Leader humility as a predictor of employees' feedback-seeking behavior: The intervening role of psychological safety and job insecurity

Drawing on social learning theory, this study theorizes how leader humility can promote employees' feedback-seeking behavior by enhancing their psychological safety, and tests employees' job insecurity as an important boundary. This moderated mediation model was tested by matched reports from 241 Chinese employees and their immediate leaders from various organizations. Results revealed that leader humility had a positive indirect effect on employees' feedback-seeking behavior through increasing their psychological safety. We further found that the effect of leader humility on employees' feedback-seeking behavior was stronger for employees in higher levels of job insecurity. These findings highlight the importance of leader characteristic and employees' uncertainty perception in the process of seeking feedback, providing theoretical and practical implications for leadership and employees' proactive behavior management.

Automated summary

Drawing on social learning theory, this study explores how leader humility can promote employees' feedback-seeking behavior by enhancing their psychological safety, and tests employees' job insecurity as an important boundary factor.