Leader humility and subordinates’ organizational citizenship behavior: investigating the role of interpersonal justice & moderating mechanism of employee cynicism

Abstract

This study examined the relationship between leader humility and subordinates’ organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and hypothesizes that relationship will be mediated by interpersonal justice. This study also attempts to understand the degree to which cynicism moderated the humility-justice relation. Two hundred and forty-five employees completed survey items assessing leader humility, interpersonal justice, cynicism, and demographic information via the Prolific Academic platform in Phase 1. They completed an OCB scale and a social desirability measure two weeks later in Phase 2. Leader humility was positively related to OCB. I found no support for the mediation and moderation hypotheses. One implication for managers is designing interventions to stress the importance of treating subordinates respectfully.