Background. Innovative behaviors are crucial to overcome the challenges of the 21st-century world of work and to guarantee the sustainability and success of organizations. The positive healthy organizations approach aims to promote eudemonic well-being, such as meaningfulness, as a key aspect to foster workers' well-being, organizational prosperity, and success. In this scenario, a new integrated leadership construct, namely human capital sustainability leadership, has emerged. This leadership style is a higher-order construct that integrates and expands the value of a positive centering towards collaborators through four dimensions: ethical, sustainable, mindful, and servant leadership.

Aims. The present research analyzed the contribution of human capital sustainability leadership in mediating the relationship between innovative behavior and meaningful life, meaningful work, and flourishing in 353 Italian workers.

Method. The Innovative Behavior Inventory (IBI), the Human Capital Sustainability Leadership Scale (HCSLS), the Meaningful Life Measure (MLM), the Work and Meaning Inventory (WAMI), and the Flourishing Scale (FS) were administered. A series of mediation analyses using the bootstrap method was performed.

Results. Results showed a statistically significant mediating role of the human capital sustainability leadership in the relationship between innovative behavior and meaningful life (R² = 0.21; p < 0.001), meaningful work (R² = 0.25; p < 0.001), and flourishing (R² = 0.21; p < 0.001).

Conclusion. These results suggest that human capital sustainability leadership style could be a promising and useful positive resource for organizations to adaptively cope with the challenges of the 21st-century world of work. Implications for research and intervention in a strength-based prevention perspective will be provided.