An Investigation of Inclusive Leadership's Impact on Employee Creativity in Textile Firms in Pakistan

Pakistan Journal of Social Sciences, Vol. 45(4) 2025, 289-302 289 ©2025 PJSS, Bahauddin Zakariya University Multan Pakistan An Investigation of Inclusive Leadership’s Impact on Employee Creativity in Textile Firms in Pakistan a Rabia Sher, b Khawaja Khalid Mehmood a PhD Scholar, Institute of Management Sciences, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, Pakistan Email: [email protected] b Associate Professor, Institute of Management Sciences, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, Pakistan Email: [email protected] ARTICLE DETAILS ABSTRACT History: Accepted: 15 November, 2025 Available Online: 01 December, 2025 Purpose: Research on inclusive leadership (IL) is flourishing but there is less research concerning how IL affects employee creativity (EC) through mediating and moderating mechanisms. Specifically, limited research is available about inclusive leadership’s impact on creativity with leader member exchange (LMX) as a mediator and personality traits as moderators. Such studies are extremely rare in Pakistan’s context. Thus, learning how IL, employee-leader interactions, and personality attributes influence workplace creativity has been the major goal of this research. Methodology: This study used quantitative approach and cross-sectional design; gathered 300 valid responses from employees working in Pakistan’s textile firms and used PLS-SEM for data analyses. Findings: Results reveal that LMX mediates IL's indirect effect on EC. Quality leaderemployee interactions foster trust, communication, and support, boosting creativity. Leaders’ extraversion and high conscientiousness affected their followers’ creativity. The moderation analysis showed that IL works across personality profiles since personality characteristics do not significantly impact the link between IL and EC. These results suggest that IL indirectly boosts creativity through social dynamics, not personality. Implications/Originality/Value: Novelty of the study is evident through its mediated moderation model involving test of IL on EC. This research provides its findings for a nonWestern, industry-specific environment adding to inclusive leadership theory. The findings imply that executives who practice IL, focus high-quality employee interactions and actively leverage their personality factors, increase EC. The findings hold significance for managers and HR professionals to design effective leadership development programs to boost creativity & innovation in textile sector of Pakistan. © 2025 The authors. Published by PJSS, BZU. This is an open-access research paper under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 Keywords: Inclusive Leadership Employee Creativity Leader-member Exchange Personality Textile Sector Recommended Citation: Sher, R., & Mehmood, K, K. (2025). An Investigation of Inclusive Leadership’s Impact on Employee Creativity in Textile Firms in Pakistan. Pakistan Journal of Social Sciences, 45(4), 289-302. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17775093 *Corresponding Author’s email address: [email protected] Pakistan Journal of Social Sciences ISSN (E) 2708-4175 ISSN (P) 2074-2061 Volume 45: Issue 4 December 2025 Journal homepage: https://pjss.bzu.edu.pk Pakistan Journal of Social Sciences ISSN (E) 2708-4175 ISSN (P) 2074-2061 Volume 45: Issue 4 December 2025 Journal homepage: https://pjss.bzu.edu.pk Pakistan Journal of Social Sciences, Vol. 45(4) 2025, 289-302 290 1. Introduction Competitive businesses recognize the value of creativity and innovation and understand that leadership is one of those factors which drive EC (Siswanti & Muafi, 2025). Leadership encourages personnel to experiment and innovate for staying abreast in fast-changing markets. For long-term sustainability and worldwide competitiveness, Pakistan's textile sector needs innovation; and this study analyses how IL could foster EC. EC has been considered one of the key factors driving business success (Chen et al., 2021). A significant number of scholars and practitioners have paid attention to the factors influencing individuals' creativity in the workplace (Luqman et al., 2021). Previous research has found that leaders play a key role in developing their subordinates’ creativity. Scholars have specifically suggested that IL fosters innovation by encouraging cooperation and creativity (Carmeli et al., 2010; Devapriyanga & Subashini, 2025). In fast-changing industries including textile that must continuously adhere to changing customer expectations and wants, leadership has been considered crucial. Pakistan's textile industry, a major contributor to GDP and exports, has historically stressed operational efficiency above creativity making it hard to differentiate and compete on value-added products (Alvi & Shahid, 2018). Thus, this industry needs creative and innovative leadership to become competitive and attain sustainability (Hussain et al., 2018). The connection between IL and EC has been the subject of numerous research. For instance, Choi et al. (2017) reported that IL positively affected employee innovation in telecommunication firms and person job fit mediated the relationship between the two. Javed et al. (2018) investigated the role that leader member exchange played in mediating the impact of IL on innovative work behavior in Pakistani small-scale textile enterprises. They found that IL and innovative work behavior were positively correlated. However, despite the importance of the topic, more knowledge on the understanding of the specific leader behaviors and mechanisms that lead to EC is lacking. In fact, most studies have focused on general patterns of leader support. Only a handful of studies, such as research by Siyal et al. (2021), have evaluated the specific characteristics or behaviors of leader support that may enhance creativity. In an attempt to contribute to this body of literature, this study seeks to unravel whether and how IL is conducive to creativity. There could be multiple mechanisms by which leader behavior can influence creativity, and more studies are needed to understand how different mediating variables relate to different leader behaviors. One such mediating variable is LMX. Review of literature on leadership and creativity reveals that there are in fact limited studies on the perspective of IL affecting EC through mediating and moderating mechanisms. Though few studies have been conducted in that area. For instance, the mediating role of intrinsic motivation and LMX between transformational leadership and EC was studied by Shahi and Bhatti (2021). In another study, leader dialectical thinking and LMX were found to moderate the relationship between employee creative self-efficacy and EC (Han & Bai, 2020). Further, in a Dutch study, the relationships between LMX, EC, and employee innovation were investigated by Mascareno et al. (2020) and they reported that LMX impacted innovation through EC. However, this study differentiates itself and as it (1) intends to explore the impact of IL on EC while testing the moderating effect of extraversion, openness to experience, conscientiousness, and risk-taking orientation on the relationship; and (2) tests the mediating role of LMX between IL and EC in Pakistan’s textile companies. Thus, it tests moderated mediation model while majorly investigating how IL influences EC. We believe that this study carries significant practical and contextual importance. It builds its hypotheses and makes a contribution towards several theories including inclusive leadership theory, LMX theory, social exchange theory, and personality trait theory. It provides invaluable contribution to Pakistan’s textile sector for policy making concerning the creativity of employees in textile firms. Pakistan Journal of Social Sciences, Vol. 45(4) 2025, 289-302 291 2. Literature Review 2.1 Inclusive Leadership and Employee Creativity IL is associated with leaders’ coaching conduct where they primarily facilitate their followers, offer clarifications as a route to increased levels of creativity, and involve the followers in decision making process (Carmeli et al., 2010; Devapriyanga & Subashini, 2025, Randel et al., 2018). Inclusive leaders empower employees by facilitating them to decide on their own, and this motivates every individual to develop agreement on useful ideas and implement those ideas for getting practical advantages. Inclusive leaders actively share the vision and goals of the organization with employees and incorporate their suggestions in various decisions. By doing so, employees develop better commitment towards the organizational goals, and their efforts for the attainment of those goals become more focused and energized. Increased commitment with leaders makes them reciprocate by exhibiting extra-role behavior (AlMulhim & Mohammed, 2023). Most of prior research has reported positive influence of IL on creativity, innovation, or innovative work behavior. For example, Ye et al. (2019) found that IL increased team innovation. Studies by Wang et al. (2019) and Fang et al. (2019) also showed that IL was positively related to innovation. Sharma et al. (2023) found that the combination of IL and diverse teams could promote innovation. Thus, several studies showed that IL positively enhanced innovative behavior, creation of new ideas, and creative outcomes. Since inclusive leaders show their support and accessibility, therefore employees are encouraged and become more innovative and deliver creative outcomes. However, Zhu et al. (2020) also noted the negative effect of IL on EC which is contradictory to the findings of many other studies on IL. But they tried to explain those contradictory findings based on the antecedent-benefit cost framework (ABC). They reported that IL discouraged subordinates creativity by reducing challenge-related stress but IL promoted subordinate’s creativity by enhancing their psychological safety. Overall, on the basis of the arguments in this section, the first hypothesis of this study is presented as: H1: Inclusive leadership significantly affects employee creativity. 2.2 Inclusive Leadership and LMX Leader-member exchange is based on LMX theory. This theory uses role theory and social exchange theory to discuss differentiated exchange relationships between leaders and their followers. The theory posits that leaders develop their in-group and out-group and engage themselves in a dyadic relationship with the followers (Graen and Uhl-Bien, 1995; Sidani et al., 2021). According to the theory, both the leader and the followers depend upon one another for information, resources, and services geared for attaining a shared goal (Khalili, 2018). Scholars argue that although LMX may benefit certain team members and alienate others, IL promotes open communication and employee care thus leading to better leader-member relations. Amidst, others note that IL promotes belonging (AlMulhim & Mohammed, 2023; Umrani et al., 2024), but it may unintentionally create exclusive team dynamics that could lower LMX quality. According to Umrani et al. (2024), IL may conflict with organizational cultures or individual preferences, especially in hierarchical societies. Conflicts damage trust, communication, and teamwork in LMX which may be detrimental. Too much inclusiveness can lead to inadvertent exclusion, especially when leaders unintentionally create inequalities. This can impair LMX quality and team dynamics by lowering morale, increasing interpersonal conflicts, and disconnecting neglected staff. Others argue that inclusive leaders like to stay in close relationships with their followers which results in better understanding between them and also results in high quality LMX (Li & Hang, 2017). High LMX would result in followers reciprocating same behaviors as found in an inclusive leader (social exchange theory) and would enable followers to better understand their role as well (role theory) (Sidani et al., 2021). High LMX may increase employees' positive and inclusive perception of IL and thus improve their psychological well-being and leadership identification (Wang & Shi, 2021). Overall, based on these arguments, following hypothesis is developed: H2: Inclusive leadership significantly impacts leader member exchange. Pakistan Journal of Social Sciences, Vol. 45(4) 2025, 289-302 292 2.3 LMX and Employee Creativity While there is a dearth of research on how LMX affects employees' perceptions of inclusion, earlier studies have confirmed that LMX has a constructive tendency and positively influences a number of organizational outcomes (Khalili, 2018). Individuals with high LMX are assigned more complex tasks, have more autonomy and flexibility in their decisions, and have better access to resources and information. This becomes an effective basis for their creativity (Han & Bai, 2020). The quality of LMX not only impacts individual outcomes but it affects team and organizational creativity also. Employees with better quality relationships with their leaders are risk takers, creative, and express themselves freely. Open communication and support on the part of leaders and their recognition of their followers’ abilities encourage them to express their views openly and solve problems innovatively. While, out-group members or those with low LMX might feel fear, uncertainty, and can have low morale and creativity (Sumanth, Černe, Hannah, & Škerlavaj, 2023). Past studies have reported their findings on LMX in different perspectives. For instance, study of Dwityaputri and Purba (2019) conducted in Indonesia found that LMX did not affect creativity directly but through felt responsibility for change. Similarly, research by Mascareño et al. (2020) found that LMX had different impact on innovation and creativity. LMX impacted innovation through creativity only. Additionally, they used different dimensions of LMX wherein only the dimension “professional respect” had an impact on innovation through creativity, while other dimensions were insignificant. Thus, it could be plausible to further test the influence of LMX on EC in Pakistan’s context. Therefore, following hypothesis is developed: H3: Better leader member exchange have a significant impact on employee creativity. In sections 2.1 to 2.3, arguments have been presented concerning the possible influence of IL on EC, IL on LMX, and LMX on EC. Thus, the mediation hypothesis is presented as: H4: Inclusive leadership increases employee creativity through building better leader-member exchange. 2.4 The Role of Leaders’ Personality Traits Personality trait theories capture those traits that are related with IL. Scholars have argued that personality characteristics such as conscientiousness, extraversion, and agreeableness are particularly important for leaders in exercising leadership (Zopiatis & Constanti, 2012). Along with these traits, orientation towards risk taking is another characteristic that could complement IL qualities. These characteristics enable inclusive leaders recognize and appreciate diversity, give followers a platform to express their thoughts and ideas, promote in-person interactions, express concern for growth, offer assistance to staff members, encourage creativity, and generally foster a better working relationship (Josten & Lordan, 2025). These behaviors show how much leaders value, appreciate, and support their employees that could foster the growth of positive working relationships between them (Barańczuk, 2019). Although most of the past research has used Big Five Model in assessing personalities, yet there have been studies that used certain selective aspects of individual personality as they suited their research objectives. For instance, research by Jamal and Ahmed (2016) studied neuroticism, agreeableness and openness to experience along with risk aversion in their study of investor behavior. Moreover, Gale et al. (2013) used extraversion and neuroticism to predict mental well-being and life satisfaction of respondents in their research. Additionally, in the study of employee voice behavior, Li and Xu (2020) used two of Big Five traits i.e. extraversion and neuroticism to conduct their analyses. Thus, in the same line, this research used four traits namely openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, and risk taking orientation as inclusive leader traits. As the purpose was to study the moderating effect of these traits on the association between IL and EC, thus these traits were deemed to be most relevant. A brief literature on personality traits and their importance for IL follows in the following subsections. Pakistan Journal of Social Sciences, Vol. 45(4) 2025, 289-302 293 2.4.1 Openness to experience It implies those who are dynamic, adaptive, imaginative, bold, and receptive (Javed et al., 2020). Effective leadership is correlated with openness to experience, particularly in situations that are more uncertain or dynamic since effective leaders are more likely to adjust to new situations (Javed et al., 2020). They are more sensitive to both positive and negative emotions than others who lack this characteristic. Openness is closely associated with traits that are naturally motivating, particularly interests in creativity, arts, and intellectual or cultural activities (AlSamarrai & Alsalhi, 2023). For these reasons, openness has been hypothesized as the core trait underlying creativity (Bunce & Boerger, 2022; Pham, 2024). Therefore, following hypothesis is developed: H5: Leader’s openness to experience moderates the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee creativity. 2.4.2 Extraversion Individuals who are more gregarious, conversational, active, and outgoing are considered extroverts (Mitchell et al., 2022). Extraversion is viewed as a positive aspect since it is characterized by positive feelings (Schlotzhauer et al., 2025). It’s about an individual’s ability to focus on outside stimuli, seek out excitement, and embrace social connection and necessary attention for creative thinking (Kandler et al., 2016). Extroverts may emerge as successful leaders as their communication skills are more pronounced (Mitchell et al., 2022). Leaders who are high in extraversion have better social connections and knowledge of others’ feelings and thus could emerge as more successful inclusive leaders (Ghafar et al., 2025). Research by Syed et al. (2018), in context of Pakistan, provided partial support for the moderating influence of extraversion between transformational/transactional leadership styles and worker stress. Thus, this study seeks to find out how extraversion would moderate the relationship between IL and EC. Thus, H6 is formulated as: H6: Leader’s extraversion moderates the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee creativity. 2.4.3 Conscientiousness Conscientiousness is connected to integrity, exhibiting a meticulous, well-organized, trustworthy, diligent, and disciplined nature of oneself. A conscientious person is driven to complete goal-oriented work and is focused and persistent. Those who strongly possess this trait have a dominant feeling of duty and purpose; they thrive on achieving goals which translates into successful ability to lead (Mousavi & Ebrahimi, 2024; Pakizekho & Barkhordari-Sharifabad, 2022). Furthermore, scholars argue that people who are high in conscientiousness guide and direct workers better towards achieving their objectives (Zhong et al., 2025). Al-Furqon et al. (2023) add that high conscientiousness can also involve creativity. As this research offers guidelines about how to improve EC, thus with the arguments presented it becomes imperative to test the moderating influence of conscientiousness on the association among IL and EC. Thus, the next hypothesis is formulated as below. H7: Leader’s conscientiousness moderates the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee creativity. 2.4.4 Orientation towards risk taking Risk taking orientation describes the likelihood that a person will take risks in complex situations while making significant decisions (Joseph & Zhang, 2021). Prior findings indicate that risk-taking behaviors could be linked to creativity and desirable outcomes. For example, scholars demonstrated that social risk-taking i.e. willingness to challenge norms was positively related to creative personality and creative ideation/initiative (i.e., measure of ideation ability) (Junça-Silva et al., 2024; Bonetto et al., 2020). Bourke (2016) argued that risk taking must be considered as one of the leading qualities of inclusive leaders for making followers creative. However, contrary to this, there have been findings that showed bidirectional or sometimes negative association between risk taking propensity and measures of divergent thinking and creativity (Crepaldi et al., 2024). These conflicting findings Pakistan Journal of Social Sciences, Vol. 45(4) 2025, 289-302 294 strongly suggest that the relationship between creativity and social risk-taking should be further studied. Therefore, following hypothesis is developed: H8: Leader’s risk taking orientation moderates the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee creativity. Based on the literature review, following research framework has been developed and presented below in figure 1. Figure 1 Research Framework 3. Research Methodology 3.1 Population and Respondents This research employed a quantitative & cross-sectional study design to investigate the impact of IL on EC, with LMX as a mediator and personality traits tested as moderators. The cross-sectional design allows data to be collected at a single point in time, the respondents are neither deliberately treated nor exposed, and normally there are no ethical issues in this design (Wang & Cheng, 2020). This study targeted for textile firms in Pakistan as textile sector needs innovation and creativity to excel globally. Limited knowledge is available about innovation management and creativity in Pakistan’s textile sector and its impact on economy (Wadho & Chaudhry, 2018). In Pakistan, data about textile based innovation is not available through secondary sources. Whereas, this is one of the highest exporting sectors in Pakistan, is labor intensive, and has a long value added chain. Most of the textile firms in Pakistan are fully integrated units that design their production from ginning to fabric making followed by marketing of their brands locally and internationally. For this research, we surveyed around 60 textile and apparel manufacturers in Punjab and Sindh provinces of Pakistan. At first attempt, the target was to identify that in which firms innovation and creativity was critical and where the employees were involved in doing some sort of creative work such as apparel designing, now product development, and some other type of technological innovation such as innovation in quality control. Around 1000 questionnaires were given to such employees and after several follow ups, 316 questionnaires were returned back. The respondents were from different departments having diverse nature of roles but their jobs needed creative thinking and results. Sixteen questionnaires were either returned as blank or they were not properly filled, so 300 questionnaires were used finally for data analyses. Out of completed questionnaires, there were no outliers detected as checked through Mahalanobis distance values in SPSS. The responses were obtained mainly from the following cities: Multan, Faisalabad, Lahore, Karachi, Arifwala, & Sahiwal. Pakistan Journal of Social Sciences, Vol. 45(4) 2025, 289-302 295 3.2 Questionnaire Construction and Data Collection Data collection involved self-administered questionnaires distributed to employees and supervisors within the textile companies promising confidentiality and anonymity of the data. A five-point Likert scale was employed for assessing all the responses. The scales were developed relying on those used by past studies. IL questionnaire was adopted from Carmeli et al. (2010), who presented nine items to measure IL. EC was measured with three items developed by Oldham and Cummings (1996). LMX was measured with a 7-item scale adopted from Graen and UhlBien (1995). Personality traits (openness to experience, extraversion, conscientiousness) were measured using Saucier (1994) scale. Risk-taking orientation was measured with a 4-item scale based on work by Pablo (1997) and as used by Nkundabanyanga et al. (2015). 4. Data Analyses and Findings The data analyses was conducted on SmartPLS 4.0. Initially, the quality of the measurement model was assessed through reliability, convergent, and discriminant validity. All constructs in the study were reflective and based on that the structural model was drawn. It involved analysis of path coefficients, significance levels and confidence levels for inference making and drawing conclusions. Bootstrapping was performed with sub-sample of 10,000. 4.1 Measurement Model The measurement model is shown in figure 2. Figure 2: The Measurement Model The path coefficients are shown as well as item loadings for their respective constructs are also evident. In order to ensure model reliability and convergent validity, items with loading 0.6 or higher were retained in the model (Chin, 1998). Thus, it can be observed that all item loadings in figure 2 are greater than 0.6. Further, reliability was assessed using Cronbach’s alpha which should be at least 0.6 according to Nunnally (1978). Table 1 presents statistics for Cronbach’s alpha, composite reliability, and average variance extracted (AVE). Composite reliability Pakistan Journal of Social Sciences, Vol. 45(4) 2025, 289-302 296 for all variables is greater than 0.7 which is considered satisfactory (Hair et al., 2019). AVE values are greater than 0.5 for all the variables establishing convergent validity (Hair et al., 2019). Table 1 Determining Reliability and Validity Variable Cronbach's Alpha Composite Reliability AVE CON 0.859 0.895 0.587 EC 0.871 0.921 0.795 EXT 0.915 0.937 0.747 IL 0.917 0.932 0.635 LMX 0.862 0.894 0.548 OE 0.884 0.911 0.631 RTO 0.915 0.940 0.797 Note: CON: Conscientiousness, EC: Employee Creativity, EXT: Extraversion, IL: (Inclusive Leadership), LMX: Leader-Member Exchange, OE: Openness to Experience, RTO: Risk-taking Orientation For assessing discriminant validity, Heterotrait-Monotrait (HTMT) ratios were used. Table 2 presents Matrix for those ratios. As these ratios are all less than 0.9, thus discriminant validity has been confirmed (Hair et al., 2019). For examining multicollinearity, variance inflation factor values were seen. All those values were less than 4.0, thus it made sure that there has been no multicollinearity issue in the data (Garson, 2016). The SRMR of the estimated model was 0.094 (<0.10) and it could be considered satisfactory as well (Garson, 2016). Table 2 HTMT Matrix Variable CON EC EXT IL LMX OE RTO CON --- EC 0.594 EXT 0.212 0.598 IL 0.706 0.482 0.187 LMX 0.859 0.663 0.250 0.627 OE 0.449 0.365 0.515 0.360 0.295 RTO 0.305 0.570 0.755 0.254 0.420 0.577 --- 4.2 Hypotheses Testing and Conclusions Next, the structural model was drawn and bootstrapping process (using two-tailed test) was run to draw the findings. The findings are available in table 3. Table 3 Direct, Indirect, and Moderation Effects Links beta values (original sample) Standard deviation t-statistics p-values bias corrected confidence Intervals 2.5% 97.5% IL→EC 0.084 0.061 1.380 0.168 -0.039 0.198 IL→LMX 0.572 0.046 12.497 0.000 0.480 0.659 LMX→EC 0.290 0.074 3.907 0.000 0.136 0.427 IL→LMX→EC 0.166 0.045 3.678 0.000 0.077 0.256 CON→EC 0.174 0.082 2.124 0.034 0.023 0.349 CONxIL→EC -0.032 0.042 0.777 0.437 -0.104 0.060 EXT→EC 0.385 0.066 5.859 0.000 0.256 0.513 Pakistan Journal of Social Sciences, Vol. 45(4) 2025, 289-302 297 EXTxIL→EC -0.042 0.065 0.649 0.517 -0.167 0.087 OE→EC -0.085 0.048 1.761 0.078 -0.170 0.020 OExIL→EC -0.008 0.046 0.170 0.865 -0.107 0.075 RTO→EC 0.116 0.079 1.469 0.142 -0.042 0.264 RTOxIL→EC 0.058 0.069 0.840 0.401 -0.049 0.222 In order to check the mediation effect, guidelines by Zhao et al. (2010) were followed. In this research, the mediation effect of LMX between IL and EC was analyzed. As table 3 indicates, the indirect effect of IL on EC was significant (p-value: 0.000, t-stats: 3.678, β: 0.166), thus H4 was accepted. Furthermore, findings also show significant effect of IL on LMX (p-value: 0.000, t-stats: 12.497) and significant effect of LMX on EC (p-value: 0.000, t-stats: 3.907) thus consequently accepting H2 and H3. According to guidelines by Zhao et al. (2010), it could be termed as ‘indirect only’ mediation as the direct effect of IL on EC was insignificant (p-value: 0.168, t-stats: 1.380). Thus H1 had to be rejected. Next, concerning the moderation effects, table 3 presents the concerned statistics. It can be noted that none of the personality traits had a moderation effect on the relationship between IL and EC. The interaction term for moderation effect of openness to experience (OE x IL) has insignificant effect on EC (p-value: 0.865). The interaction term for the moderation effect of extraversion (EXT x IL) has insignificant effect on EC (p-value: 0.517). Also, the effect of interaction term for conscientiousness (CON x IL) has insignificant effect on EC (p-value: 0.437). Finally, the interaction term for risk term orientation (RTO x IL) also has insignificant effect on EC (p-value: 0.401). Thus, hypotheses five, six, seven, and eight were rejected. However, the findings reveal that conscientiousness (p-value: 0.034, t-stats: 2.124, β: 0.174) and extraversion (pvalue: 0.000, t-stats: 5.859, β: 0.385), both had significant and positive impact on EC. This implies that the leaders’ personality traits do not impact the relationship between IL and EC, but EC is greatly influenced by the conscientiousness and extraversion of the leader. More is discussed in the next section. 5. Discussions and Implications The study principally sheds light on the role of IL in promoting EC. Additionally, it discusses how might leader’s personality traits influence EC. It accomplishes this purpose based on the sample of employees involved in performing creative assignments and activities in textile sector of Pakistan which is one of the most significant in terms of investment and its contribution to the national economy. Although previous research has addressed the importance of LMX for EC as well as LMX in a leadership framework, the mediating effect of LMX between IL and EC was not emphasized. The study reports significant mediation effect of LMX between IL and EC but insignificant impact of personality traits on the relationship between IL and EC. However, this study notes significant impact of conscientiousness and extraversion of leader on EC of the followers. This research reports that inclusive leaders promote creativity in their followers through better LMX. These findings could be supported by those presented by earlier studies as well. Inclusive leaders are visionary and they set their goals and targets by taking their followers into confidence. They intend to develop consensus at critical issues and show an increased commitment towards their role as a leaders. This attitude motivates their followers and they try to reciprocate same behavior (AlMulhim & Mohammed, 2023). This research supports role theory and social exchange theory in particular. As per social exchange theory, leaders and followers depend on one another for information, resources, and services being performed for accomplishing organizational goals (Khalili, 2018). When leader-member exchange relations are better and constructive, this situation helps followers to better understand and perform their roles (Sidani et al., 2021). High level support from the leader, open communication, and close and constructive working relationships with the followers encourage them to think innovatively and leads towards innovation.