Leader humility and follower prosocial behaviours: Integrating three theoretical perspectives

Abstract

Integrating social cognitive perspective, social exchange perspective, and social identity perspective, we developed a research model examining how leader humility affects follower prosocial behaviours via three psychological mechanisms (i.e., self-efficacy, affective trust, and perceived insider status). We used two field survey studies to examine our research model. Using a three-wave lagged design, Study 1 (N = 221) found that leader humility had positive indirect effects on employee knowledge exchange, an information-based indicator of prosocial behaviours, through all three mechanisms. To constructively replicate and extend our findings, Study 2 (N = 230) used a multi-source and three-wave lagged design and incorporated two additional indicators of prosocial behaviours: helping behaviour and voice behaviour. The results showed that affective trust mediated the positive effects of leader humility on all indicators of prosocial behaviours, indicating that social exchange is a powerful theoretical lens in explaining the implications of leader humility. Self-efficacy mediated the positive effect of leader humility on knowledge exchange and helping behaviour. However, perceived insider status did not exhibit any significant mediating effect. We discussed the theoretical and practical implications of these findings for leadership.