Lifted Up or Feet on the Ground? Leader Emotional Balancing, Developmental Feedback, and Learning

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In this paper, we extend the developmental feedback (DFB) concept to include two dimensions – gap identification and gap elimination. We focus on affective mechanisms underlying the DFB – learning relationship and identify trade-offs in each of the DFB dimensions. We argue that while gap elimination elicits employee positive affect (PA) that facilitates learning via increased learning self-efficacy, it undermines learning via PA and decreased learning need recognition. Gap identification induces negative affect (NA) that works in the opposite way. Emotional balancing, or the utilization of both affect improving and affect worsening behaviors, is proposed to attenuate the negative mechanisms. We conducted a three-wave, multi-source field study to test our theoretical model. Findings largely support our proposed model. Results indicate that gap identification elicits employee NA while gap elimination elicits PA. Gap identification has a positive effect on learning via employee learning need recognition, yet a negative effect on learning via employee NA and learning self-efficacy. We also find that gap elimination positively affects learning via PA and enhanced learning self-efficacy. Furthermore, we find support for the beneficial effects of emotional balancing, which significantly moderates the outcomes of PA and NA. Our results demonstrate that receiving DFB is a highly emotional experience that creates a tension between being lifted up and keeping feet on the ground, leaders can use emotional balancing to counter employee affect’s harming effect on learning.