How and When Leader Anxiety Expression Elicits Subordinate Emotional and Behavioral Reactions

Extant research has focused on the leader dominant emotion (i.e., anger, pride) and demonstrated their functions. However, little is known about how leader emotions that signal weakness and limitation (i.e., anxiety) impacts subordinates’ consequences. Drawing on the emotional as social information (EASI) theory and the framework about interpersonal anxiety, this research builds a theoretical model that depicts both the dark side and bright side of leader anxiety expression from subordinates’ perspective. This study proposes that, when the subordinate has the cooperative goal with the supervisor, leader anxiety expression elicits subordinate’s empathic concern, which, in turn, increases organizational citizenship behavior towards leader (i.e., comfort-seeking pathway); besides, it arouses subordinate’s attentiveness, then leading to improved job performance (i.e., alerting pathway); finally, it triggers subordinate’s similar anxiety, resulting in lower job performance (i.e., emotional contagion pathway). Results of the experience sampling study of 2333 responses from 281 subordinate- supervisor dyads provide support largely for hypothesized relationships. Theoretical and practical implications derived from this work are discussed.