Growing Followers: Exploring the Effects of Leader Humility on Follower Self‐Expansion, Self‐Efficacy, and Performance

Abstract

Although the effectiveness of leader humility has been well documented, our understanding of how leader humility influences followers psychologically is limited. Surpassing a mere leader‐centric understanding of the leader influence process by more fully understanding how leadership behavior shapes followers psychologically has been identified as a critical need by leadership scholars. Drawing on self‐expansion theory, we argue that leader humility triggers followers’ self‐expansion and that this psychological change enhances followers’ self‐efficacy, which in turn contributes to followers’ task performance. We also argue that the relationship between leader humility and followers’ self‐expansion is strengthened when leaders and followers are similar in age and gender. Using a time‐lagged research design with responses from 256 leader–follower dyads, we found support for our proposed model. We discuss the theoretical implications for our findings and suggest areas for future research.

Emotional Regulation and Academic Performance in the Academic Context: The Mediating Role of Self-Efficacy in Secondary Education Students

“…From a different perspective, low self-efficacy is seen as related to non-adaptive academic behaviors, leading to less commitment to school tasks and poor academic performance [25] and even to psychological problems in adolescents, such as anxiety, stress and even depression [26].…”

Humble leadership and innovative behaviour among Chinese nurses: The mediating role of work engagement

“…Second, by appreciating followers' strengths and contributions, humble leaders motivate and inspire nurses to bring up new ideas, suggestions and solutions in order to improve quality of care (Wang, Zhang, & Jia, ; Wang, Owens, et al, ; Wang Liu, & Zhu, ). Finally, by showing openness to novel ideas and feedback, humble leaders promote nurses to generate and implement new process and methods in practice (Hu et al, ; Mao et al, ). Therefore, based on these arguments, our first hypothesis is:

Hypothesis 1: Humble leadership is positively and directly related to nurses' innovative behaviour.

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“…When the leaders behave to be humble in daily interactions with their subordinates, such humble leader behaviours would have interpersonal influences on subordinates' attitudes and behaviours. Indeed, previous research has reported that humble leadership could promote employees' job satisfaction, work engagement and task performance (Mao, Chiu, Owens, Brown, & Liao, 2018;Rego et al, 2017;Wang, Owens, et al, 2018). However, it's less clear that whether humble leadership could promote innovative behaviour among nurses.…”

Development of Humility Scale and the Relationship among Leader Humility, Authority and Personal Background

“…The concept and definition of humility are still controversial in academia [10][11]. In addition, China and the West have different interpretations of humility [2] [5]. Western culture believes that a person's success or greatness is related to the characteristics humility.…”

“…At the same time, we must pay attention to the development of personality, honesty, integrity, and humility. In recent years, many studies have found that leader humility plays an important role in the effect and process of leadership [1][2][3][4][5] [10][11]. In recent years, many studies have found that leader humility plays an important role in the effect and process of leadership.…”