How does leader self-deprecating humor affect creative performance? The role of creative self-efficacy and power distance

Abstract

Creative performance affects the achievement of an enterprise's financial objectives to a great extent. As the agent of an organization, a leader's influence on followers’ creative performance has been widely examined. In recent years, testing humorous leadership as one of the new leadership styles has related it to employee attitudes and behaviors. However, since the concept includes both positive and negative aspects, the effects of leader humor have not met in a consistent conclusion. Therefore, this study seeks to investigate the role of the unique aspect of leader humor, namely, self-deprecating humor, on subordinates’ creative performance in a Chinese context. The empirical results show that leader self-deprecating humor negatively relates to employee creative performance, through employee creative self-efficacy, and employee power distance moderates the process.