Can Humble Leaders Get Results? The Indirect and Contextual Influences of Skip-Level Leaders

Abstract

We draw from social learning theory to propose a model in which humble behaviors displayed by higher-level leaders trickle down to lower-level team leaders and thereby indirectly promote team performance. We also propose that skip-level leader humility enhances the positive effect of team leader humility on team performance. Results based on time-lagged, multisource data from a sample of 128 work teams supported our model. Also, the trickle-down effect of leader humility is stronger in organizations with relatively high authority centralization. Our study thus links humble leadership of both direct and distant leaders to team performance and highlights the role of higher-level leaders in fostering humble behaviors of lower-level leaders.

Keywords

leader humility team performance trickle-down effect authority centralization skip-level leader

A recent Wall Street Journal article noted, “After decades of screening potential leaders for charm and charisma, some employers are realizing they’ve been missing one of the most important traits of all: humility” (Shellenbarger, 2018). Backing up this observation, research has shown that leaders who acknowledge personal flaws, appreciate follower contributions, and model teachability (Owens & Hekman, 2012) tend to have more satisfied and engaged and better performing followers (Jeung & Yoon, 2016; Ou et al., 2014; Owens et al., 2013). Studies have also found that leader humility promotes team processes (e.g., informational sharing) and psychological states (e.g., psychological safety) that are conducive to high team performance (Chiu et al., 2016; Hu et al., 2018; Owens & Hekman, 2016; Rego et al., 2017; Rego et al., 2019).

Despite the theory and research pointing to a positive relationship between leader humility and team performance, findings have been mixed. Among four published studies, two have reported a positive effect of leader humility on team performance (Chiu et al., 2016; Rego et al., 2019), and the other two did not observe significant effects (Owens & Hekman, 2016; Rego et al., 2017). Owens and Hekman (2012) noted that expression of humility may be counterproductive when the leader is at risk of being perceived as less competent (e.g., less experienced leaders). In a recent experimental study, Zapata and Hayes-Jones (2019) found that humility reduced perceived leader effectiveness through lower perceptions of agentic characteristics (e.g., being influential and independent), although it enhanced effectiveness ratings by increasing perceived communal characteristics (e.g., being warm and helpful). These findings suggest that the extent to which leader humility benefits team performance may depend on situational factors that affect followers’ inferences about leader effectiveness.

Building on these observations, we argue that humility among skip-level leaders is a salient social cue that affects how team members attend to and interpret the humble behaviors of their team leaders in ways that moderate the relationship between team leader humility and team performance. Skip-level leaders are at least two levels above the focal employees in the authority hierarchy (Detert & Treviño, 2010). We use this term to refer to the direct supervisors of the team leaders. We theorize that when the skip-level leader exhibits little humility, team members are less likely to perceive humility as a strong norm in the organization, and they are less inclined to emulate the humble behaviors their team leader embraces and exemplifies. Accordingly, we expect team leader humility to exert a weaker influence on team performance when humility of skip-level leaders is relatively low.

Besides serving as a normative cue for members, humble leadership at a higher level also conveys normative information to the team leaders. Drawing on social learning theory (Bandura, 1977, 1986), we propose that leaders often learn to be humble by emulating the behaviors of their leaders at the next organizational level. This instigates what is known as a cascading (or trickle-down) effect of leadership (Schaubroeck et al., 2012; Yang et al., 2010). However, the extent to which lower-level leaders learn from their supervisors to enact humble leadership behaviors may depend on the extent to which the organizational environment encourages it. We thus argue that the cascading effect of humble leadership is more likely in organizations characterized by higher centralization of authority. In organizations with high authority centralization, decision making is controlled by a small group of individuals at the higher hierarchical levels (Dewar et al., 1980; Hage & Aiken, 1967). Higher authority centralization leads individuals to perceive that their supervisors possess greater power, which motivates them to emulate their behavior. This may result in a stronger trickle-down effect of leader humility.

Our study makes two main contributions. The first derives from our use of a multilevel perspective of leadership (Bass et al., 1987; Kinicki et al., 2011) that models the trickle-down process of leader humility across organizational levels. Our study extends existing research that has focused exclusively on how humble behaviors of the immediate supervisors affect follower and team outcomes. Within our model, higher-level leaders not only contribute to team performance indirectly through the trickle-down process; they also determine the extent to which team leader humility improves team performance. As such, our study also extends recent work suggesting possible downsides of leader humility (Bharanitharan et al., 2019; Zapata & Hayes-Jones, 2019) by identifying an important contextual factor (i.e., skip-level leadership) that amplifies or reduces the benefits of leader humility on team performance.

Second, our research provides insights relevant to the trait-state debate about leader humility in ways that can have implications for leader development and selection. Although Owens and colleagues have conceptualized leader humility as a set of leader behaviors that can be learned (Owens & Hekman, 2012; Owens et al., 2013), others suggest that humility is a relatively stable trait that is challenging, if not impossible, to develop (Morris et al., 2005; Tangney, 2000). These conceptual differences raise the important question of whether leaders can be coached and developed to enact a humble leadership style. Our findings suggest that leader humility “emerges in social interactions” (Owens et al., 2013; p. 1518) and point out the important role of the higher-level leaders in developing a humble leadership approach among lower-level leaders.

To summarize, we propose that humility of skip-level leaders promotes team leader humility and strengthens the positive relationship between team leader humility and team performance. In addition, we argue that perceived authority centralization in the organization enhances the trickle-down of humility to team leaders from higher-level leaders. We test our theoretical model (see Figure 1) with a sample of 128 work teams in a variety of industries. We review the literature from which we drew in developing the hypotheses.

Figure 1.

Hypothesized model.

Leader Humility and Team Performance

Owens and Hekman (2012) conceptualized leader humility to include three essential characteristics: (1) being aware of personal mistakes and limits, (2) recognizing followers’ strengths and contributions, and (3) being open to new ideas and feedback. Social learning theory explains how individuals learn and develop certain patterns of behavior in their social environments (Bandura, 1969, 1986). Following the logic of social learning theory, team members tend to emulate behaviors that are demonstrated by their team leaders. Leader humility thus encourages members to enact humble behaviors directed toward each other (i.e., collective humility), which has been found to benefit team performance (Owens & Hekman, 2016). The humble behaviors of members, such as recognizing others’ strengths and being open to suggestions, motivate them to seek valuable information from each other. Perceiving other members as humble and open-minded also encourages individuals to proactively share their unique ideas. Enhanced information sharing owing to high levels of collective humility, in turn, results in better team decisions and solutions to complex tasks (see a review by Mesmer-Magnus & DeChurch, 2009). In addition, when members consistently enact humble behaviors toward each other, this engenders shared experiences of being appreciated, supported, and trusted. This builds interpersonal trust, which promotes team performance (De Jong et al., 2016).

Research findings concerning the relationship between leader humility and team performance, however, are mixed (Chiu et al., 2016; Owens & Hekman, 2016; Rego et al., 2017; Rego et al., 2019). Chiu et al. (2016) reported a positive zero-order correlation between leader humility and team task performance with a sample of 62 professional work teams. Across two independent employee samples collected in China and Portugal, Rego et al. (2019) also found that leader humility was positively related to team performance as mediated by members’ shared belief in their team’s psychological capital. Whereas Owens and Hekman (2016) reported a positive indirect relationship between leader humility and team performance that was sequentially mediated by collective humility and team promotion focus in a study of 77 work teams from a health service company, they did not find a significant main effect of humility. Rego et al. (2017) split each of the 82 teams in their study into two random subgroups and found a positive relationship between leader humility and team performance in one subsample but not the other.

Existing research linking leader humility to team performance has focused exclusively on the humility of team leaders themselves. Thus, as we elaborate below, one possible explanation for the mixed findings is that humility of the skip-level leaders influences the extent to which team leader humility enhances team performance.

The Moderating Effect of Skip-Level Leader Humility

Drawing on social learning theory, Owens and Hekman (2016) argued that leaders role model humble behaviors (e.g., proactively seeking advice from subordinates concerning a subject matter, apologizing to the team for making a poor decision) among their followers in ways that contribute to better team performance. Notably, however, in addition to their direct interactions with supervisors, frontline employees (i.e., team members) frequently have opportunities to observe the behaviors of more senior leaders and to interact with the senior leaders (Detert & Treviño, 2010). We argue that humble behavior of the skip-level leaders can supplement that of their team leaders in providing a salient source of information team members use to evaluate the consequences for themselves of exhibiting humility.

Specifically, when the skip-level leader and the team leader both frequently display humble behaviors, team members are likely to perceive that behaving humbly is the desired norm in their organization (Cialdini, 2003; Cialdini et al., 1990). They are accordingly motivated to emulate and enact such behaviors because following collective norms is a means to gain social proof that is important for individual survival and thriving in a social group (Ajzen, 1991; Cialdini, 1993). The perceived behavioral similarity of the skip-level leader and their immediate leader also enhances the credibility of the latter (Simons et al., 1970), making the immediate leader a more attractive role model. As a result, we argue that team members may readily emulate their team leaders’ humble behaviors when the skip-level leader is also humble.

In contrast, when the skip-level leader exhibits little humility, we argue that members may recognize that humility is not consistently practiced by higher leaders. They are, therefore, less likely to perceive humility as an organizational norm (Cialdini et al., 1990; Rimal et al., 2005). They may also perceive little value for advancing in their organization by behaving humbly toward others even if their direct leaders frequently exhibit such behaviors.

To summarize, we argue that humility exhibited by skip-level leaders will enhance the role modeling influence of lower-level team leaders who are seen as humble. Because the role modeling influence, which manifests in members’ enacting humble behaviors toward each other, is theorized to produce a positive relationship between leader humidity and team performance (Owens & Hekman, 2016), we predict that skip-level leader humility enhances the beneficial effect of team leader humility on team performance.

Hypothesis 1: Skip-level leader humility strengthens a positive relationship between team leader humility and team performance.

The Cascading Effect of Leader Humility

Humble leaders recognize their own limitations and mistakes, appreciate others’ contributions, and are open to suggestions (Morris et al., 2005; Nielsen et al., 2010; Owens & Hekman, 2012). Humble leadership behaviors thus exemplify modesty and respect for others, both of which are viewed as desirable human values. According to social learning theory, desirable behaviors tend to be imitated by others. This process is particularly likely to unfold between followers and their supervisors because employees tend to view their supervisors as embodying and representing the values of their social groups (Schein, 1992; Tyler & Lind, 1992) and are thus attractive models for behavioral emulation.

Studies testing a trickle-down effect of other leadership behaviors provide an empirical basis for postulating a cascading effect of leader humility. To illustrate, Schaubroeck et al. (2012) found that ethical leadership exhibited by U.S. Army company commanders was positively associated with ethical behaviors displayed by the platoon leaders who reported to them. This in turn led to higher levels of ethical leadership at the next lower level (i.e., squad leaders). Similarly, Yang et al. (2010) reported a cascading of transformational leadership from middle managers to frontline supervisors. Considering the theoretical and empirical support for such trickle-down effects, we predict a positive relationship between skip-level leader humility and team leader humility.

Hypothesis 2: Skip-level leader humility is positively related to team leader humility.

Hypothesis 2 predicts that skip-level leader humility is positively related to team leader humility, and Hypothesis 1 predicts that skip-level leader humility moderates the relationship between team leader humility and team performance. This latter moderation effect derives theoretically from a social learning process wherein team members appraise a humble team leader as more credible and normative when the skip-level leader exhibits similarly humble behaviors (Cialdini, 2003; Cialdini et al., 1990; Simons et al., 1970). Thus, team members are more likely to emulate the humble behaviors in ways that facilitate information sharing and team performance (Owens & Hekman, 2016). Considering these social learning processes jointly leads us to propose a second-stage moderated mediation model (Edwards & Lambert, 2007), whereby the positive indirect relationship between skip-level leader humility and team performance is stronger when higher-level leaders frequently exhibit humble behaviors.

Hypothesis 3: The positive indirect relationship between skip-level leader humility and team performance through team leader humility is stronger when skip-level leaders display more frequent humble behaviors.

The Moderating Role of Authority Centralization

Besides identifying the potent influence of role models in shaping human behavior, social learning theory proposes that cognitive processes (i.e., attention, retention, reproduction, and motivation) determine the extent to which individuals learn from their role models (Bandura, 1977, 1986). Regarding our proposed trickle-down effect of leader humility, these cognitive processes reflect how team leaders attend to and interpret the humble behaviors displayed by their leaders. We argue that the extent to which team leaders perceive more centralized decision making in their organizations (i.e., authority centralization) influences their motivation to emulate the humble behavior of their leaders.

The ability to reward and punish behavior is a major basis of leaders’ position power and a key factor that underlies the cascading of leadership (Schaubroeck et al., 2012; Yang et al., 2010). Nevertheless, the extent to which the leaders are perceived as powerful varies across organizational settings. A high level of authority centralization in the organization means that followers believe that members at higher ranks, such as their supervisors, are accorded significantly more power than those of lower ranks such as themselves. Social learning theory argues that individuals are inclined to emulate behaviors of persons who possess high power and thus are capable of rewarding them for mimicking such behaviors (Bandura et al., 1963; Weiss, 1977). Team leaders who perceive high authority centralization are therefore motivated to monitor their supervisors’ behavior and modify their behavior accordingly.

Supporting this line of argument, research has shown that individuals from higher power distance cultures, in which authority tends to be more centralized (Hofstede, 1980), are more likely to perceive their managers’ behaviors as legitimate and attractive (Bochner & Hesketh, 1994; Bond et al., 1985). Our theorizing and the empirical evidence lead us to predict that team leaders’ perceived authority centralization enhances the trickle-down effect of leader humility:

Hypothesis 4: The positive relationship between skip-level leader humility and team leader humility is stronger among team leaders who perceive their organizations as having relatively high authority centralization.

Within our model, the humility of the higher-level leaders will cascade to affect the humility exhibited by the team leaders, which in turn promotes better team performance. Our model also posits that team leaders’ perceived authority centralization strengthens the cascading effect of leader humility and that skip-level leader humility strengthens the positive influence of team leader humility on team task performance. These relationships form a moderated mediation model wherein the positive and indirect influence of skip-level leader humility on team performance is amplified when the team leader perceives relatively high authority centralization and when skip-level leaders exhibit greater humility.

Hypothesis 5: The positive indirect effect of skip-level leader humility on team performance through team leader humility is enhanced by organizational authority centralization (first stage) and skip-level leader humility (second stage); the indirect effect is stronger among teams that score relatively high in both authority centralization and skip-level leader humility, compared with teams lower in either authority centralization or skip-level leader humility.

Method

Participants and Procedures

One author approached employees who were registered in an MBA program at a public university in China for assistance in the research project. Most of these students were working in small and medium-sized enterprises in the eastern region of China. The researcher informed them of the procedure of this research and asked each of them to recruit one work team at random in their companies. Each team was to consist of one team leader and three direct reports (i.e., team members). MBA students who volunteered to assist this research helped to administer a set of four questionnaires, with one to be completed by the leader and three by the members. The four questionnaires were placed in individual envelopes, which were coded with numerical identifiers to match the responses of the team members with those of their leader. For each questionnaire, a letter explained the general purpose of this research and informed the participants that their participation was voluntary and their responses would be used for research purposes only. Participants were also instructed to enclose their completed survey in the original envelope and seal it with a signature before handing it to the MBA student. The MBA students who returned the Time 1 survey packages were also asked to administer the Time 2 surveys to the same participants 1 month later.

We obtained valid responses from 159 team leaders and their 470 team members at Time 1. Among the 159 work teams, 128 team leaders rated the performance of their teams at Time 2. Our analysis thus involved a sample of 128 work teams. A majority of the leaders were male (66%), and 88% of them had received a bachelor’s degree or a master’s degree. Thirty-nine percent of them were frontline supervisors, 53% were middle managers, and 8% were senior managers. Among the 380 team members whose ratings of team leader humility were used in the final analysis, 52% were male, and 78% had received a bachelor’s or master’s degree. Most of the team members had been employed in the organization for no more than 6 years (75%).

Measures

Participants were asked to rate the survey items using a 5-point Likert-type scale, ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree. We translated the original English items to Chinese, following the conventional back-translation procedure (Brislin, 1970).

Leader Humility

We measured leader humility using the nine-item instrument developed by Owens et al. (2013). Sample items were “My supervisor actively seeks feedback even if it is critical” and “My supervisor admits it when he or she does not know how to do something.” Team leaders were asked to rate these nine items with reference to their immediate supervisors. Their reports were used to derive the variable of skip-level leader humility. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for skip-level leader humility was .91.

We used the same nine items to measure team leader humility. The team members were asked to report on the same set of humble behaviors of their immediate supervisors (i.e., the team leaders). The alpha reliability of member reports of team leader humility was .89. We aggregated member reports to the team level to index a shared perception of humility exhibited by the team leaders. We examined the degree of inter-rater agreement (James et al., 1984), and the results supported our aggregation decision (mean rwg_(j) = .91; median rwg_(j) =.97). The intraclass correlations (ICC₍₁₎ = .46 and ICC₍₂₎ = .72) indicated that a substantial amount of the variation in team leader humility scores was associated with team membership, F(127, 379) = 3.57, p < .001, providing additional support for using the average of member reports to index team leader humility.

Team Performance

At Time 2, team leaders assessed the performance of their teams. Based on previous research (Ancona & Caldwell, 1992), we asked the team leaders to rate their teams on four general performance criteria, including efficiency, quality, productivity, and overall achievement. This measure had an alpha reliability of .87.

Authority Centralization

Team leaders reported on their perceptions of authority centralization, using six items adapted from the Power Distance Orientation Scale (Dorfman & Howell, 1988). Following Hage and Aiken’s (1967) conceptualization, we reworded the items to reflect the extent to which decision-making power was centralized among the managers at higher levels of their organizations (e.g., “In my organization, managers frequently use authority and power when dealing with subordinates” and “Employees in my organization rarely disagree with management decisions”). This measure had an alpha reliability of .78.

Control Variables

Consistent with prior research on leader humility (Chiu et al., 2016; Owens et al., 2013; Rego et al., 2017), we controlled for leader gender, age, and organizational rank in our analysis. Female leaders exhibit higher levels of humility on average than male leaders (Owens et al., 2013; Rego et al., 2017), and leader age was related to leader humility (Owens et al., 2013). Organizational rank has also been theorized and shown to facilitate different leadership behaviors (Densten, 2003; Shamir & Howell, 1999). These demographics of the team leaders may also affect how they perceive the humble behaviors displayed by their supervisors. Controlling for these variables removes potentially shared variance between skip-leader humility and leader humility due to the common influence of these demographic variables. However, analyses that did not control for these variables produced the same results.

Results

We conducted confirmatory factor analyses to examine the measurement structure. We specified a three-factor model with team leaders’ reports on skip-level leader humility, team performance, and authority centralization. This model shows an adequate fit to the data; χ²_{(df = 149)} = 283.75, confirmatory fit index = .89, Tucker-Lewis index = .87, standardized root mean square residual = .08, and root mean square error of approximation = .08. This fit was superior to alternative two-factor models that combined any two constructs into one, and the one-factor model in which we loaded all items on one construct. Based on the confirmatory factor analyses results, we proceeded to test the hypotheses using the variable means. Table 1 presents the descriptive statistics of the study variables and their zero-order correlations.

Table 1.

Means, Standard Deviations, Reliabilities, and Correlations Among Study Variables.

Variables	M	SD	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
1. Team leader gender	1.34	0.48
2. Team leader age^a	3.34	1.34	−.35**
3. Team leader rank	1.69	0.61	−.01	.34**
4. Skip-level leader humility	3.53	0.73	.03	−.16	−.16	(.91)
5. Team leader humility	3.56	0.66	.16	−.15	−.15	.21*	(.90)
6. Authority centralization	2.25	0.65	−.04	.03	.03	−.17	−.19*	(.78)
7. Team performance (Time 2)	3.62	0.68	−.16	−.03	−.03	.27**	.25**	.04	(.87)

Note. N = 128 teams. Values (in bold) on the diagonal are alpha reliability estimates. Team leader gender: 1 = male, 2 = female.

Team leader age was measured as 1 = 25 years and below, 2 = 26-30 years, 3 = 31-35 years, 4 = 36-40 years, 5 = 41-45 years, and 6 = 46 years and above. Team leader rank: 1 = frontline supervisors, 2 = middle managers, and 3 = senior managers; team leader humility is the average of the multiple member ratings.

p < .05. **p < .01.

We tested our hypotheses using the Mplus software, which produces the bootstrapped confidence intervals of the indirect effects involved in the moderated mediation hypotheses (Hypotheses 3 and 5). We first specified a second-stage moderated mediation model (Model 1 of Table 2) to test Hypotheses 1, 2, and 3. We then specified a two-stage moderated mediation model (Model 2 of Table 2) to test Hypotheses 4 and 5, which concern the moderating role of authority centralization. In all analyses, the exogenous variables were centered to their sample means to facilitate testing the interaction effects. Table 2 provides the coefficient estimates and their standard errors for the two path models.

Table 2.

Structural Equation Modeling Results Testing the Hypotheses.

Independent variables	Dependent variables
	Model 1 (Hypotheses 1-3)		Model 2 (Hypotheses 4-5)
	Team leader humility	Team performance (Time 2)	Team leader humility	Team performance (Time 2)
Team leader gender	.18 (.13)	−.26* (.12)	.17 (.12)	−.26* (.12)
Team leader age	−.02 (.05)	.01 (.05)	−.02 (.05)	.01 (.05)
Team leader rank	−.10 (.10)	−.15 (.10)	−.10 (.10)	−.15 (.10)
Authority centralization	−.16^† (.09)	.07 (.09)	−.15^† (.08)	.07 (.09)
Skip-level leader humility	.17* (.08)	.21** (.08)	.18* (.08)	.14 (.13)
Team leader humility		.23** (.08)		.25** (.09)
Skip-level leader humility × Team leader humility		.25* (.11)		.23* (.11)
Skip-level leader humility × Authority centralization			.33** (.12)	−.08 (.13)
R ²	.10*	.22**	.15**	.22**

Note. N = 128. Unstandardized coefficients (and standard errors) are presented. Team leader gender: 1 = male, 2 = female.

†

p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01.

Hypothesis 1 predicts an interaction between skip-level leader humility and team leader humility in predicting team performance. We created an interaction term by multiplying skip-level leader humility with team leader humility after first centering both variables to their sample means. The interaction of team leader humility and skip-level leader humility in predicting team performance was significant (b = .25, p < .05; Model 1 of Table 2). The pattern of this interaction, as presented in Figure 2a, indicates that team leader humility had a positive relationship with team performance for skip-level leaders exhibiting relatively high (+1 SD) levels of humility (b_high = .41, p < .01), but this relationship was not significant when skip-level leader humility was relatively low (−1 SD; b_low = .05, ns).

Figure 2.

(a) Interaction between skip-level leader humility and team leader humility in predicting team performance. (b) Interaction between skip-level leader humility and authority centralization in predicting team leader humility.

Supporting Hypothesis 2, skip-level leader humility was significantly and positively related to team leader humility (a = .17, p < .05; Model 1 of Table 2). To test Hypothesis 3, we used the product of coefficients approach (MacKinnon et al., 2002). Based on the path coefficients reported in Model 1 (Table 2), the indirect effect was derived by multiplying the a path (i.e., the path from skip-level leader humility to team leader humility) with the conditional b paths (i.e., the paths from team leader humility to team performance under higher and lower levels of skip-level leader humility). Supporting Hypothesis 3, the indirect influence of skip-level leader humility on team performance was significant when it was higher (ab_high = .07), as the bootstrapped 95% confidence intervals (“bootstrap CI,” hereafter) excluded zero [.002, .17], but not when it was low (ab_low = .01, bootstrap CI = [−.03, .08]).

To test Hypothesis 4, we multiplied the mean-centered scores of authority centralization and skip-level leader humility to create their interaction term. The interaction was significant in predicting team leader humility (a = .33, p < .01; see Model 2 of Table 2), and it explained an additional 5% of the variance. We plotted this interaction in Figure 2b. For team leaders who reported relatively low authority centralization in their organizations (−1 SD), skip-level leader humility was not significantly related to team leader humility (a_low = −.03, ns). In contrast, skip-level leader humility was positively related to team leader humility (a_high = .40, p < .01) for team leaders who reported relatively high on authority centralization (+1 SD). These results support Hypothesis 4.

Hypothesis 5 states that the mediated effect of skip-level leader humility on team performance is jointly moderated by authority centralization at the first stage of the mediation process and skip-level leader humility at the second stage. Based on the coefficients of Model 2 (Table 2), we computed conditional indirect effects for each of the four conditions by crossing skip-level leader humility (higher vs. lower) with authority centralization (higher vs. lower). Supporting Hypothesis 5, there was a positive indirect relationship between skip-level leader humility and team performance only when skip-level leaders were seen as humbler and team leaders reported relatively high authority centralization (ab_high-high = .16, bootstrap CI = [.03, .34]). The indirect effect was not significant when either skip-level leader humility or authority centralization was relatively low or when both variables were relatively low. We also conducted a supplementary analysis to test a three-way interaction between team leader humility, skip-level leader humility, and authority centralization in predicting team performance. This interaction was not significant (b = .10, p = .51).

Discussion

We theorized that higher-level leaders serve as a role model of humble leadership for the leaders reporting to them and accordingly exert a positive indirect influence on the performance of the work units at the lower level. The cascading effect of leader humility was significant when decision-making power was perceived to be centralized at the top of the organizational hierarchy, but it was not significant when authority centralization was relatively low. In addition, the benefit of having a humble leader on team performance was enhanced when the skip-level leader was also seen as exhibiting relatively high humility. Below we discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings, followed by the limitations and future research directions.

Skip-Level Leader Humility and Team Performance

When a skip-level leader displays humility, employees may be more likely to perceive the humble behaviors of their direct leaders as attractive, which, according to social learning theory, promotes emulation. Thus, high skip-level leader humility strengthens the relationship between team leader humility and team performance by affecting the extent to which the members emulate the humble behaviors of their direct team leaders. This finding may help explain the mixed empirical support for the positive effect of leader humility on team performance (e.g., Chiu et al., 2016; Rego et al., 2017). It also suggests that accounting for the role of higher-level leadership helps more accurately depict the influence of leader humility on team performance and, by extension, other employee outcomes.

Surprisingly, when skip-level leaders exhibit lower levels of humility, teams at the lower hierarchical level accrue no performance benefits from reporting to a humble team leader. We reason that employees are not motivated to imitate their supervisors’ humble behavior when they see higher-level leaders enacting a different leadership approach, which indicates that humility is not a descriptive norm. When such behavior is not exemplified by the higher-level leader, humility of the team leader may also be more readily perceived as demonstrating a low sense of agency and an inability to lead (Zapata & Hayes-Jones, 2019). Future research may examine whether perceptions of organizational norm and agency of the leader jointly account for the lack of an effect of leader humility on performance when skip-level leader humility is lower.

The Role of Authority Centralization

Although our findings suggest an overall tendency for leaders to look to their leaders as models when deciding the amount of humility they exhibit in managing their teams, this tendency varies across leaders. We found that leaders reporting relatively high levels of authority centralization were more likely to alter their levels of humble behaviors depending on the humility of their leaders (see Figure 2b). These team leaders may readily perceive the humble behavior of their supervisors as attractive and beneficial for performing their work activities. Given the greater power of their supervisors, these lower-level leaders may also feel pressure to behave in ways that match those of their supervisors. When authority centralization is lower, however, lower level leaders may engage in humble behaviors regardless of the behavior of their supervisors. In this situation, relatively equal power may lead these leaders to adopt a modest (vs. assertive) approach to better influence their followers.

Authority centralization was negatively associated with leader humility reports both for the focal team leader and for the skip-level leader (Table 1). Generally, centralized authority seems to be less conducive to humble leadership. When leaders are granted more power, their followers may tend to maintain a dependency relationship and demonstrate an unwillingness to provide input even when asked. Thus, even if a leader attempts to enact humble leadership, the lack of positive responses from subordinates may encourage a change in leadership style. Future research may directly examine these interesting leader-follower interactions to clarify how authority centralization may hinder leader humility. Despite the high power distance norms in the Chinese context (Triandis, 1994), we note that the sample mean of authority centralization is comparable with those reported in research done in the United States (Love et al., 2002) and Turkey (Demirci, 2013), and it also exhibits meaningful variance across organizations in our sample.

Practical Implications

Our finding of a beneficial effect of leader humility on team performance, based on a relatively large sample of teams from a variety of industries, suggests that humble leadership is an effective approach to managing work teams. This is especially important given the mixed results reported in the previous studies (Chiu et al., 2016; Owens & Hekman, 2016; Rego et al., 2017). We also found that higher-level leaders serve as role models of humility for the lower-level team leaders in ways that benefit team performance. Considering this finding, we recommend that organizations train and develop their leaders to embrace and enact a humble leadership approach. This finding also highlights the importance of selecting and developing more humble leaders for higher-level positions, as they play a critical role in establishing norms that are conducive to humble leadership behaviors in the workplace.

Our study showed that the extent to which humble team leaders promote team performance depends on the levels of humility exhibited by the higher-level leaders. When the higher-ups displayed little humility, team leader humility was not related to team performance, suggesting that team members may be less motivated to enact similar behaviors toward each other. Thus, while we recommend that leaders adopt a humble leadership approach, we also suggest that they enact it in ways to avoid undesirable side effects. For example, leaders may need to be assured that humble behaviors (e.g., acknowledging own limitations, seeking feedback) are not revealing their lack of confidence but rather demonstrating a great strength that helps motivate exceptional performance.

Limitations and Future Research

Despite some empirical strengths, such as the relatively large sample of teams, a time-lagged design, and different sources of ratings, we note a few limitations. First, we measured the humility of each higher-level leader using a single team leader report. This differs from the team leader humility measure, which is an average of multiple member ratings. Whereas our measure of skip-level leader humility enabled us to closely model the social learning process enacted by the team leaders, it will be better for future research to measure skip-level leader humility by ratings of multiple lower-level leaders. Second, industrial and occupational norms may shape the influence of leader humility. It would be interesting to examine whether the positive consequences of leader humility are strengthened or weakened in contexts that are characterized by an aggressive or competitive culture (e.g., investment banking companies, professional sports teams).

Third, we sampled employees working in China, a society in which modesty is a prominent value under the Confucian principles (Bond et al., 1982). Research has also shown a higher inclination toward modest behavior in collectivistic (vs. individualistic) cultures (Kurman & Sriram, 2002). This may be attributed to the belief that modest behavior is instrumental to achieve a positive self-image in such cultures (Han, 2011; Sedikides et al., 2003). Thus, leader humility may be seen as more desirable in the Chinese context, resulting in both a higher mean level of leader humility observed in our study and a stronger trickle-down effect of leader humility than might be observed in more individualistic cultures. However, the sample means of leader humility (3.53 and 3.56) in our study are not higher than those reported in studies conducted in more individualistic cultures (Owens et al., 2013; Owens & Hekman, 2016). For example, Owens and Hekman (2016) reported a mean of 3.87 for a sample of 326 U.S. health service employees.

Despite our focus on humble leadership, we expect that our model and the theorized critical roles of the skip-level leader should apply to research on other leadership behaviors. Part of our model that concerns the cascading effect of leadership, for example, has been supported in studies of ethical leadership (Schaubroeck et al., 2012), abusive supervision (Liu, Liao, & Loi, 2012), and transformational leadership (Yang et al., 2010). Notably, studies of other leader behaviors that assessed U.S. and New Zealand employees demonstrated similarly strong cascading effects of other leader behavior patterns (Bass et al., 1987; Schaubroeck et al., 2012).

Finally, our study did not measure the social learning mechanisms, which include collective humility and perceived power of the direct supervisors (vs. perception of general power distribution in the organization), that are theorized to account for the benefit of leader humility and the effects of distant leadership. We recommend that future research examine these mechanisms by not only measuring them but also controlling for other leadership behaviors (e.g., ethical leadership) to enable stronger inferences.

Conclusions

Extending the existing work that has focused on the humble behaviors of the direct leaders, our study shows that humility exhibited by higher-level leaders trickles down to lower-level team leaders and, in turn, promotes team performance. The positive indirect influence of skip-level leader humility on team performance was strongest when team leaders perceived high authority centralization in their organizations and when their supervisors were also seen to exhibit high levels of humility. Our findings highlight the importance of higher-level leaders in terms of fostering organizational effectiveness by demonstrating humble behaviors.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 71962015 & No. 71762016), Humanities and Social Science Foundation of Ministry of Education of China (No. 19YJA630072), and Natural Science Foundation of Jiangxi Province of China (No. 20181BAA208046). The authors also thank Beiren Yuanhang Project of Jiangxi Province for facilitating the initial development of this research.

ORCID iD

Ann C. Peng

Author Biographies

Ann C. Peng is an associate professor of Management and the Raymond W. Lansford distinguished professor of Leadership at the Trulaske College of Business. She received her PhD in Management at Michigan State University and a master’s degree from Lingnan University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include leadership, emotions, and employee performance.

Biying Wang is a professor of Management at the School of Business of Jiangxi Normal University in China. She received her PhD in Management at Renmin University of China and a master’s degree from Zhejiang University. Dr. Wang’s research interests include leadership, workplace status, and team boundary spanning activities.

John M. Schaubroeck is the Robert J. Trulaske, Sr. Chair in the Trulaske College of Business. He received his PhD from Purdue University’s Krannert Graduate School of Management in 1988. His primary areas of scholarly interest include psychological processes in leader-follower relationships, unethical behavior in organizations, and employee stress and well-being.

Riguang Gao is a professor of Human Resource Management at the Business School of Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics. He received his PhD in Management at Renmin University of China and a master’s degree from Jinan University in China. Dr. Gao’s primary research interests are leadership, organizational justice, and political skills.

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