Leader humility, team humility and employee creative performance: The moderating roles of task dependence and competitive climate

In the unpredictable economic environment, both academics and professionals have been keen to identify effective leadership style that can induce more employee creative performance in work. Prior research has investigated different types of leadership styles and their consequences for employee behavior in work environments. In the recent management literature, humble leadership has been found to generate a number of positive behavioral outcomes among employees. However, relatively little is known about the influences of leader humility on team processes, or about the boundary conditions of these effects. The current study examined first, the relationships among leader humility, team humility and employee creative performance; and second, the moderating role of competitive climate in the moderation effect of task dependence in the relationship between team humility and employee creative performance. Hierarchical linear modeling was applied to analyze the cross-level data with 76 work teams and 531 employees. The results showed that leader humility exerts its impact on team humility, which in turn influences employee creative performance. The effect of team humility on employee creative performance was found to be strongest under high task dependence and high competitive climate. Practical implications regarding how to optimize the positive impact of leader humility are discussed.