Stuck in Self-sacrifice:How Self-sacrificial Leadership Affect Employees’ Emotional Exhaustion

Abstract

Drawing upon the social information processing theory, this study examined the relationships about how self-sacrificial leadership affect employees' citizenship pressure, compulsory citizenship behavior and emotional exhaustion. Analysis of data collected from 249 employees, at multiple time periods, revealed that self-sacrificial leadership is significantly relate to employee citizenship pressure. The results further indicated that self-sacrificial leadership has an indirect positive relationship with emotional exhaustion, with this relationship mediated by citizenship pressure and compulsory citizenship behavior. Specially, self-sacrificial leadership positively relates to citizenship pressure, which in turn, positively relates to compulsory citizenship behavior, and then positively relates to emotional exhaustion. Our findings discuss the theoretical implications and provide practical insights to make employees reacted with leaders’ behavior and organization run effectively.