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Although a plethora of literature has developed person–job fit theory, how leaders' emotions affect followers' person–job fit has received insufficient attention. Drawing on emotions as social information (EASI) theory, the present research study investigated the impact of leaders' positive emotions on person–job fit and further explained the mediating role of psychological safety and the moderating effect of organizational identification.

Data were collected from 319 Chinese employees nested in 67 teams, and a cross-level design was adopted to examine the research hypotheses.

The results indicated that individual-level psychological safety played a mediating role in the cross-level relationship between team-directed leaders' positive emotions and individual-level person–job fit. Moreover, the authors found a cross-level moderating effect of team-level organizational identification.

This present research empirically showed that leaders displaying positive emotions in the workplace benefited followers' perceptions of psychological safety, which in turn improved followers' attitudes towards their job in management practice. In addition, organizational identification could positively advance this process.

This study is the first to evaluate the operational mechanism of leaders' emotion on followers' perceived person–job fit in the Chinese context. Person–job fit has primarily been investigated as a driver of employee outcomes in the previous research studies. These studies focussed on whether and how leaders' emotions improve followers' person–job fit.

Relying on a multilevel approach, this paper investigates the day-to-day variations in family-supportive supervisor behaviors influencing subordinates' job stress, as well as the mediating role of positive emotions and the moderating role of ethical leadership.

Using the experience-sampling methodology, the study collected the data from 137 civil servants in China who responded to one daily survey for 10 working days.

With a total of 1,370 surveys, results supported the hypothesized model linking daily family-supportive supervisor behaviors to daily job stress via subordinates' daily positive emotions. In addition, the study found a moderating effect for ethical leadership positively in the indirect relationship between family-supportive supervisor behaviors and job stress.

The findings in this study serve practitioners in organizational and leadership development. For one thing, this study contributes to raising awareness about the importance of improving family-related support in the workplace in generating subordinates' positive emotions and relieving their job stress. For another, the findings highlight the necessity of cultivating ethical leadership for leaders.

This study fulfills an identified need to clarify how and when daily family supportive supervisor behaviors influence subordinates' daily job stress. This study moves beyond previous research by adopting the experience sampling method and demonstrating important cross-level effects of ethical leadership on the within-individual relationship between family supportive supervisor behaviors and job stress.