While most organizations anticipate that their newcomers can achieve both adjustment and innovation, it remains a challenge for newcomers to realize both. Drawing on optimal distinctiveness theory, we develop a theoretical model to explore how team inclusive leadership affects newcomers’ different socialization outcomes (i.e., social adjustment and innovation) as well as their career outcomes (i.e., career adaptability) via the mechanism of person-team (P-T) fit perceptions. Specifically, we explore how team inclusive leadership fosters both supplementary and complementary P-T fit, which in turn promotes newcomers’ social adjustment and innovation, ultimately enhancing their career adaptability. Moreover, we also propose that newcomers’ individual identity orientations and team functional diversity may serve as the contingent factors of these relationships. This conceptual model contributes to the extant literatures on newcomers’ socialization and inclusive leadership. It also has important implications for organizations to support newcomers in promoting their socialization and career development.
