Purpose This research aims to examine the indirect relationship between feminine traits and employee contextual performance through transformational leadership. Additionally, it explored the role of leaders’ sex in moderating the relationship between feminine traits and transformational leadership through a moderated mediation model that subsequently influences employee contextual performance. Design/methodology/approach This study tested and validated the moderated mediation model using a two-wave survey with 295 samples. Bootstrapping was adopted for model testing. Findings The results indicated that leaders’ sex moderated the relationship between feminine traits and employee contextual performance through transformational leadership, such that the indirect effect was stronger for female leaders than for male leaders. Practical implications Female leaders can improve employee contextual performance by demonstrating transformational leadership with feminine traits. Organizations must implement measures (i.e. training) to promote the acceptance and application of leader gender and gender-role trait diversity, reduce the prevalence of gender stereotypes and help leaders benefit from learning and implementing the effective combination of leadership and feminine traits. Originality/value The study demonstrated the joint effects of leaders’ sex (difference) and gender-role traits on employee contextual performance through transformational leadership. These results provide female leaders with feminine traits to gain a leadership advantage and an in-depth understanding of role congruity theory from the perspective of leadership effectiveness.

Employee silence has multiple negative effects on the organization. Studies on the influence of leader negative emotional expression on employee silence are extremely limited, and there are inconsistent findings for the expression of negative emotion among leaders, which highlight the need to explore boundary factors in this field. The purpose of this paper is based on EASI model to examine the impact of leaders’ negative emotional expression on employee silence through the perceptions of psychological safety. Moreover, drawing on social exchange theory, this paper proposed a moderated mediation model to explore how leader–member exchange (LMX) moderates the indirect relationship between leader negative emotional expression and employee silence through perceptions of psychological safety. We employed a bootstrapping technique to analyze the hypotheses. This study adopts two-wave surveys and the results shown that leader negative emotional expression triggered employee silence by employees’ perceptions of psychological safety. This study also demonstrated that LMX weakens the relationship between leader negative emotional expression and employees’ perceptions of psychological safety. Furthermore, LMX weakens the indirect relationship between leader negative emotional expression and employee silence through employees’ perceptions of psychological safety. Using multiphase data collection, we found that when LMX is at a low level, the indirect effect of leader negative emotional expression on employee silence through employee psychological safety is stronger. The theoretical, practical implications and future research suggestions are discussed.