Transforming with levity: humor, leadership, and follower attitudes

Abstract

PurposeThis study seeks to offer an empirical test of a model addressing how a leader's humor use will moderate the effects of a transformational leader style on follower attitudes, such as trust, identification, affective commitment, and job satisfaction.Design/methodology/approachWorking adults (n=369) participated in a two‐phase data collection of self‐reported attitudes and their perceptions of leadership behavior. Perceptions of transformational leadership and humor were collected at Time 1. Trust, identification, affective commitment, and job satisfaction were collected a week later.FindingsResults demonstrate significant relationships between transformational leadership and trust, identification, affective organizational commitment, and job satisfaction. The moderator effect was only supported in relationships between transformational leadership and both trust and affective commitment, suggesting that transformational leaders who are seen as using more humor rate higher on these outcomes than followers of low humor leaders.Research limitations/implicationsThe primary limitation of the study is the potential for single source bias in that both perceptions of leader behavior and self‐reported attitudes were measured from the followers' perspectives.Practical implicationsThe findings have several managerial implications. Primarily, a transformational leader who effectively uses humor might expect an effect on the outcomes explored here, but also on more distal results of which the study variables may be theoretically antecedent, such as job performance and turnover.Originality/valueThere has been little research on the influence of a leader's humor use on the relationships between transformational leadership and trust, identification, commitment and job satisfaction. The study augments the extant literature on these relationships.