All companies rely on committed and loyal employees to reach their goals. However, we know little about how exactly the mechanisms of leadership influence the job involvement of employees. This study focused on the established leadership model of lateral leadership by investigating the underlying forces of lateral leadership and developed a practical recommendation for its use. We empirically demonstrated which forces constitute the base of the lateral leadership model, how they interact with each other, and how much impact the forces have on the performance variables of job involvement and organisational commitment.