Although leaders spend considerable time helping followers with personal problems, little research has investigated how such helping acts may impact leaders themselves. Drawing from affective events theory and the helping literature, we examine how responding to followers' help requests with personal problems influences leaders' own affect. As expected, we found that helping followers with personal problems was associated with an increase in leaders' negative affect. The strength of the association between personal helping and negative affect, however, depended on the day and on the leader. Specifically, personal helping increased negative affect less on days when leaders perceived their prosocial impact of personal helping to be high (vs. low). On the other hand, personal helping increased negative affect more on days when leaders also helped with task-related problems. Furthermore, at the between-person level, leaders with high (vs. low) managerial experience were less affected by personal helping. In exploratory analyses, we also investigated how followers reacted to leaders' helping. We found that whereas leader task-related helping was associated with follower perceptions of leader work engagement, leader personal helping was not. Additionally, helping with personal problems detracted from followers' increased perceptions of work engagement derived from leaders' task-related helping. Specifically, followers rated leaders who helped with task-related problems as more engaged on days when these leaders provided less (vs. more) personal helping. We discuss implications for research on helping and leadership.

Although leaders’ daily work is inherently relational, it is possible that leaders can feel lonely and isolated from followers. Integrating theoretical ideas from regulatory loop models of loneliness with evolutionary perspectives of loneliness, we posit that daily leader loneliness (i.e., feelings of isolation stemming from one’s followers) may prompt harmful self-perpetuating as well as beneficial self-correcting cycles of loneliness at work via different rumination processes. We expect that leader loneliness will relate to 2 forms of rumination after work—maladaptive affect-focused rumination and adaptive problem-solving pondering. We expect that each form of rumination will hinder or facilitate next-day work engagement and helping, which will then matter for subsequent leader loneliness. In a 10-day experience sampling investigation of 86 leaders, we found that daily leader loneliness exhibits a self-perpetuating pattern via affect-focused rumination because this type of rumination reduces next-day work engagement and helping. At the same time, daily leader loneliness exhibits a self-correcting pattern via problem-solving pondering, as this type of forward-thinking rumination facilitates work engagement and helping the next day. Furthermore, leader self-efficacy enhances the extent to which problem-solving pondering occurs when leaders feel lonely. In a supplemental experience sampling study with leaders and followers, we further show that daily leader loneliness is negatively related to followers’ perceptions of leader effectiveness above and beyond more generalized loneliness. In summary, our work sheds theoretical and empirical light on the complex nature of leader loneliness.

Integrating research on self-compassion with leader identity theory, we propose that leader role self-compassion—a mindset in which a leader takes a supportive, kind, and nonjudgmental stance toward himself or herself in relation to challenges faced in a leader role—matters for subsequent leader behaviors and stakeholder perceptions by strengthening leader identity. To test these theoretical ideas, we developed and tested a leader role self-compassion intervention in two field experiments. In the first field experiment, we show that on days when leaders engage in leader role self-compassion, they help others more with both task-related and personal problems because they identify more strongly with their leader role. Consequently, on such days, stakeholders perceive these leaders as more competent and civil. In exploratory analyses, we also find that these effects are stronger for leaders with lower (vs. higher) structural power, suggesting that novice leaders may benefit more from leader role self-compassion. In the second field experiment, we conceptually replicate the effect of the leader role self-compassion intervention on leader identity and establish the distinctiveness of this intervention from other types of interventions. We discuss implications for theory and research.

Most professional employees aspire to leadership, and this suggests that a best possible leader self-a personalized representation of who an employee aspires to be at their best as a leader in the future-is likely a relevant and motivating self-representation for employees at work. Integrating theory on best possible selves with control theory, we suggest that activating a best possible leader self can have beneficial effects for the way that any employee feels and behaves at work. Specifically, we propose that employees who reflect on their best possible leader self will enact more leadercongruent behaviors and subsequently perceive themselves as more leaderlike due to the positive affect generated by such reflection. We found support for our theoretical expectations in an experimental experience sampling study that included both current and aspiring leaders. On days when employees reflected on their best possible leader self, they engaged in more helping and visioning via positive affect. Furthermore, employees perceived themselves as more leaderlike after performing these leader-congruent behaviors, as captured by higher enacted leader identity and clout. We discuss theoretical and practical implications for research on leadership.

For individuals who hold leadership positions in their organizations, identifying as a leader day-to-day can have significant implications for their performance and interactions with followers. Despite the importance of leader identity, however, little is known about how leaders can start their workday in a cognitive state that allows them to identify more strongly with their leader role. Integrating recovery research with leader identity theory, we investigated the implications of psychological detachment and affect-focused rumination for leader identity and leader performance on a day-to-day basis at work. We conducted two experience sampling studies to test our expectations. In the first experience sampling study, we found that psychological detachment after hours helped leaders identify more strongly with their leader role the next day because they felt recuperated (i.e., lower levels of depletion), whereas affect-focused rumination after hours hindered leader identity via depletion. In turn, leader identity influenced leaders’ enactment of transformational behaviors and power that day at work, as rated by their followers. We also found that the downstream effects of affect-focused rumination on leader behaviors via depletion and leader identity were weaker for more (vs. less) experienced leaders. We constructively replicated the negative effects of depletion on transformational behaviors and enacted power via leader identity in a supplemental experience sampling study using leaders’ self-reports of their behaviors. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of our research for leaders at work.