Linking leader humility with follower performance: A perspective of multi-foci relational identification

Abstract

One distinctive feature of leader humility is its facilitation of followers' developmentoriented relational identity. Drawing on relational identity theory, we argue that leader humility, a kind of bottom-up leadership, enhances followers' multi-foci relational identifications and subsequent multi-foci performance. Furthermore, leader workplace status is a boundary condition affecting the indirect relationships between leader humility and employee performance through multi-foci relational identifications. In an experiment (Study 1), we manipulated leader humility and our results supported the positive indirect effects of leader humility on multi-foci performance through multi-foci relational identification. In a field study (Study 2), we tested our hypotheses with two-wave data from a sample of 380 office workers in 82 groups in China. The results of Study 2 largely support our conceptual framework. We found that leader workplace status strengthened the relationship between leader humility and relational identification to coworkers, although did not facilitate the linkage between leader humility and followers' relational identification to the leader. Taken together, converging results from the two studies suggest that leader humility promotes followers' multi-foci relational identifications and subsequent multi-foci performance, and leader workplace status facilitates the indirect relationship of leader humility and follower interpersonal organizational citizenship behavior (OCBI) through relational identification to coworkers.

Subordinate-to-supervisor relational identification: A meta-analytic review.

“…While hinting to the significant role that expressive relational constructs occupy within the organizational landscape (e.g., Casciaro & Lobo, 2008), research on role relationships continues to (potentially) overemphasize the transactional or instrumental side of work relationships (Methot et al, 2018). That said, while RI is proposed to reap (mainly) positive outcomes for subordinates (Ashforth & Sluss, 2006; Sluss & Ashforth, 2007), inconsistencies exist in the literature as relationally identifying with one’s supervisor has at times exerted no substantive impact on subordinate attitudes and behaviors (Akkan & Guzman, 2022; Crossley et al, 2008; Zheng et al, 2022) and in certain instances even encouraged negative outcomes (Neuhoff, 2020; Wang & Li, 2019; Yang et al, 2020). Thus, our second goal is to systematically capture the influence of subordinate-to-supervisor RI on important subordinate attitudes and behaviors.…”