Leader Humor Research Articles

Linking Leader Humor to Employee Innovative Behavior: The Roles of Work Engagement and Supervisor's Organizational Embodiment.

The influence of leader humor on employee innovative behavior has been attracting increasingly more attention from various scholars and enterprises. Based on previous relevant literatures in the fields of humor, leadership, and innovation, this study proposes and verifies a model to examine the internal mechanism and boundary condition of the relationship between leader humor, work engagement, supervisor’s organizational embodiment, and employee innovative behavior. Specifically, this study introduces work engagement as a mediator in the relationship between leader humor and employee innovative behavior, and supervisor’s organizational embodiment as a moderator in the relationship between leader humor and work engagement. Then, this study conducts two separate questionnaire surveys on Chinese employees and their direct supervisors at two different times to collect the sample data. In total, 383 supervisor–subordinate dyads were collected. The results suggest that leader humor can promote employee innovative behavior. Work engagement can partly mediate the influence of leader humor on employee innovative behavior. Supervisor’s organizational embodiment of employee can positively moderate the influence of leader humor on work engagement, which in turn ultimately should account for positive increases of employee innovative behavior. The conclusions from the analyses above not only further verify and develop some previous points on leader humor and employee innovation but also derive certain management implications for promoting employee innovative behavior from the perspective of leader humor.

Leader Humor and Employee Upward Voice: The Role of Employee Relationship Quality and Traditionality

Despite the continuous increase in empirical research on leader humor, the important issue of how and when leader humor affects employees’ interpersonal, proactive behaviors in the form of upward voice has largely been overlooked. Drawing on relational process model of humor and data from one multiwave, multisource field study and one experimental field study, we find that the positive effects of leader humor on upward voice behavior can be accounted for by both supervisor–subordinate nonwork ties (i.e., supervisor–subordinate guanxi) and supervisor–subordinate work ties (i.e., leader–member exchange). The indirect effects of both supervisor–subordinate guanxi and leader–member exchange on the relationship between leader humor and upward voice behavior are stronger when employees score low on traditionality. These results shed light on the role of leader humor in promoting the bottom–up flow of potentially critical information in organizations through high-quality relationships with followers and provide insights into who will benefit more from humor in leadership.

Leader humor effectiveness—The divergent dynamics of leader humor over time in East Asia and North America

AbstractManagement research on humor, which has mainly been conducted in Anglo‐Saxon regions, generally tends to assume that the use of humor by a leader toward his or her subordinates has positive effects. However, despite the popularity of such studies in Anglo‐Saxon regions, less attention has so far been paid to the aspects of the cultural context of leader humor, particularly with regard to time. We argue that leader humor is not so effective in East Asia because of different preferences in relation to communication style and divergent expectations and value sets during early phase leader–member interactions. On the other hand, however, we also argue that leader humor may become equally if not more effective in the mature phase of leader–member interactions. While cultural differences, along with the current popularity of positive emotions, including humor, at work, are much more apparent at the early stage of a relationship, our exploration uncovers areas that are important for effective cross‐cultural communication training and the development of managers for global assignments.

Why so Humorous? The Roles of Traditionality and Gender (Dis)Similarity in Leader Humor Behavior and Employee Job Performance

Although the consequences of leader humor have been well documented, limited research attention has been devoted to its antecedents. The current research addresses this important issue by exploring whether and when an individual characteristic (i.e., traditionality) influences leader humor behavior. Based on the relational process model of humor and data from one multiwave, multisource field study, we find that leaders scoring low on traditionality are more likely to express humor with their followers, which in turn affects followers’ job performance. Moreover, the mediating effect of leader humor behavior on the link between leader traditionality and employee job performance is stronger when the genders of the leader and subordinates differ. We discuss the implications of the findings and future directions for research concerning the antecedents of leader humor.

Leader Humor and Employee Job Crafting: The Role of Employee-Perceived Organizational Support and Work Engagement.

Research on the outcomes of leader humor has mainly focused on attitudinal or in-role behaviors, while proactive change-oriented behaviors have been neglected. Addressing these issues is important for scholars and practitioners to better understand how leader humor enables subordinates to behave proactively. By integrating the resource accumulation perspective and the motivational process of the Job Demands–Resources (JD-R) model, we frame leader humor as a socioemotional resource that can help employees to create other forms of resources, such as job resources (i.e., perceived organizational support). In turn, these job resources relate to employees’ motivations (i.e., work engagement) and behaviors (i.e., job crafting). We predict that leader humor is positively related to seeking resources and challenges and negatively associated with reducing demands through the serial mediating effects of followers’ perceived organizational support and work engagement. We test these hypotheses using an experimental design with a field sample in Study 1. Furthermore, we strengthen our hypotheses by replicating our results through a multiwave field study in Study 2. We consistently find: (1) a positive association between leader humor and followers’ perceived organizational support, (2) a positive link between followers’ perceived organizational support and work engagement, and (3) serial mediating effects of followers’ perceived organizational support and work engagement on the leader humor–job crafting link. The implications of the findings and future directions for research investigating leader humor and job crafting are discussed.

Just Gossip; Nothing Consequential, or is It?

Workplace gossip is ubiquitous and leader humor is highly valued. Based on cognitive evaluation theory we reason that perceived negative workplace gossip and leader humor provide informal yet important social cues to jointly affect employees’ job insecurity and subjective career success. We test such reasoning empirically with three-wave surveys of 335 employees from a large Chinese information technology company. Our results show that gossip and leader humor, which may appear to be inconsequential to some, do matter in the workplace in terms of job insecurity and career success.

The Effects of Political Skills on Leader Effectiveness and Change Outcome

Leaders’ behaviors and qualities are often portrayed as important drivers of change success. However, apart some anecdotal evidence, limited empirical evidence is provided to support these assertions. The purpose of this study is therefore to examine whether and how the leaders’ political skills contribute to the leaders’ own effectiveness and, ultimately, to change success. Specifically, we examine the effects of three types of political skills (social emotional competency, leader humor, and apparent sincerity) on leader effectiveness, change outcome and employees’ intentions to support future change. With a quantitative study conducted among 463 employees working at various organizations, we show that leader political skills have a significant impact on leader effectiveness. We also find that leader effectiveness positively affects change outcome, which in turn affects employees’ intentions to support future change. However, leader effectiveness does not directly affect employees’ intentions to support future change. We then discuss the theoretical contributions and practical implications of our study.

How can leader humor enhance subordinates’ service creativity? The moderator of subordinates’ SFIT and the mediator of role modeling

PurposeAs an essential personality charm of leaders, humor can bring a series of positive outcomes to both users and receivers. However, there is also evidence that the impact of leaders’ humor (LH) is constrained by individuals, teams and organizational factors. The aim of this research is to investigate the relationship between LH and subordinates’ service creativity. Based on social learning theory and previous literature on LH, this paper identifies role modeling as the mediator and suggests that subordinates’ sensitivity to favorable interpersonal treatment (SFIT) moderates these relationships.Design/methodology/approachIn order to test the proposed moderated mediation model, this study employed hierarchical multiple regression and path analyses with valid data of 348 samples.FindingsResults revealed that LH positively affects role modeling and service creativity of subordinates, while subordinates' SFIT positively moderates the relationship between LH and subordinates' service creativity via role modeling.Practical implicationsIn compliance with these findings, this research suggests that enterprises should pay attention to the role of humor from middle managers and strengthen managers' role modeling through multiple measures to establish a relaxed and harmonious atmosphere in the workplace.Originality/valueBuilt on the conceptual framework, this study contributes to the literature on LH and employees’ service creativity by treating role modeling as the mechanism and SFIT as the moderator. This research is one of the first few empirical studies to investigate the relationship between LH and service creativity of service personnel in the service industry.

Fuel the service fire

PurposeDrawing from self-determination theory, this study aims to examine the effect of leader humor on frontline hospitality employees’ service performance and proactive customer service performance (PCSP) via harmonious passion (HP) for work with employee neuroticism as the moderating mechanism.Design/methodology/approachThis study controlled for the nested effect and tested all the hypotheses with Mplus 7.0 using a time-lagged three-wave survey of 232 Chinese supervisor–subordinate dyads.FindingsThe results indicated that leader humor promotes frontline hospitality employees’ service performance and PCSP by enhancing their HP. Furthermore, neuroticism was shown to strengthen the direct impact of leader humor on employee HP and its indirect impact on employee service performance and employee PCSP through HP.Originality/valueFirst, this research contributes to the leader humor literature through exploring its impact on the service performance and PCSP of frontline hospitality employees. Second, this research develops a new framework to explain the leader humor-employee service outcomes relationship using self-determination theory. Finally, the focus on the moderating role of neuroticism helps to explain the “when” question of leader humor.

Does leader humor style matter and to whom?

PurposeThe interest on leader humor styles is recent. By applying a trustworthiness framework, the authors examine (1) how leader humor styles contribute to performance and deviance via trust in the supervisor and (2) who benefits/suffers the most from different leader humor styles.Design/methodology/approachThe authors tested their hypotheses in a sample of 428 employee–supervisor dyads from 19 organizations operating in the services sector.FindingsAffiliative and self-enhancing leader humor styles are particularly beneficial for employees with low core-self-evaluations, helping them develop trust in the supervisor and consequently improving their performance. An aggressive leader humor style, via decreased trust in the supervisor, reduces performance, regardless of employees' core self-evaluations. Self-enhancing and self-defeating leader humor styles also present significant relationships with organizational deviance.Research limitations/implicationsLimitations include the cross-sectional design and the limited number of mechanisms examined.Practical implicationsOrganizations need to train leaders in the use of humor and develop a culture where beneficial humor styles are endorsed, while detrimental humor styles are not tolerated.Originality/valueThese findings contribute to the literatures on trust and humor, by showing that the use of humor is not as trivial as one could initially think, particularly for those with low core self-evaluations, and by expanding our knowledge of the mechanisms by which different leader humor styles may influence performance and deviance.

Leader humor and employee creativity: a model integrating pragmatic and affective roles

This study developed an integrative model to investigate the relationship between leader humor and employee creativity through pragmatic and affective effects in the Chinese context. Through a time-lagged field study of 358 employees and their direct supervisors in 35 Chinese high-tech enterprises, we find support that leader humor is positively related to employee creativity; the mediators of this relationship are employees’ task resources and affective commitment to their organizations. We also examine the moderating roles of employees’ perspective taking in the relationships between leader humor and the mediating variables. In addition, we find support for the full-moderated mediation model that perspective taking moderates the mediating effect of task resources on the relationship between leader humor and employee creativity. This study makes insightful contributions and implications to the field of leader humor and employee creativity.

리더 능력과 과업성과 : 리더 호감의 매개효과와 리더 유머의 조절효과

리더 능력과 과업성과 : 리더 호감의 매개효과와 리더 유머의 조절효과

The effect of leader humor on employee adaptability

Abstract Building on affect-as-information theory, this study empirically tested a conceptual model of how and under what conditions a leader’s use of humor influenced employees’ adaptability using a sample of 209 subordinates and their supervisors in China. The results reveal the important mediating effect of pleasant feelings and the moderating effect of a need for humor. The impact of leader humor transmitted through pleasant feelings is effective only when an employee’s need for humor is high. The theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.

领导幽默的影响效果及其理论解释

领导幽默的影响效果及其理论解释

Leader Humor Extends Beyond Work: How and When Followers Have Better Family Lives

Despite the continuous increase in empirical research on leader humor, the important issue of how and when leader humor affects employees’ attitudes and behaviors beyond the workplace has received ...

The Role of Leader Humor in Stimulating Newcomer Proactive Socialization Behaviors

Based on newcomers’ authentic self-expression perspective (Cable, Gino, & Staats, 2013), this study examined how leader humor actions were related to new hires’ proactive socialization behaviors (i...

Leader “Ha-Ha” Ignites Team “A-Ha”: The Influence of Leader Humor on Team Creativity

Leader “Ha-Ha” Ignites Team “A-Ha”: The Influence of Leader Humor on Team Creativity

It is all in good humor? Examining the impact of salesperson evaluations of leader humor on salesperson job satisfaction and job stress

Salesperson job stress and job satisfaction have been identified as critical factors affecting job performance. Academic research suggests that sales managers can influence salesperson job stress and job satisfaction. Interestingly, a review of the sales literature finds very little research on the impact of sales leader humor usage on the stress and satisfaction of salespeople. Consequently, we explore how salespeople’s evaluation of their manager’s use of humor influences their individual levels of job stress and satisfaction. We investigate both the positive and negative roles of humor by analyzing the impact of salesperson evaluations of their managers’ use of affiliative and aggressive humor on their job stress and job satisfaction. Furthermore, we examine the mechanism by which these evaluations affect salesperson stress and satisfaction by identifying two critical mediating variables – social loneliness and willingness to cooperate. Using a sample of 299 professional salespeople, we empirically test this process model to find that affiliative humor usage by sales managers, as evaluated by salespeople, reduces social loneliness and stress for salespeople while also increasing followers’ acceptance of cooperation. Evaluations of aggressive humor, on the other hand, increase stress levels among salespeople. Both social loneliness and acceptance of cooperation, in turn, significantly affect job satisfaction.

Signaling trustworthiness: The effect of leader humor on feedback-seeking behavior

ABSTRACTGiven its capacity to cultivate a range of positive outcomes in the workplace, humor has been recognized as a valuable tool for leadership purposes. However, the theoretical understanding of leader humor remains relatively limited and the mechanism through which it influences follower outcomes has not been clearly identified. Drawing on signaling theory, we developed and empirically tested a model which delineates the relationship between leader humor and a specific follower behavior – proactive feedback seeking. We collected data from 304 employees and their respective leaders working in a large Canadian retail organization. Results of our analyses indicate that leader humor can impact subordinate feedback-seeking behavior via its influence on subordinates’ affect-based and cognition-based trust in the leader.

The Relationship between Leader Humor and Employee Voice: Its Moderator and Mediators

The Relationship between Leader Humor and Employee Voice: Its Moderator and Mediators