How Does Leader Humor Expression Influence Follower Outcomes? Exploring the Dual Process Model

Abstract

Using both experimental and field data, we examined how and what style of leader humor expression leads to positive work outcomes. We develop and test a dual process model (the affective mechanism and the cognitive mechanism) delineating the psychological process by which leader humor expressions influence follower outcomes. We test our model across two studies. Study 1 demonstrates in an experiment that the perceived funniness of leader humor causes followers to report greater positive affect as well as positive evaluation of the leader. Extending these findings into organizational field context, Study 2 surveys a sample of 211 employees and 47 managers and finds that employees’ positive affect at work and their positive evaluation of their manager mediated the relationship between perceived funniness of manager’s humor and employee performance. However, the mediation path of positive evaluation is negatively moderated by manager’s humor style such that when the manager has a self-deprecating humor style, the positive effect of perceived humor funniness will decrease. We also contribute to the leadership, affect and humor literature by suggesting the need to view leader humor expression as a perception by the recipient rather than intention of the sender, proposing two features of leader humor expression (perceived humor funniness and humor style) that have been neglected by past research.