Unlocking the potential: Exploring the interplay of humble leadership, self-efficacy, and negative gossip in overcoming knowledge hiding

Purpose: This study explains how humble leadership influences two types of behavior: organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and withdrawal behavior (WB) in BPR banks undergoing mergers. The team climate plays a key role in the success of this relationship.Design/methodology/approach: The number of samples taken based on the Isaac and Michael table at a population point of 652 resulted in a sample size of 227. The researchers used stratified random sampling to determine the sample distribution, a method that groups the population into several strata based on certain criteria. Data analysis uses SmartPLS 4.Findings: The results of the research show that humble leadership has a direct influence on increasing OCB and reducing WB. Team climate may influence how humble leadership affects increases in OCB and decreases in WB, especially during structural changes like mergers. These results also support the idea that humble leadership makes people more likely to be good organizational citizens by creating a supportive team environment and less likely to withdraw by making an atmosphere that eases stress and dissatisfaction. Team climate acts as a mediator between humble leadership and employee behavior, enhancing engagement and reducing negative behavior. Research limitations/implications: The study has revealed that humble leaders can create a positive team climate, strengthen employee engagement with OCB, and reduce uncertainty that can trigger withdrawal behaviors. However, it must be acknowledged that this research has limitations in measuring the effectiveness of the open communication process between leaders and employees and in measuring the differences in organizational culture in each provincial BPR merger in Indonesia.Practical implications: Humble leadership plays a crucial role in creating a positive team climate. Training for managers to develop a humble attitude is critical, including listening to employee feedback and providing fair recognition. Additionally, creating a supportive team climate can enhance organizational citizenship behavior, so managers need to focus on a work atmosphere that encourages collaboration and employee engagement. Humble leadership can also reduce employee withdrawal behaviors by creating a safe environment for their emotional well-being. In the context of a merger, understanding team dynamics and demonstrating sincerity from leaders is essential to ease tensions among team members from different backgrounds. Therefore, the development of training programs that support employee engagement is key to ensuring they remain engaged in their work and exhibit positive behavior, while humble leadership continues to reinforce their personal and professional development.Social Implications: In merger situations that often trigger uncertainty and anxiety among employees, humble leadership helps build trust and security, ultimately reducing resistance to change. The merger will make the organization more adaptable to structural changes due to OCB growth. Conversely, the reduction of withdrawal behavior contributes to a decrease in employee turnover, thereby preventing operational disruptions that could disrupt financial services to the community. So, humble leadership mediated by team climate not only helps individuals and organizations but also improves the social and economic stability in the area around BPR, which is undergoing structural changes because of the merger.Originality/value: This research makes a significant contribution to the development of leadership theory, employee behavior, and team dynamics by demonstrating that humble leadership can build better relationships, improve communication, and strengthen employee engagement, as well as create a positive organizational climate that reduces negative behaviors such as withdrawal.

ObjectivesPrevious studies on negative workplace gossip have neglected the role of gossip targets of supervisors. The purpose of this paper is to deepen our understanding of how subordinates’ negative workplace gossip affects supervisors’ work-related behaviors. Drawing upon conservation of resource theory, the authors propose that subordinates’ negative gossip leads to supervisor emotional exhaustion. In turn, such emotional exhaustion provokes supervisors to exhibit undermining toward their subordinates. Additionally, the authors propose that a trait factor, namely, supervisor mindfulness, mitigates the relationship between such negative workplace gossip and supervisors’ emotional exhaustion.MethodData were collected from employees (e.g., subordinates) and their immediate supervisors in 35 organizations located in Jiangsu and Anhui Provinces in China. The data were obtained at three time points, each time interval was 2 weeks, and finally, 362 valid data points were obtained.ResultsThe following findings were obtained: (1) perceived subordinates’ negative gossip has a significant positive effect on supervisor undermining; (2) supervisor emotional exhaustion mediates the relationship between perceived subordinates’ negative gossip and supervisor undermining; and (3) supervisor mindfulness moderates the relationship between perceived subordinates’ negative gossip and supervisor emotional exhaustion and moderates the mediating effect of supervisor emotional exhaustion on the relationship between perceived subordinates’ negative gossip and supervisor undermining.ConclusionUsing multisource data and a moderated mediation model, we found that subordinates’ negative workplace gossip predicts supervisor undermining through supervisor emotional exhaustion. We also discovered that supervisor mindfulness can buffer the positive relationship between perceived subordinates’ negative workplace gossip and supervisor undermining. These findings have important implications for the literature on negative gossip in the workforce, especially the impact of subordinates’ negative workplace gossip on supervisors’ responses.

This study examines how group diversity affects individual group members’ negative gossip about their colleagues and how this linkage is altered by group structure. We hypothesize that group diversity in terms of organizational tenure reduces individual negative gossip about coworkers, and that the diversity–gossip linkage is moderated by a self-managing structure. With a multi-source dataset collected from 312 nurses employed in 39 nursing groups at four healthcare organizations, our random coefficient modeling analysis revealed that employees in groups with high tenure diversity are less likely to negatively gossip about their coworkers when the group has a greater self-managing structure. This study provides theoretical implications pertaining to the contextual influences on workplace gossip. Our findings offer practical implications regarding the management of employee gossip at work.

PurposeBased on the conservation of resources theory, the authors explore the relationship between humble leadership and employee procrastination by introducing career calling and promotion focus, and constructing a moderated mediation model aiming to reveal the influence of humble leadership on employee procrastination.Design/methodology/approachA total of 217 valid samples were obtained using a two-time point paired questionnaire. The proposed hypotheses were tested using hierarchical regression.FindingsHierarchical regression results indicated that humble leadership had a significant negative effect on employee procrastination. Career calling played a fully mediating role in humble leadership and employee procrastination. Promotion focus not only plays a positive moderating role between humble leadership and career calling but also moderates the mediating role of career calling.Practical implicationsManagers should pay attention to the cultivation of their own character of humility in the process of communicating with their subordinates, increase employees' career calling from various aspects to improve employees’ sense of meaning and value for their work and understand employees' situation for personalized management.Originality/valueThis study reveals for the first time the inhibitory effect of humble leadership on employee procrastination through the conservation of resources theory. This helps in expanding research on the antecedents of procrastination behavior and enriching research on the effects of implementing humble leadership. For this reason, the study contributes to the literature on humble leadership, employee procrastination and the conservation of resources theory.

Currently, environmental issues negatively affect both firm performance and economic development, prompting society to expect enterprises to address these issues more effectively. In response, organizations, particularly manufacturing enterprises, have begun to adopt green innovation. This study examines how humble leadership in enterprise management affects organizational green innovation performance. Additionally, this study explores the mediating role of the organizational caring ethical climate and the moderating roles of the organizational structure and unabsorbed organizational resource slack. This study involved top managers from 357 manufacturing enterprises in Zhejiang Province, yielding 306 valid questionnaires. The Hierarchical regression technique is used to analyze the survey data. An analysis of the data shows that humble leadership positively affects organizational green innovation performance, with the organizational caring ethical climate serving as a mediator. Furthermore, the organizational structure and organizational resource slack positively moderate the effect of the organizational caring ethical climate on green innovation performance. This study validates and enriches social learning theory; social exchange theory; conservation of resource theory; and ability, motivation, and opportunity theory. It also provides new insights into the relationship between humble leadership and green innovation performance and expands research on the moderators of the relationship between the organizational caring ethical climate and green innovation performance. The findings suggest that managers of manufacturing enterprises should adopt humble leadership, promote a caring ethical climate, and enhance cooperation with stakeholders.

PurposeDrawing on social information processing theory (SIP), this paper examines whether and how humble leadership affects employees' service improvisation (ESI) in the hospitality industry. Further, the study investigates the mediating role of psychological safety and the moderating role of creative self-efficacy (CSE).Design/methodology/approachTo test the proposed relationships, the study adopts a cross-sectional design, administering questionnaires to 456 frontline staff in Egypt’s hospitality industry across three main sectors: restaurants, hotels and travel agencies. SPSS 27 and AMOS 22 were used for statistical analysis.FindingsThe study reveals a positive relationship between humble leadership and ESI, partially mediated by psychological safety. Furthermore, CSE not only strengthens the relationship between psychological safety and ESI but also enhances the indirect effect of humble leadership on ESI via psychological safety.Practical implicationsThe study offers valuable insights for practitioners in the hospitality industry. To boost ESI, organizations can incorporate humble leadership attributes into their leadership development programs. Fostering a psychologically safe workplace would facilitate the positive impact of humble leadership on ESI. Recognizing CSE as a pivotal moderator underscores the importance of strategically selecting and developing employees with high CSE. These insights aim to cultivate a more service-oriented and effective workforce in the hospitality industry.Originality/valueThis study significantly contributes to leadership research in the hospitality industry by uncovering a previously unexplored link between humble leadership and ESI. Exploring psychological safety as a mediator and CSE as a moderator enhances our comprehension of how and when humble leadership influences ESI.

PurposeThis paper examined the mediating role of boundary spanning behavior and the moderating effects of traditionality linking humble leadership and employee creative performance from the perspective of Social Exchange Theory (SET) to reveal the behavioral mechanism and boundary condition regarding the influence of humble leadership on creative performance.Design/methodology/approachA sample of 276 employees and the supervisors from 8 companies in China was taken using two-wave data.FindingsThe results indicated that humble leadership was positively related to employee creative performance, and boundary spanning behavior partially mediated the relationship between humble leadership and employee creative performance. Traditionality strengthens the mediation process when traditionality is high.Practical implicationsThese findings provide several theoretical and practical implications for the domains of humble leadership and boundary spanning behavior. For example, human resource (HR) departments can recruit leaders with high humility and cultivate team leaders through systematic training programs about self-awareness, openness and self-transcendence; team leaders should encourage employees to participate in boundary spanning activities and hiring managers select employees with high traditionality to synergize with leader humility.Originality/valueBased on the SET, this paper explored the behavioral mechanism between humble leadership and creative performance and enriched the prior research, which is from the cognitive or emotional view, and further answered the question “what are the employees' behavioral responses when they confront the humble leadership”.

The present study aims to investigate the relationships between humble leadership, employee performance and workplace happiness. 156 employees were surveyed to collect data, which was subsequently analyzed using the SPSS 22.0 and Amos software programs in line with the study’s objectives. The analysis findings showed that humble leadership positively affects both employee performance and workplace happiness. The findings also revealed that workplace happiness has a partial mediating role in humble leadership’s effect on employee performance. According to the findings, humble leaders who take it as a mission to be open to criticism and feedback, to appreciate their followers and to learn from mistakes not only contribute to happiness and positive emotions in the organization, but also increase the performance levels of employees.

Drawing on conservation of resources theory, we investigate the somatic, psychological, and behavioral effects of gossip on receivers when they hear positive and negative workplace gossip about their supervisor. Specifically, we focus on the daily influences of workplace gossip. Analyzing data from 227 employees revealed that hearing negative and positive workplace gossip about a supervisor was related to sleep quality at night. That is, hearing negative gossip about a supervisor was related to poor sleep quality due to resource loss, whereas hearing positive gossip about a supervisor was related to better sleep quality due to resource gain. We also examined the interaction effect of hearing positive and negative gossip about a supervisor on sleep quality. Moreover, our results show that sleep quality positively impacted next-day vitality, which in turn led to receivers’ psychological withdrawal behavior, work engagement, and supervisor-directed citizenship behavior. Our study extends gossip literature by applying a receiver-centric lens on both positive and negative workplace gossip. Also, with an experience sampling methodology design, we capture the impact of daily experiences of hearing workplace gossip about a supervisor, which broadens our understanding of the temporal consequences of workplace gossip. Implications and future directions are also discussed.

Purpose This study aims to explore the mechanisms through which humble leadership fosters team outcomes, particularly team adaptation. Drawing on social exchange theory (SET) and Social Cognitive Theory (SCT), the research examines two mediating pathways, namely team psychological safety climate and team reflexivity, that explain the indirect effects of leader humility on adaptive team functioning. By clarifying how leader humility shapes team psychological dynamics and collective behaviors, this study extends recent theoretical developments and offers practical insights into fostering adaptability in teams over time. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected from 56 work teams (233 members) in a leading pharmaceutical company using a paper-based, time-lagged survey. Surveys were administered at two time points spaced one year apart to reduce common method bias and capture temporal dynamics. Descriptive and correlational analyses were conducted in SPSS, and hypothesis testing was performed in Mplus. Bootstrapping with 5,000 resamples was used to generate bias-corrected confidence intervals for indirect effects. Findings Results show that humble leadership influences team adaptation through two significant parallel mediators: team psychological safety climate and team reflexivity. Both indirect paths were significant, while the direct effect of humble leadership on team adaptation was not, indicating full mediation. These findings underscore the psychological and behavioral pathways by which leader humility facilitates team adaptability. Originality/value Amid increasing organizational complexity, team adaptation is critical yet underexplored. This study makes a novel theoretical contribution by integrating SET and SCT to illuminate how humble leadership enhances team adaptation via psychological safety and reflexivity. By identifying distinct psychological and cognitive mechanisms, it deepens understanding of humble leadership’s impact and informs leadership practices in dynamic environments.

To test the influence of humble leadership, job embeddedness and affective commitment on the voice behaviour of nurses. A nurse's voice behaviour is regarded as an important measure to identify and solve problems in medical institutions, and improve patients' satisfaction. It is urgent to pay sufficient attention to nurses' advice to determine which factors can stimulate enthusiasm in this area. This study is a cross-sectional study involving 598 nurses. The results showed that humble leadership, job embeddedness, affective commitment and voice behaviour were significantly positively correlated. Job embeddedness played a partial mediating role in humble leadership and affective commitment; meanwhile, affective commitment also partially mediated the influence of job embeddedness on voice behaviour. Humble leadership was the key to improve the voice behaviour of nurses; as a mediating mechanism, job embeddedness and affective commitment further explained how humble leadership promoted the voice behaviour of nurses. The effects of humble leadership, job embeddedness and affective commitment to voice behaviour could be used to guide the management of clinical nurses. In particular, the humble leadership style perceived by nurses and the enhanced emotional connection with the organisation would contribute to the generation of voice behaviour.

IntroductionLeadership styles are pivotal in encouraging employee engagement, influencing team dynamics, and enhancing patient outcomes. Humble leadership is characterized by self-awareness, openness, and appreciation for others. This leadership style is underexplored in healthcare.ObjectiveThis study investigated whether humble leadership impacts knowledge-sharing and employees’ creativity.MethodsA descriptive cross-sectional design was used. Data were collected from nursing educators, nurses, and nursing leaders from various universities and hospitals in Jordan. Descriptive analysis was applied to display the general characteristics of the study participants. The general linear model was conducted to analyze the impact of humble leadership on knowledge-sharing and employees’ creativity.ResultsThis study revealed that humble leadership significantly impacted knowledge-sharing and employees’ creativity. These findings highlight the critical role of humble leadership in promoting and fostering knowledge-sharing and creativity within educational institutions and healthcare settings.ConclusionLeaders’ humble leadership impacted knowledge-sharing among employees and the creativity of nursing educators, nurses, and nursing leaders. Training programs are needed to develop humble nurses’ and leaders’ leadership because they contribute to nursing educators’, nurses’, and nursing leaders’ creativity while maintaining employee knowledge-sharing.

This study investigated the relationship between humble leadership (HL) and employees' creative deviance behaviors (CDB), whether or not moderated by perceived insider status (PIS). The conceptual framework is based on the interplay between the three variables, explores the relationship between humble leadership and employees' CDB, and assesses PIS's moderating effect. The study employs the independent variable of humble leadership, divided into three dimensions: self-awareness, appreciation of subordinates, and teachability. The dependent variable is CDB, which has four elements: The individual is actively generated, the organization does not formally support it, the top management of the organization often ignores it, and it is believed that it is beneficial to the interests of the organization. The moderator variable is PIS, reflected through the positive and negative psychological cognition of employees inside the organization. The study's research design is a quantitative descriptive survey design that uses a survey questionnaire. The population of the study consists of back-office employees consisting of 319 respondents. This study used a questionnaire survey and social information processing theory to manage the data. The results revealed significant differences in humble leadership skills when respondents were grouped according to age and education. While significant differences also existed in the presence of perceived insider status when respondents were grouped according to working life. Results showed that humble leadership positively predicted creative deviance behavior and that perceived insider status did not moderate this relationship. Humble leaders who exhibit self-awareness, appreciation of others, and teachability are more likely to create an environment where creative deviance behavior is encouraged and supported. When employees feel valued, respected, and supported by their leaders, the individual who is actively generated are more likely to engage in creative deviance behaviors to challenge the status quo and push the organization forward. Although the organization does not formally support it or top management often ignores it, but may be mitigated by humble leaders who are willing to take risks and support their subordinates in pursuing innovative ideas, encouraging them by creating a safe space for subordinates more likely to generate ideas and engage in creative deviance behavior.

Employees’ work well-being (WWB) is vital to employees’ performance and organizations’ sustainable development. This study aims to explore the role of psychological safety and error management climate (EMC) between humble leadership and WWB in Chinese organizations. Drawing upon social information processing theory, a multi-level study was conducted to test the underlying mechanisms between humble leadership and employees’ WWB. A time-lagged data of 221 team members was collected from 12 small and medium sized companies in China. Results showed that team-level humble leadership was positively related to WWB. Psychological safety and EMC both played a partial mediating role linking humble leadership and WWB. EMC positively moderated the relationship between humble leadership and psychological safety. This paper contributes to revealing the multi-level effects of humble leadership on work well-being. These findings also provide some important implications for managerial practices.

BACKGROUND: “Silence” is a common phenomenon in the operation of enterprises, where some instances of silence can uphold organizational harmony, while other forms can exacerbate organizational issues, hindering intra-organizational information transfer and decision-making and affecting organizational innovation. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to explore the relationship between humble leadership style and employee silent behavior, verifying the mediating role of psychological contracts in this relationship. METHODS: Based on the social exchange theory, hypotheses are validated using descriptive statistical analysis, correlation analysis and the SEM structural equation modeling testing. RESULTS: The findings indicate a significant negative correlation between humble leadership and employee silence. Humble leadership significantly inversely predicts permissive and defensive dimensions of employee silence, while the correlation with the prosocial dimension is insignificant. Moreover, psychological contracts partially mediate the impact of humble leadership on permissive silence and defensive silence among employees. CONCLUSION: The study helps managers comprehend how humble leadership, characterized by the traditional Chinese “humility” culture, affects employee silence. Especially within Chinese enterprises, where employees are influenced by traditional Chinese thought and exhibit historical dependency on silent behavior, probing whether the humble leadership style can effectively encourage employees to provide constructive suggestions for organizational development is particularly meaningful.