How leader humility helps teams to be humbler, psychologically stronger, and more effective: a moderated mediation model

Arménio Rego, Bradley Owens, Susana Leal, Ana Melo, Miguel Pina e Cunha, Lurdes Gonçalves, Paula Ribeiro

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

150 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

We hypothesize that (a) the level of humility expressed by leaders predicts team performance through, serially, team humility and team PsyCap, and (b) the strength (i.e., consensus within the team) of the leader humility, team humility and team PsyCap moderates the paths of that hypothesized model. A sample comprising 82 teams (82 leaders; 332 team members) was collected. Team members reported leader humility, team humility and team PsyCap. Leaders reported team performance. To handle the risks of common method bias, each mediating path of the hypothesized model is based on data from two different subsamples within each team. Our model's most novel theoretical contribution is the (moderated mediated) connection between leader humility, collective humility, and team PsyCap, and this was consistently supported in our data. Our inconsistent findings dealing with the relationship between team PsyCap and performance is well established in the literature and our results in both sub-samples were in the theorized direction. The study contributes to understand why, how and when humble leaders are more effective.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)639-658
JournalLeadership Quarterly
Volume28
Issue number5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Oct 2017

Keywords

  • Leader expressed humility
  • Team humility
  • Team PsyCap
  • Team performance
  • Climate strength

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