Are gritty leaders happier or unhappier? It depends on how prudent they are

Abstract

As the perseverant pursuit of long-term goals, grit is a sought-after resource for leaders and employees that typically results in greater success and well-being, but with potential downsides. We hypothesize that the relationship between grit in leaders and their affective well-being (AWB) via work-to-family conflict (WFC) is conditional on their self-regulatory resource of prudence. The sample comprises 102 leaders with self-, subordinate- (n = 487) and peer- (n = 838) ratings. Findings suggest that grittier and imprudent leaders experience higher WFC and lower AWB, whereas grittier and prudent leaders experience lower WFC and higher AWB. We therefore conclude that the agentic resource of grit in leaders may be either positively or negatively related to their well-being depending on their prudence. We also demonstrate that even though grit and prudence are among the suggested facets of conscientiousness, that should not prevent treating the two as resources that operate interactively.