Seeing is not believing: Leader humility, hypocrisy, and their impact on followers' behaviors
Document Type
Journal Article
Publication Title
The Leadership Quarterly
Publisher
Elsevier
School
School of Business and Law / Centre for Work and Organisational Performance
RAS ID
31988
Abstract
Challenging the prevailing consensus that leader humility is uniformly beneficial we investigate circumstances where leader humility behaviors are positively perceived and yet negatively received due to attributions of impression management. Arising from potential inconsistencies in perceptions and attributions, we argue that followers may evaluate leader humility behavioral displays as either genuine or hypocritical. We conducted two studies, in different contexts, to test followers' reactions to leader humility displays. In Study 1 (Confucian Asian cluster), we used a survey methodology to test our theoretical model. Due to the validity problems with our instrumental variables, we were unable to draw conclusions from the results of study 1. In Study 2 (Anglo cluster), we used a scenario-based experimental design. While the hypothesized mediating effect via perceptions of leader hypocrisy was not supported by the results, we found support for the hypothesis that the interaction of leader humility and impression management positively influenced hypocrisy.
DOI
10.1016/j.leaqua.2020.101440
Access Rights
subscription content
Comments
Bharanitharan, D. K., Lowe, K. B., Bahmannia, S., Chen, Z. X., & Cui, L. (2021). Seeing is not believing: Leader humility, hypocrisy, and their impact on followers' behaviors . The Leadership Quarterly, 32(2), article 101440. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2020.101440