The Impact of Leader Humor on Subordinate Job Satisfaction

Abstract

Conventional wisdom from the popular and scholarly literatures consistently suggests that positive humor by leaders can be beneficial, but that negative humor should be avoided at all costs. To explore the boundaries of that conventional wisdom, we draw on leadership and humor theory to develop and test a conceptual model describing the relationships between leader humor, leader-subordinate relationship quality, the subordinate's tenure with the leader, and subordinate job satisfaction. Analysis of multilevel data from 241 subordinates nested within 70 leaders in 54 organizations revealed that the relationship between leader humor and job satisfaction was dependent on the quality of the leader-subordinate relationship, and not the positive/negative tone of the leader's humor. Specifically, both positive and negative (i.e., affiliative and aggressive) leader humor styles were positively associated with job satisfaction when the relationship was positive, but both types were negatively associated with job satisfaction when the relationship

Personal need for structure as a boundary condition for humor in leadership

“…Additionally and in line with previous research (Pundt, 2015;Robert et al, 2016), we controlled for gender of the follower and gender of the leader. Humor is often hypothesized to depend on the gender of the sender as well as on the gender of the recipient of humor.…”

“…However, recent research raises some doubts about the general validity of the proposed unconditional effect of humor in leadership on the leader-follower relationship. For example, Robert et al (2016) did not find evidence for the relational process of humor. Additionally, Kim et al (2016) found the relationship between humor in leadership and social distance between leader and follower to depend upon the followers' trust in the leader.…”

The Influence of Perceived Leader Humor on Subordinate’s Voice Behavior: A Study under Chinese Background

“…When the subordinate perceive leaders' affiliative humor, it will be explained a proactive interpersonal signal by subordinate to create a good atmosphere of communication in the organization [11]. To further enhance the subordinates' willingness to communicate, it can improve subordinates job satisfaction and job performance [12], as well as, it can also reduce the negative emotions of employees and some disadvantage organization behaviors, suchas organizational cynicism and dysfunctional resistance [13] [14].…”

The Role of Employee Trust in the Relationship Between Leaders’ Aggressive Humor and Knowledge Sharing

“…Confirming this, a leader's negative humor early in the relationship may have a devastating effect on a subordinate's perception of the relationship. Still, in contrast, the same humor might be brushed off after building trust among them (Robert et al, 2016). Gupta (2008) stated that knowledge-sharing occurs better among employees who have greater mutual trust.…”