The Role of Leader Negative Emotions in Mitigating Employee Disgust Towards Leader Surface Acting

Abstract

Leading with emotional labor plays a vital role in the leadership process due to the functional social consequences of leaders’ emotional displays. In this research, we advance this stream of research by focusing on employees’ negative emotional response (i.e., disgust) to leader positive surface acting—displaying surface acting of positive emotions, and its downward implications for employee perceived leader effectiveness and leader-member exchange (LMX) quality. We also theorize that leaders’ expressions of negative emotions during the display of positive surface acting could mitigate employees’ negative affective and perceptual responses. The empirical results from an experience sampling study supported our hypothesized model, revealing that leader positive surface acting related less negatively to employee perceived leadership effectiveness and LMX quality via disgust when the leader expressed more (versus less) negative emotions. In addition, results from a vignette experiment replicated these findings and demonstrated perceived inauthenticity as a cognitive explanation for employees’ negative affective responses to leaders displaying positive surface acting. Our research highlights the crucial roles of leader and employee emotional states in understanding the effectiveness of leader emotional labor.