Selfless Leader and Their Selfless Follower: The Trickle-Down Effect of Leader Perceived Fairness

Abstract

Based on equity theory (Adam, 1965), we proposed a fairness trickle- down model to explain how leaders’ perceived fairness may impact their followers’ prosocial motivation. A time-lagged study from 82 group leaders and 906 subordinates in Mainland China supported our trickle-down model. First, our results indicate that leader perceived fairness had an indirect, positive effect on subordinate prosocial motivation through its negative impact on leader self-interested behavior. Second, both leader narcissism and follower narcissism were found to moderate the fairness trickle-down effect. When leader narcissism is high, the negative relationship between leader perceived fairness and leader self-interested behavior is stronger. Moreover, when follower narcissism is high, the negative relationship between leader self-interested behavior and follower prosocial motivation is strengthened. Finally, both leader narcissism and follower narcissism positively moderates the mediating effect of leader self-interested behavior. We discuss the theoretical contributions and practical implications of our research.