Does Leader Humor Influence Employee Voice? The Mediating Role of Psychological Safety and the Moderating Role of Team Humor

Abstract

Past research indicates that leader humor can bring many positive outcomes; however, its influence on employee voice has been largely neglected. We propose that leader humor can influence employee voice behaviors (i.e., promotive and prohibitive) via the mediating role of psychological safety. Drawing upon the substitutes for leadership theory, we further propose that team humor could moderate the influence of leader humor. Based on the latent moderated mediation structural equation modeling analysis, we found that employees whose leaders used humor more frequently perceived higher levels of psychological safety and in turn engaged in more promotive and prohibitive voice behaviors. Moreover, the indirect effects of leader humor were found to be more pronounced when teams have a low level of humor. On the other hand, leader humor has less influence on employee voice when teams have a high level of humor, which provides support for the leadership substitutes argument. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.