When leader humility meets follower competitiveness: Relationships with follower affective trust, intended and voluntary turnover

Leader expressed humility (LEH) is an interpersonal, positive leader behavior that involves appreciating the strengths and contributions of others, recognizing one's own weaknesses, and being teachable. Investigating boundary conditions, our research juxtaposes LEH with followers' competitiveness, an indiscriminate need to compete and win at any cost. Employing social exchange theory, we theorize how follower competitiveness potentially impacts the positive effects of leader expressed humility on followers' affective trust in the leader and subsequent turnover. We examine our proposed moderated-mediation model with data from employees working in various German industries in two studies: a field study (Study 1) with four measurement points (time points 1–3 were separated by 1-month intervals and Time 4 followed 14 months after Time 2) and an experimental scenario study (Study 2). Results show (a) followers' competitiveness to weaken the effect of leaders' expressed humility on followers' affective trust in the leader as well as (b) indirect effects on followers' intended and actual, voluntary turnover. Notably, a consistent interaction pattern emerged across the two studies demonstrating that low (but not high) leader humility has divergent effects on followers as a function of followers' levels of competitiveness. From these results, we develop novel insights into the role of personality variables in social exchange processes and propose a minor extension of social exchange theory.