Leader humility and team effectiveness: a moderated mediation model of leader-member exchange and employee satisfaction
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/EBHRM-06-2021-0119 |
| Published date | 01 April 2022 |
| Date | 01 April 2022 |
| Pages | 368-384 |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Global HRM |
| Author | Aarif Mohd Sheikh |
Leader humility and team
effectiveness: a moderated
mediation model of leader-member
exchange and
employee satisfaction
Aarif Mohd Sheikh
Department of Management Studies, Central University of Kashmir,
Ganderbal, India
Abstract
Purpose –This research study examines the impact of leader humility (LH) on team effectiveness (TE) via the
mediating mechanism of leader-member exchange (LMX). It also proposes employee satisfaction (ES) as a
moderating variable in the relationship between LH and TE.
Design/methodology/approach –This study examines relationships among the study variables in the
Indian context, using a sample of 589 employees serving the banking sector in Jammu and Kashmir, India. The
data analysis was carried out via confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling.
Findings –The results showed a significant positive influence of LH on TE. The results also posit a partial
mediating effect of LMX on LH and TE interplay, and ES acts as a moderator between LH and TE. Thus, the
results supported the hypothesized moderated mediation model and suggested implications for theory and
practice. Further, the potential limitations and future directions are placed at the end.
Research limitations/implications –Organizational implications include that organizations should
develop attractive organizational mechanisms to ensure better LMX and ES for enhancing employee
effectiveness. Besides, organizations should attract and retain effective and humble leaders;and leaders should
use humble attitude and behavior in dealing with employees, eventually ensuring higher TE.
Originality/value –This study tested LMX and job satisfaction as intervening variables in the relationship
between LH and TE in the Indian context; the framework under context has received scarce research attention.
The results suggest that organizations that focus on producing humble leaders succeed in enhancing and
maintaining higher organizational effectiveness.
Keywords Leadership, Leader-member exchange, Job satisfaction, Structural equation modeling
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
The volatilityof business environmentsmakes it difficult for leadersto get a candid picture of
the organizationat the top (Owens andHekman, 2012). Leader humility(LH) acts as an effective
leadershipstyle that encouragespositive outcomes (Owens et al.,2013;Chiu et al., 2016). LH has
been defined as a bottom-up leadership approach that positively influences team and
organizational outcomes, like team effectiveness (TE) and performance (Owens and Hekman,
2016;Owens et al., 2013;Rego et al., 2017). TE is an essential factor for encouraging
organizational success(Stipelman et al.,2019),and the literatureposits leadershipas an effective
tool for enhancing TE (Benoliel, 2021;Pratoom, 2018). Yet, the LH and TE relationship remain
implausible, andthe examination of LH as a predictor of TE becomes vital (Chiu et al., 2022).
Researchers have posited contradictory meanings concerning leadership and humility in
that leadership refers to power; however, humility mean s “down-to-earthiness”and
“lowliness”(Owens and Hekman, 2012). Literature shows a positive relationship between
EBHRM
10,4
368
Funding: The authors did not receive any funding for this research paper.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/2049-3983.htm
Received 7 June 2021
Revised 1 November 2021
1 March 2022
Accepted 10 March 2022
Evidence-based HRM: a Global
Forum for Empirical Scholarship
Vol. 10 No. 4, 2022
pp. 368-384
© Emerald Publishing Limited
2049-3983
DOI10.1108/EBHRM-06-2021-0119
organizational outcomes, like performance (Owens and Hekman, 2016) and LH. Owens and
Hekman (2012) argued that leadership humility depends partly on power and status.
Accordingly, the researchers explored the role of contingent factors in LH and other
outcome variables (Owens and Hekman, 2012;Rego et al., 2019;Ye et al., 2020). Similarly, we
believe that leader-member exchange (LMX) or top-down/downward exchange
relationship may act as a key boundary condition between leader and followers (Keskes
et al., 2018), and employee satisfaction (ES), which is the derivation of pleasure by an
employee out of his/her task (Wheatley, 2017), on the LH and TE interplay, has been
overlooked in the literature.
Although research has paid significant attention to LH from the past decade,
scholars constantly argue that “research on leader humility is still in its infancy”(Qin
et al., 2020, p. 703). Some scholars lament limited empirical research on LH in organizational
settings (Owens et al., 2011;Ou et al., 2014;Oc et al., 2015). Besides, research (see Oc et al., 2015,
p. 69) labels humility as an “often neglected construct in organizational research.”Although
extensive speculation that LH may foster a wide range of important employee and
organizational level outcomes (Weick, 2001;Vera and Rodriguez-Lopez, 2004;Morris et al.,
2005;Owens et al., 2013), empirical research concerning LH remains rare.
Moreover, the existing literature has primarily examined the LH and team outcomes
interplay concerning mediating mechanisms of social proces ses, including collective
humility, shared leadership and psychological capital of teams (Chiu et al., 2016;Owens
and Hekman, 2016;Rego et al., 2017). Further, the researchers and managers believe that
individual/team performance is better when employee/team members exhibit a professional
commitment toward organizational goals (Mitchell et al., 2019), also enhancing TE. Similarly,
research examining the moderating effect of ES in LH and TE is scant. However, the research
has shown the role of ES in enhancing the leadership and outcome relationship (Jauhar et al.,
2017;Al-edenat, 2018). Thus, it paves the way for our study to investigate the LH and TE
relationship through the prism of ES.
A handful of studies examined the impact of behavioral processes on effectiveness, for
example, how humble leaders ensure and enhance the team’s effectiveness and
performance. This research study is a response to the recent call of Rego and Simpson
(2018) to study the role of interaction variables in the LH and TE relationship, wherein we
focus on LMX and ES, which are essential for enhancing TE (Mardanov et al.,2008;
Herdman et al.,2017).
Our study is based on social exchange theory (SET) (Blau, 1964), which asserts that the
leader-member relationship is based on the core belief of reciprocity. In line with this, Blau’s
seminal work (1964) posited that a social exchange relationship involves one party favoring
another party, with the expectation of obtaining unspecified returns in the future. Leaders,
especially immediate leaders, act as an important stimulus for influencing followers’
behaviors (Kelly, 1979;Rempel et al., 1985) through practicing different employee-centric
behaviors. Thus, based on the SET (Blau, 1964) and the emerging LH literature (Owens and
Hekman, 2012;Yuan et al., 2018;Peng et al., 2020;Cortes-Mejia et al., 2021;Liu et al., 2021), we
suggest that LH can provide positive signals to followers that lead to higher TE. The
theoretical model is shown in Figure 1.
Thus, the main investigation of our study is, “How leader humility (LH) is related to team
effectiveness (TE)?”Accordingly, this study is based on the following objectives:
(1) to study LH and TE relationship,
(2) to study LH and TE interplay via the transmission mechanism of LMX and
(3) finally, to study LH and TE relationship via ES (moderating variable).
Leader
humility and
team
effectiveness
369
To continue reading
Request your trial