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This study investigates the benefits of ethical leadership behaviors for leaders themselves and the underlying mechanisms and boundary conditions of this effect.

Using a multi-time and multi-source survey design, data was collected from both leaders and subordinates across three waves.

Ethical leadership behavior was found to be positively associated with the leader’s moral pride, resulting in the leader’s higher in-role performance and perceived manager effectiveness. The effect of ethical leadership behavior was moderated by core self-evaluation (CSE), such that low-CSE leaders benefit more from these behaviors.

Organizations should encourage ethical leadership behaviors and educate leaders to develop moral pride from conducting these behaviors. Leaders with low CSEs can enhance their in-role performance and overall effectiveness by taking pride in their ethical leadership behaviors.

The field of study on ethical leadership has predominantly focused on the positive outcomes for recipients, yet it is imperative to examine the self-benefits for leaders as well. This study drew upon affective events theory to posit that ethical leadership behaviors generate moral pride in leaders, leading to improved work-related attitudes and performance outcomes.

Previous research has mainly focused on the outcomes of empowering leadership, and empirical evidence on how to encourage leaders to display empowering behaviors has been overlooked, particularly from an interpersonal perspective.

Based on the integrative model of organizational trust, we investigate the relationship between employees' taking charge behaviors and empowering leadership considering the mediating role of leader trust in employees and the moderating role of risk propensity.

The results indicate that taking charge is positively associated with leader trust in employees, which influences the development of empowering leadership. Additionally, leaders' risk propensity moderates these relationships, that is, a higher level of risk propensity can enhance the promoting effect of leader trust on empowering behaviors.

This study explores the antecedents and mechanisms influencing empowering leadership and proposes the moderating effect of risk propensity. The findings not only clarify how and why employees' taking charge behaviors can stimulate empowering leadership but also offer a more comprehensive understanding of the antecedents of empowering leadership.

Employees’ bootlegging innovation behavior is common and plays an important role in enterprise management. Based on the resource conservation theory and self-regulation theory, the purpose of this study is to explore the influence mechanism of leaders’ abusive supervision on employees’ bootlegging innovation behavior, with psychological safety as a mediator and mindfulness at workplace as a moderator.

Survey data were gathered from 591 employees’ self-assessment questionnaires in China. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to test the research model through SPSS and AMOS.

This study found that the leaders’ abusive supervision negatively affects employees’ bootlegging innovation behavior; employees’ psychological safety completely mediates the negative effect of leaders’ abusive supervision on employees’ bootlegging innovation behavior; and mindfulness at work moderates the influence of leaders’ abusive supervision on employee’ bootlegging innovation behavior, as well as the influence of leaders’ abusive supervision on employees’ psychological safety.

This study has significant implications in passive leadership that affect employees’ innovation. Authors found that leaders’ abusive supervise, mindfulness at workplace play a crucial role in employees’ bootleg innovation through psychological safety.

Theoretically, this study has enriched the antecedent research on employees’ bootlegging innovation behavior from the perspective of negative leadership behavior and employee psychology. And this study considered mindfulness at workplace as a boundary condition.

This study investigates the relationship between leaders’ collectivist orientation and employees’ innovative behavior, as well as the mediating effects of employees’ collectivist orientation and servant leadership.

Based on a survey of 40 leaders and 219 employees in 12 technologically innovative enterprises in Jiangsu Province, China, a hierarchical linear modeling is used.

The results show that leaders’ collectivist orientation significantly positively affects employees’ innovative behavior. Moreover, leaders’ collectivist orientation significantly positively affects employees’ collectivist orientation/servant leadership, employees’ collectivist orientation/servant leadership significantly positively affects employees’ innovative behavior, and employees’ collectivist orientation/servant leadership partially mediates the relationship between leaders’ collectivist orientation and employees’ innovative behavior.

In response to the lack of research on the relationship between leadership cultural orientation and employees’ innovative behavior, this study sheds light on the effectiveness and mechanism of the influence of leaders’ collectivist orientation on employees’ innovative behavior, thus expanding and deepening the boundaries of theoretical research on leadership, culture and innovation management.

Role congruity theory and gender stereotypes research suggests men are expected to engage in agentic behavior and women in communal behavior as leaders, and that role violation results in backlash. However, extant gender and leadership research does not directly measure expectations–behavior incongruence. Further, researchers have only considered one condition of role incongruence – display of counter-role behavior – and have not considered the outcomes of failing to exhibit role-congruent behavior. Additionally, few studies have examined outcomes for male leaders who violate gender role prescriptions. The present study aims to address these shortcomings by conducting a novel empirical test of role congruity theory.

This experimental study used polynomial regression to assess how followers evaluated leaders under conditions of incongruence between follower expectations for men and women leaders’ behavior and leaders’ actual behavior (i.e. exceeded and unmet expectations). Respondents read a fictional scenario describing a new male or female supervisor, rated their expectations for the leader’s agentic and communal behavior, read manipulated vignettes describing the leader’s subsequent behavior, rated their perceptions of these behaviors, and evaluated the leader.

Followers expected higher levels of communal behavior from the female than the male supervisor, but no differences were found in expectations for agentic behavior. Regardless of whether expectations were exceeded or unmet, supervisor gender did not moderate the effects of agentic or communal behavior expectations–perceptions incongruence on leader evaluations in polynomial regression analyses (i.e. male and female supervisors were not evaluated differently when displaying counter-role behavior or failing to display role-congruent behavior).

In addition to providing a novel, direct test of role congruity theory, the study highlighted a double standard in gender role-congruent behavior expectations of men and women leaders. Results failed to support role congruity theory, which has implications for the future of theory in this domain.

Leaders are role models and through social influence processes, they shape the behaviour of their followers. We build on social learning, social identity and person-environment (P-E) fit theories of leadership to explore the association between leaders’ and followers’ resilient behaviours.

In a three-wave, multisource study amongst 269 Dutch leaders and their followers, we investigate the mediating role of coaching in the relationship between leaders’ resilient behaviour and followers’ resilient behaviour and the moderating role of regulatory focus in this mediation path.

Our results show that coaching is a key relational vehicle through which leaders’ resilient behaviours shape employees’ resilient behaviours, and this indirect association is stronger for employees scoring low on promotion focus. In addition, our results show that resilient employees attract more coaching from their leaders, which further strengthens their resilient behaviours.

Existing studies have shown the occurrence of trickle-down effects of various leader behaviours, moods and work states on those of their followers. However, it remained obscure whether leaders’ resilient behaviour could trickle down to followers’ as well. Our study shows that such a link indeed exists and that coaching is a relational vehicle that embodies two key mechanisms to (1) foster social learning through behavioural entrainment and contagion and (2) facilitate support provision through which leaders promote resilient behaviour in their followers.

To reveal the effective ways for leaders to motivate employees' innovative behaviour in complex environmental situations, the leadership rapport orientation is subdivided into two types of values-based/instrumental rapport orientation. The mechanism of supervisor developmental feedback in mediating between leadership rapport orientation and employees' innovative behaviour and the moderating effect of ambidextrous environments is explored. This paper aims to discuss the aforementioned objective.

Leadership rapport orientation is divided into value-based and instrumental rapport orientation to reveal effective ways for leaders to motivate employees' innovative behaviour in complex environmental situations.

The results show that the values-based (instrumental) rapport orientation of leaders impacts employees' innovative behaviour positively (negatively).

Leaders' values-based/instrumental rapport orientation indirectly influences employees' innovative behaviour through supervisor developmental feedback, which positively moderates the relationship between the values-based or instrumental rapport orientation of leaders and employees' innovative behaviour and further moderates the partially mediating role of supervisor developmental feedback between leaders' values-based/instrumental rapport orientation and employees' innovative behaviour.

Drawing on COR theory and based on a person-centered approach, this study aims to explore profiles of both leadership behavior (transformational leadership, abusive supervision) and well-being indicators (cognitive irritation, emotional exhaustion). Additionally, we consider whether certain resource-draining (work intensification) and resource-creating factors (leader autonomy, psychological contract fulfillment) from the leaders' work context are related to profile membership.

The profiles are built using LPA on data from 153 leaders and their 1,077 followers. The relationship between profile membership and correlates from the leaders' work context is examined using multinomial logistic regression analyses.

LPA results in an interpretable four-profile solution with the profiles named (1) Good health – constructive leading, (2) Average health – inconsistent leading, (3) Impaired health – constructive leading and (4) Impaired health – destructive leading. The two groups with the highest sample share – Profiles 1 and 3 – both show highly constructive leadership behavior but differ significantly in their well-being indicators. The regression analyses show that work intensification and psychological contract fulfillment are significantly related to profile membership.

The person-centered approach provides a more nuanced view of the leadership behavior – leader well-being relationship, which can address inconsistencies in previous research. In terms of practical relevance, the person-centered approach allows for the identification of risk groups among leaders for whom organizations can provide additional resources and health-promoting interventions.

Leaders lack essential information about their performance from their followers. In light of the frequently encountered error avoidance climate in the police, leaders should actively seek feedback to fill this gap. The purpose of this paper is to explore organizational, personal and situational antecedents of police leaders' daily feedback-seeking behavior.

The authors used a diary study and examined error-management climate, feedback orientation and two situational characteristics, namely daily occasions for feedback-seeking and daily time pressure. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to analyze the N = 188 daily entries from 27 leaders (minimum of three daily entries per leader).

Results show that police leaders seldom seek daily feedback from their followers. A positive (i.e. learning-oriented) error-management climate and occasions for feedback-seeking foster leaders' daily feedback-seeking, whereas no main effects of feedback orientation and time pressure were found. However, time pressure moderated the relationship between occasions for feedback-seeking and daily feedback-seeking, with higher time pressure leading to a weaker relationship.

This is the first study empirically examining feedback-seeking as a key leadership behavior on a daily basis. The results show that organizational conditions promote leaders' feedback-seeking behavior and indicate organizations should foster an error-management climate to promote feedback-seeking of their leaders.

Two studies are designed to address the research questions including an experimental study and a field study. The experimental study manipulated Servant Leadership (SL vs. non-SL), leaders' Machiavellianism (H-Mach vs L-Mach), and leaders' gender (male vs. female), and measured leadership effectiveness. The second study is a survey study that collected data from employees regarding their interaction with supervisors and their perceptions of supervisors' leadership behaviors.

Leadership behaviors can correspond to or deviate from leaders' personality traits. This study aims to study the interplay of two seemingly opposite constructs in leadership – a power-pursuing and manipulation-oriented trait (i.e. Machiavellianism) and an other-oriented leadership style (i.e. servant leadership behaviors) by examining whether the effect of servant leadership behaviors on perceived leadership effectiveness varies across high and low levels of Machiavellian traits. Furthermore, built upon gender role congruency theory, the researchers pay particular attention to the (leader) gender's role in the paradox of Machiavellian traits and servant leadership behaviors.

Results from the two studies show that the relationship between servant leadership behaviors and followers' ratings of leaders' effectiveness varies with leaders' Machiavellian traits. More engagement in servant leadership behaviors serves as a remedy for high-Mach leaders to achieve leadership effectiveness, and this remedy effect tends to be greater for women leaders.

To the authors' best knowledge, this is one of the first attempts that examine the interplay of servant leadership behaviors and Machiavellianism on perceived leader effectiveness. The authors also contribute to the gender leadership literature by providing evidence for the contingencies of leaders' genders when employees evaluate leadership effectiveness with consideration for the dual demands for agency and communion from women leaders.