLF.
Conflict of Interest
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
References
Ainley, J., and Carstens, R. (2018). Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) 2018 Conceptual Framework. Paris: OECD Publishing, doi: 10.1787/799337c2-en
Albrecht, S. L., and Andreetta, M. (2011). The influence of empowering leadership, empowerment and engagement on affective commitment and turnover intentions in community health service workers: test of a model. Leadersh. Health. Serv. 24, 228–237. doi: 10.1108/17511871111151126
Asif, M., Qing, M., Hwang, J., and Shi, H. (2019). Ethical leadership, affective commitment, work engagement, and creativity: testing a multiple mediation approach. Sustain 11, 1–16. doi: 10.3390/su11164489
Atkins, P. W. B., and Parker, S. K. (2012). Understanding individual compassion in organizations: the role of appraisals and psychological flexibility. Acad. Manag. Rev. 37, 524–546. doi: 10.5465/amr.2010.0490
Audin, K., Burke, J., and Ivtzan, I. (2018). Compassion fatigue, compassion satisfaction and work engagement in residential child care Article history. Scottish J. Resid. Child Care 17, 1478–1840.
Aw, S. S. Y., Ilies, R., and De Pater, I. E. (2020). Dispositional empathy, emotional display authenticity, and employee outcomes. J. Appl. Psychol. 105, 1036–1046. doi: 10.1037/apl0000471
Bakker, A. B., and Demerouti, E. (2007). The job demands-resources model: state of the art. J. Manag. Psychol. 22, 309–328. doi: 10.1108/02683940710733115
Bakker, A. B., and Demerouti, E. (2008). Towards a model of work engagement. Career Dev. Int. 13, 209–223. doi: 10.1108/13620430810870476
Barker, R., Cornwell, J., and Gishen, F. (2016). Introducing compassion into the education of health care professionals; can Schwartz rounds help? J. Compassionate Health Care 3:3. doi: 10.1186/s40639-016-0020-0
Bauer, J. J., and Wayment, H. A. (2009). “The psychology of the quiet ego,” in Transcending Self-Interest: Psychological Explorations of the Quiet Ego, eds H. A. Wayment and J. J. Bauer (Washington, DC: American Psychological Association), doi: 10.1037/11771-001
Benevene, P., Dal Corso, L., De Carlo, A., Falco, A., Carluccio, F., and Vecina, M. L. (2018). Ethical leadership as antecedent of job satisfaction, affective organizational commitment and intention to stay among volunteers of non-profit organizations. Front. Psychol. 9:2069. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02069
Benevene, P., De Stasio, S., Fiorilli, C., Buonomo, I., Ragni, B., Briegas, J. J. M., et al. (2019). Effect of teachers’ happiness on teachers’ health. The mediating role of happiness at work. Front. Psychol. 10:2449. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02449
Betoret, F. D. (2006). Stressors, self-efficacy, coping resources, and burnout among secondary school teachers in Spain. Educ. Psychol. 26, 519–539. doi: 10.1080/01443410500342492
Brown, M. E., and Treviño, L. K. (2006). Ethical leadership: a review and future directions. Leadersh. Q. 17, 595–616. doi: 10.1016/j.leaqua.2006.10.004
Brown, M. E., Treviño, L. K., and Harrison, D. A. (2005). Ethical leadership: a social learning perspective for construct development and testing. Organ. Behav. Hum. Decis. Process. 97, 117–134. doi: 10.1016/j.obhdp.2005.03.002
Browne, M. W., and Cudeck, R. (1992). Alternative ways of assessing model fit. Sociol. Methods Res. 21, 230–258. doi: 10.1177/0049124192021002005
Buonomo, I., Benevene, P., and Fiorilli, C. (2020a). Meaning of work in a group of school principals: the role of organizational variables. J. Work.place Learn. 32, 389–403. doi: 10.1108/JWL-12-2019-0146
Buonomo, I., Fatigante, M., and Fiorilli, C. (2017). Teachers’ burnout profile: risk and protective factors. Open Psychol. J. 10, 190–201. doi: 10.2174/1874350101710010190
Buonomo, I., Fiorilli, C., and Benevene, P. (2019). The impact of emotions and hedonic balance on teachers’ self-efficacy: testing the bouncing back effect of positive emotions. Front. Psychol. 10:1670. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01670
Buonomo, I., Fiorilli, C., and Benevene, P. (2020b). Unravelling teacher job satisfaction: the contribution of collective efficacy and emotions towards professional role. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 17:736. doi: 10.3390/ijerph17030736
Chan, D. W. (2004). Perceived emotional intelligence and self-efficacy among Chinese secondary school teachers in Hong Kong. Pers. Individ. Dif. 36, 1781–1795. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2003.07.007
Chiappo-West, G. (2017). Compassion Satisfaction, Burnout, Secondary Traumatic Stress, and Work Engagement in Police Officers in Arizona. Ph.D. thesis. (Phoenix, ARI: Grand Canyon University)
Christian-Brandt, A. S., Santacrose, D. E., and Barnett, M. L. (2020). In the trauma-informed care trenches: teacher compassion satisfaction, secondary traumatic stress, burnout, and intent to leave education within underserved elementary schools. Child Abuse Negl. 110(Pt 3):104437. doi: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2020.104437
Ciani, K. D., Summers, J. J., and Easter, M. A. (2008). A “top-down” analysis of high school teacher motivation. Contemp. Educ. Psychol. 33, 533–560. doi: 10.1016/j.cedpsych.2007.04.002
Coffman, D. L., and MacCallum, R. C. (2005). Using parcels to convert path analysis models into latent variable models. Multivariate Behav. Res. 40, 235–259. doi: 10.1207/s15327906mbr4002_4
Conway, J. M., and Lance, C. E. (2010). What reviewers should expect from authors regarding common method bias in organizational research. J. Bus. Psychol. 25, 325–334. doi: 10.1007/s10869-010-9181-6
Cosner, S. (2009). Building organizational capacity through trust. Educ. Adm. Q. 45, 248–291. doi: 10.1177/0013161X08330502
Dal Corso, L., Carluccio, F., Buonomo, I., Benevene, P., Vecina, M. L., and West, M. (2019). “I that is we, we that is i”: the mediating role of work engagement between key leadership behaviors and volunteer satisfaction. TPM Test. Psychom. Methodol. Appl. Psychol. 26, 561–572. doi: 10.4473/TPM26.4.5
Darling-Hammond, L., and Youngs, P. (2002). Defining “highly qualified teachers”: what does “scientifically-based research” actually tell us? Educ. Res. 31, 13–25. doi: 10.3102/0013189X031009013
De Stasio, S., Benevene, P., Pepe, A., Buonomo, I., Ragni, B., and Berenguer, C. (2020). The interplay of compassion, subjective happiness and proactive strategies on kindergarten teachers’ work engagement and perceived working environment fit. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 17, 1–16. doi: 10.3390/ijerph17134869
de Zulueta, P. C. (2016). Developing compassionate leadership in health care: an integrative review. J. Healthc. Leadersh. 8, 1–10. doi: 10.2147/JHL.S93724
Eldor, L., and Shoshani, A. (2016). Caring relationships in school staff: exploring the link between compassion and teacher work engagement. Teach. Teach. Educ. 59, 126–136. doi: 10.1016/j.tate.2016.06.001
Engelbrecht, A. S., Heine, G., and Mahembe, B. (2014). The influence of ethical leadership on trust and work engagement: an exploratory study. SA J. Ind. Psychol. 40, 1–9. doi: 10.4102/sajip.v40i1.1210
Enwereuzor, I. K., Onyishi, I. E., Albi-Oparaocha, F. C., and Amaeshi, K. (2020). Perceived leader integrity as a mediator between ethical leadership and ethical climate in a teaching context. BMC Psychol. 8:52. doi: 10.1186/s40359-020-00420-6
Fiorilli, C., Benevene, P., De Stasio, S., Buonomo, I., Romano, L., Pepe, A., et al. (2019a). Teachers’ burnout: the role of trait emotional intelligence and social support. Front. Psychol. 10:2743. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02743
Fiorilli, C., Buonomo, I., Romano, L., Passiatore, Y., Iezzi, D. F., Santoro, P. E., et al. (2020). Teacher confidence in professional training: the predictive roles of engagement and burnout. Sustain 12, 1–13. doi: 10.3390/SU12166342
Fiorilli, C., Schneider, B., Buonomo, I., and Romano, L. (2019b). Family and nonfamily support in relation to burnout and work engagement among Italian teachers. Psychol. Sch. 56, 781–791. doi: 10.1002/pits.22235
Fredrickson, B. L. (2001). The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. Am. Psychol. 56, 218–226. doi: 10.1037/0003-066X.56.3.218
Fredrickson, B. L., and Losada, M. F. (2005). Positive affect and the complex dynamics of human flourishing. Am. Psychol. 60, 678–686. doi: 10.1037/0003-066X.60.7.678
Gath, E. G., and Hayes, K. (2006). Bounds for the largest Mahalanobis distance. Linear Algebra Appl. 419, 93–106. doi: 10.1016/j.laa.2006.04.007
George, D., and Mallery, P. (2003). SPSS for Windows Step by Step: Answers to Selected Exercises Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon. doi:9780335262588
Gilsdorf, K., Hanleybrown, F., and Laryea, D. (2017). How to improve the engagement and retention of young hourly workers. Harvard Bus. Rev. Digit. Artic. 5, 2–6.
Gozukara, I., and Simsek, O. F. (2015). Role of leadership in employees’ work engagement: organizational identification and job autonomy. Int. J. Bus. Manag. 11:72. doi: 10.5539/ijbm.v11n1p72
Granziera, H., and Perera, H. N. (2019). Relations among teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs, engagement, and work satisfaction: a social cognitive view. Contemp. Educ. Psychol. 58, 75–84. doi: 10.1016/j.cedpsych.2019.02.003
Hakanen, J. J., and Schaufeli, W. B. (2012). Do burnout and work engagement predict depressive symptoms and life satisfaction? A three-wave seven-year prospective study. J. Affect. Disord. 141, 415–424. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2012.02.043
Han, J., and Yin, H. (2016). Teacher motivation: definition, research development and implications for teachers. Cogent Educ. 3:1217819. doi: 10.1080/2331186X.2016.1217819
Hardy, M., and Bryman, A. (2012). Handbook of Data Analysis. London: Sage, doi: 10.4135/9781848608184
Hobfoll, S. E. (1989). Conservation of resources: a new attempt at conceptualizing stress. Am. Psychol. 44, 513–524. doi: 10.1037/0003-066X.44.3.513
Hobfoll, S. E. (2002). Social and psychological resources and adaptation. Rev. Gen. Psychol. 6, 307–324. doi: 10.1037/1089-2680.6.4.307
Hobfoll, S. E., and Shirom, A. (2001). “Conservation of resources theory: applications to stress and management in the workplace,” in Handbook of Organizational Behavior, ed. R. T. Golembiewski (New York, NY: Marcel dekker).
Hooper, D., Coughlan, J., and Mullen, M. R. (2008). Structural equation modelling: guidelines for determining model fit. Electron. J. Bus. Res. Methods 6, 53–60. doi: 10.21427/D79B73
Hu, L. T., and Bentler, P. M. (1998). Fit indices in covariance structure modeling: sensitivity to underparameterized model misspecification. Psychol. Methods 3, 424–453. doi: 10.1037/1082-989X.3.4.424
Huffman, A. H., Irving, L. H., and Wayment, H. A. (2015). The quiet ego: assuaging organizational concerns about mindfulness. Ind. Organ. Psychol. 8, 661–667. doi: 10.1017/iop.2015.96
Muthén, L. K., and Muthén, B. O. (2017). Mplus User’s Guide, 8th Edn. Los Angeles, CA: Muthén & Muthén.
Kim, Y. H., Kim, S. R., Kim, Y. O., Kim, J. Y., Kim, H. K., and Kim, H. Y. (2017). Influence of type D personality on job stress and job satisfaction in clinical nurses: the mediating effects of compassion fatigue, burnout, and compassion satisfaction. J. Adv. Nurs. 73, 905–916. doi: 10.1111/jan.13177
Kinman, G., Wray, S., and Strange, C. (2011). Emotional labour, burnout and job satisfaction in UK teachers: the role of workplace social support. Educ. Psychol. 31, 843–856. doi: 10.1080/01443410.2011.608650
Klassen, R. M., Usher, E. L., and Bong, M. (2010). Teachers’ collective efficacy, job satisfaction, and job stress in cross-cultural context. J. Exp. Educ. 78, 464–486. doi: 10.1080/00220970903292975
Kline, R. B. (2011). Principles and Practice of Structural Equation Modeling, 3rd Edn. New York, NY: Guillford Press, doi: 10.1038/156278a0
Kline, R. B. (2015). Principles and Practice of Structural Equation Modelling, 4th Edn. New York, NY: Guillford Press.
Koutouzis, M., and Malliara, K. (2017). Teachers’ job satisfaction: the effect of principal’s leadership and decision- making style. Int. J. Educ. 9:71. doi: 10.5296/ije.v9i4.10272
Li, M., Wang, Z., You, X., and Gao, J. (2015). Value congruence and teachers’ work engagement: the mediating role of autonomous and controlled motivation. Pers. Individ. Dif. 80, 113–118. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2015.02.021
Little, R. J. A. (1992). Regression with missing X’s: a review. J. Am. Stat. Assoc. 87, 1227–1237. doi: 10.1080/01621459.1992.10476282
Little, T. D., Cunningham, W. A., Shahar, G., and Widaman, K. F. (2002). To parcel or not to parcel: exploring the question, weighing the merits. Struct. Equ. Modeling 9, 151–173. doi: 10.1207/S15328007SEM0902_1
Little, T. D., Rhemtulla, M., Gibson, K., and Schoemann, A. M. (2013). Why the items versus parcels controversy needn’t be one. Psychol. Methods 18, 285–300. doi: 10.1037/a0033266
Llorens, S., Schaufeli, W., Bakker, A., and Salanova, M. (2007). Does a positive gain spiral of resources, efficacy beliefs and engagement exist? Comput. Hum. Behav. 23, 825–841. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2004.11.012
Mason, V. M., Leslie, G., Clark, K., Lyons, P., Walke, E., Butler, C., et al. (2014). Compassion fatigue, moral distress, and work engagement in surgical intensive care unit trauma nurses: a pilot study. Dimens. Crit. Care Nurs. 33, 215–225. doi: 10.1097/DCC.0000000000000056
Mauno, S., Ruokolainen, M., Kinnunen, U., and De Bloom, J. (2016). Emotional labour and work engagement among nurses: examining perceived compassion, leadership and work ethic as stress buffers. J. Adv. Nurs. 72, 1169–1181. doi: 10.1111/jan.12906
McAdams, D. P. (1995). What do we know when we know a person? J. Pers. 63, 365–396. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-6494.1995.tb00500.x
Meyer, R. M. L., Li, A., Klaristenfeld, J., and Gold, J. I. (2015). Pediatric novice nurses: examining compassion fatigue as a mediator between stress exposure and compassion satisfaction, burnout, and job satisfaction. J. Pediatr. Nurs. 30, 174–183. doi: 10.1016/j.pedn.2013.12.008
Minghui, L., Lei, H., Xiaomeng, C., and Potmešilc, M. (2018). Teacher efficacy, work engagement, and social support among Chinese special education school teachers. Front. Psychol. 9:648. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00648
Mostafa, A. M. S., and Abed El-Motalib, E. A. (2020). Ethical leadership, work meaningfulness, and work engagement in the public sector. Rev. Public Pers. Adm. 40, 112–131. doi: 10.1177/0734371X18790628
O’Connor, K. E. (2008). “You choose to care”: teachers, emotions and professional identity. Teach. Teach. Educ. 24, 117–126. doi: 10.1016/j.tate.2006.11.008
OECD (2014). TALIS 2013 Results: An International Perspective on Teaching and Learning. Paris: OECD, doi: 10.1787/9789264196261-en
Ortega-Campos, E., Vargas-Román, K., Velando-Soriano, A., Suleiman-Martos, N., Cañadas-de la Fuente, G. A., Albendín-García, L., et al. (2020). Compassion fatigue, compassion satisfaction, and burnout in oncology nurses: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Sustain 12:72. doi: 10.3390/SU12010072
Pas, E. T., Bradshaw, C. P., and Hershfeldt, P. A. (2012). Teacher- and school-level predictors of teacher efficacy and burnout: identifying potential areas for support. J. Sch. Psychol. 50, 129–145. doi: 10.1016/j.jsp.2011.07.003
Pepper, J. R., Jaggar, S. I., Mason, M. J., Finney, S. J., and Dusmet, M. (2012). Schwartz rounds: reviving compassion in modern healthcare. J. R. Soc. Med. 105, 94–95. doi: 10.1258/jrsm.2011.110231
Pereira, F., Lopes, A., and Marta, M. (2015). Being a teacher educator: professional identities and conceptions of professional education. Educ. Res. 57, 451–469. doi: 10.1080/00131881.2015.1078142
Podsakoff, P. M., and Organ, D. W. (1986). Self-Reports in organizational research: problems and prospects. J. Manag. 12, 531–544. doi: 10.1177/014920638601200408
Ross, S. W., Romer, N., and Horner, R. H. (2012). Teacher well-being and the implementation of school-wide positive behavior interventions and supports. J. Posit. Behav. Interv. 14, 118–128. doi: 10.1177/1098300711413820
Rothmann, S., and Hamukang’andu, L. (2013). Callings, work role fit, psychological meaningfulness and work engagement among teachers in Zambia. South Afr. J. Educ. 33, 1–16. doi: 10.15700/saje.v33n2a699
Saks, A. M., and Gruman, J. A. (2014). What do we really know about employee engagement? Hum. Resour. Dev. Q. 25, 155–182. doi: 10.1002/hrdq.21187
Salanova, M., Llorens, S., Acosta, H., and Torrente, P. (2013). Positive Interventions in positive organizations. Ter. Psicol. 31, 101–113. doi: 10.4067/S0718-48082013000100010
Salanova, M., Schaufeli, W. B., Xanthopoulou, D., and Bakker, A. B. (2010). “The gain spiral of resources and work engagement: sustaining a positive worklife,” in Work Engagement: A Handbook of Essential Theory and Research, eds A. B. Bakker and M. P. Leiter (London: psychology press), doi: 10.4324/9780203853047
Sarwar, H., Ishaq, M. I., Amin, A., and Ahmed, R. (2020). Ethical leadership, work engagement, employees’ well-being, and performance: a cross-cultural comparison. J. Sustain. Tour. 28, 2008–2026. doi: 10.1080/09669582.2020.1788039
Scarlet, J., Altmeyer, N., Knier, S., and Harpin, R. E. (2017). The effects of compassion cultivation training (CCT) on health-care workers. Clin. Psychol. 21, 116–124. doi: 10.1111/cp.12130
Schaufeli, W. B. (2015). Engaging leadership in the job demands-resources model. Career Dev. Int. 20, 446–463. doi: 10.1108/CDI-02-2015-0025
Schaufeli, W. B. (2017). Applying the job demands-resources model: a ‘how to’ guide to measuring and tackling work engagement and burnout. Organ. Dyn. 46, 120–132. doi: 10.1016/j.orgdyn.2017.04.008
Schaufeli, W. B., Shimazu, A., Hakanen, J., Salanova, M., and De Witte, H. (2019). An ultra-short measure for work engagement: the UWES-3 validation across five countries. Eur. J. Psychol. Assess. 35, 577–591. doi: 10.1027/1015-5759/a000430
Schaufeli, W. B., Taris, T. W., and Van Rhenen, W. (2008). Workaholism, burnout, and work engagement: three of a kind or three different kinds of employee well-being? Appl. Psychol. 57, 173–203. doi: 10.1111/j.1464-0597.2007.00285.x
Schaufeli, W., Salanova, M., González-romá, V., and Bakker, A. (2002). The Measurement of engagement and burnout: a two sample confirmatory factor analytic approach. J. Happiness Stud. 3, 71–92. doi: 10.1023/A:1015630930326
Schwarzer, R., and Hallum, S. (2008). Perceived teacher self-efficacy as a predictor of job stress and burnout: mediation analyses. Appl. Psychol. 57, 152–171. doi: 10.1111/j.1464-0597.2008.00359.x
Skaalvik, E. M., and Skaalvik, S. (2009). Does school context matter? Relations with teacher burnout and job satisfaction. Teach. Teach. Educ. 25, 518–524. doi: 10.1016/j.tate.2008.12.006
Skaalvik, E. M., and Skaalvik, S. (2013). Teachers’ perceptions of the school goal structure: relations with teachers’ goal orientations, work engagement, and job satisfaction. Int. J. Educ. Res. 62, 199–209. doi: 10.1016/j.ijer.2013.09.004
Skaalvik, E. M., and Skaalvik, S. (2014). Teacher self-efficacy and perceived autonomy: relations with teacher engagement, job satisfaction, and emotional exhaustion. Psychol. Rep. 114, 68–77. doi: 10.2466/14.02.PR0.114k14w0
Stamm, B. (2009). Professional quality of life: compassion satisfaction and fatigue version 5 (ProQOL). ProQOL 5, 1–3.
Sutton, R. E., and Wheatley, K. F. (2003). Teachers’ emotions and teaching: a review of the literature and directions for future research. Educ. Psychol. Rev. 15, 327–358. doi: 10.1023/A:1026131715856
Tanaka, J. S. (1993). “Multifaceted conception of fit in structural equation models,” in Testing Structural Equation Models, eds K. A. Bollen and J. S. Long (Newbury Park, CA: Sage), 10–39.
Timms, C., and Brough, P. (2013). “I like being a teacher”: career satisfaction, the work environment and work engagement. J. Educ. Adm. 51, 768–789. doi: 10.1108/JEA-06-2012-0072
Toytok, E. H., and Kapusuzoglu, S. (2016). Influence of school managers’ ethical leadership behaviors on organizational culture: teachers’ perceptions | Öğretmen algılarına göre okul yöneticilerinin etik liderlik davranışlarının örgüt kültürü üzerine etkisi. Eur. J. Educ. Res. 2016, 373–388. doi: 10.14689/ejer.2016.66.21
Tuckey, M. R., Bakker, A. B., and Dollard, M. F. (2013). Empowering leaders optimize working conditions for engagement: a multilevel study. J. Occup. Health Psychol. 17, 15–27. doi: 10.1037/a0025942
Vagharseyyedin, S. A., Zarei, B., and Hosseini, M. (2018). The role of workplace social capital, compassion satisfaction and secondary traumatic stress in affective organisational commitment of a sample of Iranian nurses. J. Res. Nurs. 23, 446–456. doi: 10.1177/1744987118762974
Van Maele, D., and Van Houtte, M. (2015). Trust in school: a pathway to inhibit teacher burnout? J. Educ. Adm. 53, 93–115. doi: 10.1108/JEA-02-2014-0018
Vecina, M. L., Chacón, F., Marzana, D., and Marta, E. (2013). Volunteer engagement and organizational commitment in nonprofit organizations: what makes volunteers remain within organizations and feel happy? J. Commun. Psychol. 41, 291–302. doi: 10.1002/jcop.21530
Vecina, M. L., Chacón, F., Sueiro, M., and Barrón, A. (2012). Volunteer engagement: does engagement predict the degree of satisfaction among new volunteers and the commitment of those who have been active longer? Appl. Psychol. 61, 130–148. doi: 10.1111/j.1464-0597.2011.00460.x
Wang, J., and Wang, X. (2012). Structural Equation Modeling: Applications Using Mplus. Beijing: Higher Education Press, doi: 10.1002/9781118356258
Ware, H., and Kitsantas, A. (2007). Teacher and collective efficacy beliefs as predictors of professional commitment. J. Educ. Res. 100, 303–310. doi: 10.3200/JOER.100.5.303-310
Wayment, H. A., and Bauer, J. J. (2017). “The quiet ego: concept, measurement, and well-being,” in The Happy Mind: Cognitive Contributions to Well-Being, eds M. D. Robinson and M. Eid (Cham: Springer International Publishing AG), doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-58763-9_5
Wayment, H. A., and Bauer, J. J. (2018). The quiet ego: motives for self-other balance and growth in relation to well-being. J. Happiness Stud. 19, 881–896. doi: 10.1007/s10902-017-9848-z
Wayment, H. A., Bauer, J. J., and Sylaska, K. (2015). The quiet ego scale: measuring the compassionate self-identity. J. Happiness Stud. 16, 999–1033. doi: 10.1007/s10902-014-9546-z
Wayment, H. A., Huffman, A. H., and Eiler, B. A. (2019). A brief “quiet ego” workplace intervention to reduce compassion fatigue and improve health in hospital healthcare workers. Appl. Nurs. Res. 49, 80–85. doi: 10.1016/j.apnr.2019.05.002
Wayment, H. A., Wiist, B., Sullivan, B. M., and Warren, M. A. (2011). Doing and being: mindfulness, health, and quiet ego characteristics among buddhist practitioners. J. Happiness Stud. 12, 575–589. doi: 10.1007/s10902-010-9218-6
West, M., Loewenthal, L., Eckert, R., West, T., Lee, A., Armit, K., et al. (2015). Leadership and Leadership Development in Health Care: The Evidence Base. London: The King’s Fund.
Xanthopoulou, D., Bakker, A. B., Demerouti, E., and Schaufeli, W. B. (2007). The role of personal resources in the job demands-resources model. Int. J. Stress Manag. 14, 121–141. doi: 10.1037/1072-5245.14.2.121
Xanthopoulou, D., Bakker, A. B., Demerouti, E., and Schaufeli, W. B. (2009). Reciprocal relationships between job resources, personal resources, and work engagement. J. Vocat. Behav. 74, 235–244. doi: 10.1016/j.jvb.2008.11.003
Zahed-Babelan, A., Koulaei, G., Moeinikia, M., and Sharif, A. R. (2019). Instructional leadership effects on teachers’ work engagement: roles of school culture, empowerment, and job characteristics. Cent. Educ. Pol. Stud. J. 9, 137–156. doi: 10.26529/cepsj.181
Zeng, J., and Xu, G. (2020). Ethical leadership and young university teachers’ work engagement: a moderated mediation model. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 17, 1–15. doi: 10.3390/ijerph17010021
Zhang, Y. Y., Han, W. L., Qin, W., Yin, H. X., Zhang, C. F., Kong, C., et al. (2018). Extent of compassion satisfaction, compassion fatigue and burnout in nursing: a meta-analysis. J. Nurs. Manag. 26, 810–819. doi: 10.1111/jonm.12589
Keywords: teaching, work engagement, quiet ego, ethical leadership, compassion at work
Citation: Buonomo I, Farnese ML, Vecina ML and Benevene P (2021) Other-Focused Approach to Teaching. The Effect of Ethical Leadership and Quiet Ego on Work Engagement and the Mediating Role of Compassion Satisfaction. Front. Psychol. 12:692116. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.692116
Received: 07 April 2021; Accepted: 01 June 2021;
Published: 24 June 2021.
Edited by:
Massimiliano Barattucci, University of eCampus, ItalyReviewed by:
Seung-Yoon Rhee, Hongik University, South KoreaMark Durkin, Robert Gordon University, United Kingdom
David Watson, MacEwan University, Canada
Copyright © 2021 Buonomo, Farnese, Vecina and Benevene. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Ilaria Buonomo, aS5idW9ub21vMUBsdW1zYS5pdA==