Leadership & Organization Development Journal

How does humble leadership promote follower creativity? The roles of

psychological capital and growth need strength
Yanfei Wang, Jieqiong Liu, Yu Zhu,
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PsyCap and
How does humble leadership growth need
promote follower creativity? The strength

roles of psychological capital and

growth need strength
Yanfei Wang and Jieqiong Liu Received 28 March 2017
Revised 30 November 2017
School of Business Administration, South China University of Technology, Accepted 12 April 2018
Guangzhou, China, and
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Yu Zhu
School of Management, Jinan University, Guangzhou, China

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a moderated mediation model to examine the roles that
psychological capital (PsyCap) and growth need strength may play in the relationship between humble leader
behaviors and follower creativity.
Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected from a three-wave survey study with a sample of
165 matched leader-follower questionnaires in China. Multiple regression analyses, moderated regression
analysis and bootstrapping analysis were used to test the hypotheses.
Findings – The results show that humble leader behaviors positively influence follower creativity, PsyCap
mediates this influence and growth need strength not only moderates the relationship between humble leader
behaviors and PsyCap, but also amplifies the indirect relationship between humble leader behaviors and
follower creativity via PsyCap.
Research limitations/implications – Common method bias may still exit, although the measures of
research variables were gathered from different sources and with time separation. Additionally, this study is
conducted in a single cultural context, which may raise the question about the generalizability of our findings
to other cultural contexts.
Originality/value – The primary contribution is building and examining a conceptual model that focuses on
the potential effect of humble leader behaviors on follower creativity. Additionally, by confirming the mediating
role of PsyCap, the research further uncovers why followers under humble leader behaviors are more likely to
engage in creativity, and the moderating role of growth need strength found in this study also offers additional
insight into that followers may differ in the degree to which they are receptive to leader effect.
Keywords Psychological capital, Follower creativity, Growth need strength, Humble leader behaviours
Paper type Research paper

Introduction
The turbulent environment and fast-paced technological advances have rendered individual
creativity crucial to organizational success and sustainability (Binyamin and Carmeli, 2010).
Creativity refers to the development of practical and new solutions to workplace challenges
(Amabile, 1988). Driven by the assumption that individual creativity is beneficial for
organizations, scholars have devoted considerable attention to identifying its antecedents.
Leadership has been identified as a key situational factor that may substantially influence
follower creativity (Gilmore et al., 2013). Transformational leader behaviors have been
studied extensively over the years (Carmeli and Paulus, 2015). Most recently, researchers
have begun to explore broader theories of leadership, such as empowering, servant, shared,
and authentic leader behaviors. Noticeably missing from research attention has been
Leadership & Organization
This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (71772069, Development Journal
71602075) and the General Youth Foundation Program of the Ministry of Education of Humanities and © Emerald Publishing Limited
0143-7739
Social Science (15YJC630197, 17YJA630101). DOI 10.1108/LODJ-03-2017-0069
 LODJ humble leader behaviors. Owing to the environmental turbulence and unpredictability,
it becomes more difficult for any leaders to “figure it all out at the top,” (Senge, 1990, p. 7).
Scholars argue that leaders should move beyond “great man” or the hero myth perspectives
on leadership (Murrell, 1997), and display their humanness by being transparent about their
limitations in experience and knowledge (Weick, 2001). Although leadership researchers
have increasingly focused on the importance of humility in the context of leadership in the
past decade (Owens and Hekman, 2012), little research is conducted to examine the effect of
humble leader behaviors on important organizational outcomes, such as follower creativity
(Ou et al., 2014; Owens et al., 2013). Addressing this research gap, the first purpose of our
research is to examine the role of humble leader behaviors in promoting follower creativity.
We argue that the research may have an important theoretical implication for leadership
and creativity literature, because humility, as a bottom-up approach, may offer a new lens
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through which to view and understand the leadership process (Morris et al., 2005).
Additionally, in order to attain a comprehensive picture of humble leader behaviors’ effect,
the present study also seeks to uncover the underlying mediating mechanism and boundary
conditions associated with such an effect.
Recent research has found leadership to be crucial for follower creativity; however, it
remains unclear how leader behaviors facilitate follower creativity (Carmeli et al., 2013).
To fill this gap, the second purpose of our research is to identify the underlying mediating
mechanism through which humble leader behaviors influence follower creativity. Unlike
regular work performance, creativity carries various uncertainties and risks, because
employees may suffer negative consequences if new ideas do not deliver the desired
outcome. Therefore, employees do not engage in creative activities unless employees are
motivated (Zhou et al., 2012). According to Amabile’s (1988) suggestion, psychological
capital (PsyCap) may have such motivational potentials, because PsyCap, representing
positive psychological capacities, enables followers to take risks, think nontraditionally and
persistent when facing obstacles and challenges (Bandura, 1997; Sweetman et al., 2011).
Based on this rationale, we expect that humble leader behaviors positively influence
follower creativity, at least in part because humble leader behaviors improve follower
PsyCap. That is, PsyCap may mediate the relationship between humble leader behaviors
and follower creativity.
However, an intriguing question remains regarding whether humble leader behaviors
equally influence their followers. Leadership is a social or interactive process determined by
both leaders and followers (Zhu et al., 2009). Therefore, although generally we expect
humble leader behaviors to positively influence follower PsyCap, it should be noted that
followers may differ in the degree to which they value opportunities for personal growth
and development at work (i.e. growth need strength, Oldham and Hackman, 2010).
Therefore, we expect followers with high growth need strength to be drawn to and respond
more positively to humble leader who is engaging in a set of behaviors that facilitate
follower development. That is, growth need strength may moderate the relationship
between humble leader behaviors and PsyCap.
Overall, our research aims to develop a conceptual model that explicates how and when
humble leader behaviors may be most successful in facilitating follower creativity. To this
end, we incorporate PsyCap (mediator) and growth need strength (moderator) into our
model, and propose several specific assumptions, as described in the following sections.

Theory and hypotheses

Humble leader behaviors and follower creativity
Humility is defined as an interpersonal characteristic that emerges in social contexts that
connotes a willingness to view oneself accurately, an appreciation of others’ strengths and
contributions, and teachability (Owens et al., 2013). In recent years, the construct of humility
 has received increasing attention in organizational scholarship (Owens et al., 2013). PsyCap and
Inductive and empirical research on leader humility show that leader humility legitimizes growth need
follower growth and development (Owens and Hekman, 2012); fosters follower learning strength
orientation, job satisfaction, work engagement, and retention (Owens et al., 2013); improves
loyalty and commitment (Basford et al., 2014); facilitates top management team integration
and empowering climate (Ou et al., 2014) and tempers the negative effects of leader
narcissism leading to positive follower outcomes (Owens et al., 2015). Additionally, the
findings from these lab and field studies by Owens and Hekman (2016) show that humble
leader behaviors spread via social contagion to followers, producing an emergent state that
ultimately affects team performance. Leader moral humility is found to influence follower
moral self-efficacy and moral behavior beyond ethical leadership and leader general
humility (Owens et al., 2016). Rego, Owens, Leal, Melo, Cunha, and Gonçalves et al. (2017)
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demonstrate the moderated mediated connection between leader humility, collective

humility, and team PsyCap. Rego, Owens, Kai, Bluhm, Cunha, Silard, Gonçalves, Martins,
Simpson, and Liu (2017) report that leader humility enhances team performance serially
through increased team PsyCap and team task allocation effectiveness. Although recent
studies have begun to demonstrate the importance of leader humility within organizational
contexts, this topic is still a nascent stage and more research is needed to explore the
underlying mechanisms and boundary conditions associated with humble leader behaviors’
effects on important organizational behaviors (Ou et al., 2014; Owens et al., 2013;
Rego, Owens, Kai, Bluhm, Cunha, Silard, Gonçalves, Martins, Simpson, and Liu, 2017). This
study will examine the relationship between humble leader behaviors and follower
creativity. We focus on the relationship, because both leader humility and follower
creativity are important for organizations, especially in the turbulent environment
(Binyamin and Carmeli, 2010; Owens and Hekman, 2012), and identifying factors that
motivate follower creativity has become a significant research topic in the management field
(Mumford, 2011).
In this study, we argue that by engaging in a set of behaviors, humble leader positively
influences follower creativity. These leadership behaviors include acknowledging personal
limits, faults and mistakes, modeling teachability and appreciating follower’s strengths, and
contributions (Owens and Hekman, 2012). As noted earlier, although humble leaders highly
focus on personal development, they are also interested in follower growth (Owens and
Hekman, 2012). Therefore, in addition to emphasizing the importance of continual learning
and supporting programs for follower growth, these leaders also exemplify how to develop
by acknowledging their limits and mistakes (Owens and Hekman, 2012). Followers under
these leaders may be motivated to participate in individual developmental activities, such as
challenging the status quo and improving current circumstances (Xu, 2007), both of which
are comprised of new and creative practices (Bandura, 1997). However, developing creative
ideas or solutions to meet challenges and improve circumstances involves risks because not
all new ideas turn out to be useful. Frustration is thus unavoidable in the process.
We believe that followers under humble leaders are better able to handle the frustration and
negative emotions associated with failure when trying out new ideas, because these leaders
help create a climate that making mistakes is a normal and even a beneficial part of learning
(Owens and Hekman, 2012). In addition, followers may also face considerable challenges in
the process, because creativity takes place when issues are novel and complex, often ill-
defined, and poorly structured (Carmeli et al., 2013). To help followers to overcome these
challenges, humble leaders would model teachability by initiating role reversals with
followers and modeling their tasks (Owens and Hekman, 2012). These actions may
encourage followers to reframe these challenges and see them as problems to be solved
through extra effort, which may make them focus more intently and energetically on
creative ideas or solutions. Humble leaders are also likely to promote follower creativity
 LODJ through appreciating follower’s strengths and contributions. These leaders frequently
recognize, appreciate, and praise followers’ strengths and compliment their work and efforts
(Owens and Hekman, 2012), which have been found to be conductive to idea generation and
application (Cheung and Wong, 2011; De Jong and Den Hartog, 2007). Therefore,
we hypothesize:
H1. Humble leader behaviors are positively related to follower creativity.

Mediating role of PsyCap

PsyCap is defined as one’s positive psychological state of development, including:
self-efficacy, optimism, hope, and resilience (Luthans et al., 2007). PsyCap has been found to
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be malleable, open to development, and can be improved by leader behaviors. In this study,
we explore the positive role of humble leader behaviors in developing follower PsyCap.
As mentioned earlier, humble leaders highlight the mutual developmental relationship with
followers. Though these leaders are keen to their personal growth, they also hope that their
modeling would spread contagiously to followers (Owens and Hekman, 2012) and stimulate
them to jointly engage in development activities filled with challenges. Consequently, these
followers are likely to have a more adaptive attitude toward challenges, namely, showing high
resilience, because they may be emotionally accustomed to handle these challenges (Huang
and Luthans, 2015). In addition, by showing their own limits, mistakes and inexperience, they
encourage followers to disclose themselves (Collins and Miller 1994), “vocalize their
uncertainties and doubts and feel their way forward by experimenting through trial and error”
(Owens and Hekman, 2012, p. 19). Moreover, they also remind followers that errors and failure
are the prices for learning, and help them learn from the lessons and modify the wrong routes
(Vera and Rodriguez-Lopez, 2004). These leader behaviors above are likely to help enhance
followers’ goal-directed determination, expand their repertoire of possible solutions to given
tasks and problems (hope). When humble leaders spotlight and appreciate follower’s strengths
and contributions, even treat themselves as students of their followers’ strengths (Owens and
Hekman, 2012), they may increase followers’ senses of self-efficacy and self-worth, thereby
leading to their positive appraisal of one’s current and future circumstances and showing an
optimistic view about their future (Gooty et al., 2009). Taken together, we argue that humble
leader behaviors exert a positive impact on follower PsyCap. In support for our argument,
leader humility is found to be related to team PsyCap (Rego, Owens, Leal, Melo, Cunha, and
Gonçalves et al., 2017; Rego, Owens, Kai, Bluhm, Cunha, Silard, Gonçalves, Martins, Simpson,
and Liu, 2017).
High-PsyCap employees proactively and consistently improve their PsyCap to
perform better in the future (Peterson et al., 2011). PsyCap’s development-focused nature
facilitates high-PsyCap followers to engage in complex and challenging activities
(e.g. creativity) because experience accumulated by overcoming obstacles and obtaining
success helps them increase their PsyCap (Avey 2014). Previous research has also
suggested that PsyCap is positively related to creativity (e.g. Hsu and Chen, 2015).
A primary explanatory mechanism for the effect of PsyCap on follower creativity is that
those with high hope tend to view challenges as opportunities for incremental
improvement or even radical change (Huang and Luthans, 2015). Highly efficacious
followers hold a strong belief in their ability to be successful in spite of difficulties, they
thus are more likely to undertake those risky and challenging activities (e.g. creativity)
and to make more effort in their creative endeavors (Bandura, 1997) by mobilizing their
motivation, cognitive resources and courses of action, and spending more time on creative
cognitive processes in identifying problem and generating new solutions (Michael et al.,
2011). Moreover, hopeful individuals trend to observe problems from different angles, and
to focus on creative approaches for solving problems (Zhou and George, 2003). They are
 likely to generate creative ideas, because they show strong goal-directed determination PsyCap and
and the ability to derive alternative pathways to attain their goals (Luthans et al., 2008). growth need
In the face of setbacks and failure that may arise from the creative process, optimistic strength
individuals tend to attribute these to temporary, not to personal inadequacy (Malik, 2013),
and resilience enables them to bounce back and sustain high levels of effort in the process,
which increases the possibility of attaining creative outcomes. Overall, followers with high
PsyCap are more likely to engage in creative activities, put in more effort, and generate
more creative ideas.
In sum, the preceding discussion suggests that humble leader behaviors improve
PsyCap, which, in turn, contributes to follower creativity. We therefore hypothesize:
H2. PsyCap mediates the relationship between humble leader behaviors and follower
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creativity.

Moderating role of growth need strength

As noted earlier, growth need strength refers to the degree to which an individual values
opportunities for personal growth and development at work (Oldham and Hackman,
2010). Followers with high growth need strength focus on personal development and
learning, thus gain more pleasure from challenging work (Bottger and Chew, 1986), and
place more emphasis on feedback from their leader (Huang and Iun, 2006). They do not
passively wait for, but actively look for opportunities to meet their needs for development
and growth (Shalley et al., 2009). Similar to these followers, humble leaders also have a
strong motive for personal growth (Owens and Hekman, 2012). According to the
similarity-attraction theory, humble leaders and their followers with growth need strength
are more likely to be attracted to each other, and thus show more liking and more
frequently social interactions (Byrne, 1971). Moreover, the similarity can help them better
communicate, mutually understand what behaviors may be expected (Hambrick, 1994).
Therefore, we argue that followers with high growth need strength may benefit more from
humble leader behaviors in their interactions, thus experience higher levels of PsyCap
than their counterparts. More specifically, due to more liking followers with high growth
need strength and better understanding their expectation, humble leaders are likely to
give them more important organizational roles, provide them with more growth
opportunities, such as greater challenging work (Kacmar et al., 2009), and more
constructive feedback and support when needed, while these followers with high growth
need strength are more likely to develop strong internal motivation when working on
challenging jobs ( Jha, 2010), and thus put in more effort in conquering those challenges,
strive to do better in their jobs, and stretch themselves. Additionally, due to humble
leader’s attractiveness and credibility as role models, followers with high growth need
strength are more willing to be guided (Walumbwa et al., 2010), thus more likely to be
positively influenced by the leader. Consistent with our argument, researchers have found
that participative and transformational leadership are more effective in facilitating
follower performance when followers have high rather than low growth need strength
(i.e. Wofford et al., 2001). Therefore, we hypothesize:
H3. Growth need strength moderates the relationship between humble leader behaviors
and follower PsyCap, such that the relationship is stronger among followers with
high rather than low growth need strength.
The prior arguments represent an integrated framework in which PsyCap mediates the
relation between humble leader behaviors and follower creativity and the effect of humble
leader behaviors on PsyCap depends on growth need strength. Based on this, we further
hypothesize that growth need strength also moderates the strength of the mediated
 LODJ relationship between humble leader behaviors and follower creativity via PsyCap, that is,
a moderated mediating effect. Therefore, we hypothesize:
H4. Growth need strength moderates the mediating effect of PsyCap on the relationship
between humble leader behaviors and follower creativity, such that the mediating
role of PsyCap will be stronger for followers with high rather than low growth need
strength (Figure 1).

Method
Sample and procedures
Data were collected from manufacturing organizations in South China. The directors of
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the organizations helped us prepare a list of randomly selected technicians (543) whose
work required substantial creativity and their immediate leaders (187) as our targeted
research sample. All participants were informed that participation was voluntary,
and their responses would be only used for our research and kept confidential strictly. It is
a three-phrase study with a three-month interval. The survey questionnaires were coded
before being distributed so that followers could be matched with their direct leaders.
Followers were asked to report humble leadership and growth need strength in the first
stage and PsyCap in the second stage. On separate questionnaires, the matched leaders
rated their followers’ creativity in the third stage. Due to originally being developed in
English, the questionnaires were translated from English into Chinese and then
back-translated into English to ensure equivalency of meaning (Brislin, 1980). In the first
stage, we received 457 complete questionnaires from employees (84.2 percent response
rate). Three months later, only 446 followers participated in the second stage, because
11 followers left the organizations. We received 395 complete questionnaires from
446 followers (88.6 percent response rate). Six months later, the third survey was
distributed to 168 leaders of 395 followers who had completed both the first and second
surveys. Finally, we received 165 useful paired questionnaires for further analysis,
including 165 leaders and 386 followers, after discarding three sets of leader and related
follower surveys. Of the 165 leaders, 61.6 percent were male, 92.5 percent were between
25 and 50 years old, 76.7 percent were with at least five tenures, and 70.1 percent had a
bachelor degree or above. Of the followers, 46.2 percent were male, 83.3 percent were
younger than 35 years old, 79 percent were with at least two tenures, and 64.2 percent had
a bachelor degree or above.

Measures
All focus variables were rated by using five-point Likert-type scale, namely from 1, disagree
strongly to 5, agree strongly. We reported Cronbach’s α, composite reliability and the
average variance extracted (AVE) to assess the reliability and convergent validity of
the measurements.

Growth Need
Strength

Humble Leader Psychological Follower

Behaviors Capital Creativity
Figure 1.
The conceptual model
 Humble leader behaviors PsyCap and
Humble leader behaviors were measured using Owens et al.’s (2013) nine-item scale. growth need
Example items are “this leader is open to the ideas of others,” and “this leader often strength
compliments others on their strengths.” The measure had coefficient α’s of 0.80, composite
reliability was 0.84, and AVE was 0.56. The results showed that the measurement had
adequate reliability and convergent validity.

PsyCap
PsyCap was measured using a 24-item scale developed by Luthans et al. (2007), including four
dimensions: self-efficacy, hope, optimism, and resilience. Example items are “I feel confident
setting goals in my work area” (self-efficacy), “There are lots of ways around any problem”
(hope), “When things are uncertain for me at work, I usually expect the best” (optimism) and
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“When I have a setback at work, I have trouble recovering from it, moving on” (resilience).
The measure had coefficient α’s of 0.84, composite reliability was 0.89, and AVE was 0.63. The
results showed that the reliability and convergent validity of the measurement were good.

Growth need strength

Growth need strength was measured using a six-item scale developed by Hackman and
Oldham’s (1980). A sample item is “I enjoy stimulating and challenging work.” The measure
had coefficient α’s of 0.82, composite reliability was 0.85, and AVE was 0.59. The results
showed that the measurement had aadequate reliability and convergent validity.

Creativity
Creativity was measured using nine adjusted items from the scale of Tierney et al. (1999).
A sample item is “This employee tries out new ideas and approached to problems.”
The measure had coefficient α’s of 0.86, composite reliability was 0.92, and AVE was 0.67.
The results showed that the reliability and convergent validity of the measurement were good.
In addition, we controlled for follower age, gender, organizational tenure, and education
in all of our analyses, because previous research has shown that these variables are likely to
be related to creativity (e.g. Zhang and Bartol, 2010).

Results
Test of the measurement model
Before testing the proposed hypotheses, we conduct confirmatory factor analyses with AMOS
to examine the discriminant validity of four latent variables: humble leader behaviors,
PsyCap, growth need strength, and creativity. The results show that four-factor model
( χ2(956) ¼ 1,442.356, RMSEA ¼ 0.036, CFI ¼ 0.913, TLI ¼ 0.902) fits the data better than the
three-factor model (i.e. combining humble leader behaviors and growth need strength into one
factor, χ2(965) ¼ 1,748.193, RMSEA ¼ 0.046, CFI ¼ 0.861, TLI ¼ 0.844), the two-factor model
(i.e. combining humble leader behaviors, PsyCap and growth need strength into one factor,
χ2(970) ¼ 1,907.672, RMSEA ¼ 0.05, CFI ¼ 0.833, TLI ¼ 0.814) and the one-factor model
( χ2(979) ¼ 2,171.291, RMSEA ¼ 0.056, CFI ¼ 0.788, TLI ¼ 0.766), which supports the
variables’ discriminant validity. Additionally, the discriminant validity is also evaluated by
comparing the square root of AVE of each construct with the correlation between the
construct and all other constructs (Fornell and Larcker, 1981). According to Fornell and
Larcker (1981), if the correlation of the specific construct with any of the other constructs is
lower than the square root of the AVE of each construct, discriminant validity is confirmed.
Therefore, we further calculate AVE of each construct and the AVE score ranges from 0.56 to
0.67. The square root of the AVE scores for each construct is greater than the correlations
among the constructs, thus confirming the discriminant validity again.
 LODJ Descriptive statistics
Table I shows the variables’ means and standard deviations and correlations. All variables
are significantly correlated with each other. Humble leader behaviors is positively correlated
with PsyCap (r ¼ 0.13, p o0.01), and creativity (r ¼ 0.17, p o0.01). Additionally, PsyCap is
positively correlated with creativity (r ¼ 0.20, p o0.01).

Main and mediation effects

We conduct multiple regression analyses to examine the direct and indirect effects (i.e. H1
and H2). H1 proposes that humble leader behaviors are positively related to creativity.
As shown in Table II, the regression coefficient is significant ( β ¼ 0.16, p o0.01, Model 5),
showing support for H1. In addition, H2 states PsyCap mediates the relationship between
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humble leader behaviors and creativity. Model 7 in Table II indicates the relations of humble
leader behaviors and PsyCap to creativity are significant (humble leader behaviors,
β ¼ 0.14, p o0.01; PsyCap, β ¼ 0.16, p o0.001). Thus, H2 is supported.

Moderation effects
Moderated regression analyses are conducted to test the moderation effects (i.e. H3). H3 states
that growth need strength moderates the relation between humble leader behaviors and
PsyCap. The results of Model 3 in Table II show that the two-way interaction term (i.e. humble
leader behaviors × growth need strength) is significant ( β ¼ 0.12, po0.05). Additionally,

Variables M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

1 Gender 1.54 0.50 –

2 Age 2.37 1.20 −0.01 –
3 Tenure 2.87 1.46 0.02 0.83** –
4 Education 2.63 0.78 −0.07 0.11** −0.16**
5 Humble leader behaviors 4.30 0.41 −0.04 −0.08 −0.01 −0.03
Table I.
Means, standard 6 Psychological Capital 3.86 0.37 −0.09 −0.26** 0.01 0.12* 0.13**
deviations, and 7 Growth Need Strength 3.97 0.63 −0.18** 0.07 −0.20** 0.20** 0.11* 0.42**
correlations for 8 Creativity 3.58 0.65 −0.15** 0.17** −0.13* 0.14** 0.17** 0.20** 0.21**
all variables Notes: *po 0.05; **p o0.01

Psychological capital Creativity

Variables Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model5 Model 6 Model 7

Gender −0.09 −0.09 −0.02 −0.08 −0.07 −0.06 −0.06

Age −0.22* −0.19* −0.07 −0.16 −0.12 −0.12 −0.09
Tenure 0.22* 0.19* 0.17* 0.02 −0.01 −0.02 −0.04
Education 0.12* 0.12* 0.05 0.12* 0.12* 0.10 0.10*
Humble leader behaviors 0.13* 0.08 0.16** 0.14**
Psychological capital 0.18*** 0.16***
Growth need strength 0.40***
Humble leader behaviors × Growth
need strength 0.12*
R2 0.04 0.05 0.22 0.04 0.07 0.08 0.09
Adjusted R2 0.03 0.04 0.20 0.03 0.06 0.06 0.08
Table II. △R2 0.04 0.02 0.20 0.04 0.03 0.08 0.03
Multiple regression F 3.40** 4.06*** 14.66*** 4.24** 5.45** 6.08*** 6.40***
analysis results Notes: *po 0.05; **p o0.01; ***p o0.001
 to facilitate interpretation of the moderation results, we plot simple slopes for the relationship PsyCap and
between humble leader behaviors and PsyCap at high (mean + SD) and low (mean – SD) level of growth need
growth need strength. Figure 2 shows that humble leader behaviors have stronger impact on strength
PsyCap when followers have higher ( β ¼ 0.25, t ¼ 3.20, po0.001), as opposed to lower levels
of growth need strength ( β ¼ −0.08, t ¼ −1.01, ns). Therefore, H3 is also supported.

Moderated mediation effects

We used the PROCESS macro developed by Hayes (2013) to test the moderated mediation
effect (H4). In our research, 95 % bias-corrected confidence intervals are computed based on
5,000 bootstrapped samples. H4 predicts that growth need strength moderates the mediating
effect of PsyCap on the relationship between humble leader behaviors and follower creativity.
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As shown in Table III, PsyCap has a significant mediating effect on the relation of humble
leader behaviors to follower creativity for followers with high growth need strength ( β ¼ 0.06,
SE ¼ 0.03, 95% CI [0.01, 0.13]), but not for followers with low growth need strength
( β ¼ −0.01, SE ¼ 0.02, 95% CI [−0.06, 0.02]). Therefore, H4 is supported.

Discussion
The study explores when and why humble leader behaviors have a positive effect
on follower creativity. Our findings show that humble leader behaviors positively influence
follower creativity, PsyCap mediates this influence, and growth need strength moderates
both the direct effects of humble leader behaviors on PsyCap and the indirect effect of
humble leader behaviors on creativity via PsyCap.

0.8

0.6

0.4
Psychological capital

0.2 (= 0.25, t=3.20, p<0.001)

High growth need strength
0 Figure 2.
The moderating effect
(= –0.08, t= –1.01, ns) of growth need
–0.2 Low growth need strength strength on the
relationship between
–0.4
humble leader
behaviors and
–0.6 psychological capital
Low Humble leader behaviors High Humble leader behaviors

Conditional indirect effects of humble leader behaviors on creativity at values of the moderator
Growth need strength Boot indirect effect Boot SE Boot LLCI Boot ULCI
M − 1SD −0.01 0.02 −0.06 0.02
M 0.02 0.02 0.00 0.07
M + 1SD 0.06 0.03 0.01 0.13
Index of moderated mediation
Index Boot SE Boot LLCI Boot ULCI
Psychological capital 0.05 0.03 0.01 0.13 Table III.
Notes: Bootstrap sample size ¼ 5,000. LL, lower limit; CI, confidence interval; UL, upper limit. Results of moderated
Unstandardized regression coefficients are reported mediation analysis
 LODJ Theoretical implications
The research contributes to the leadership and creativity literature in three principal
aspects: by empirically exploring the relationship between humble leader behaviors and
follower creativity, our research confirms speculative statements about the importance of
leader humility within organizational contexts. by identifying the mediating role of PsyCap,
the research extends our understanding of how humble leader behaviors is associated with
follower creativity; and by examining the moderating role of growth need strength,
our research offers a more comprehensive view of what conditions is beneficial for effective
humble leader, that is, balancing the emphasis of both leader and followers.
More specifically, the first contribution is building and examining a conceptual model
that focuses on the potential effect of humble leadership on follower creativity. As noted
earlier, identifying factors that motivate follower creativity has become a significant
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research topic in the management field (Mumford, 2011). Although leadership has been
identified as a key situational factor that may substantially influence follower creative
(Gilmore et al., 2013), little research attention has been devoted to the effect of humble leader
behaviors on follower creativity. The positive effect of humble leader behaviors on follower
creativity found in our empirical research confirms that humble leader behaviors
are important for contemporary organizations where follower creativity plays increasingly
important role in organizational performance and success.
Second, research indicates that leadership is established as a particularly important
factor that facilitates follower creativity, but much less is known about possible mechanisms
through which leaders influence follower creativity (Carmeli et al., 2013). By examining and
confirming PsyCap as a mediator linking humble leader behaviors to follower creativity, our
research provides an important theoretical perspective for explaining why followers under
humble leader behaviors are more likely to engage in creative activities and develop more
new solutions. The findings are congruent with the notion of Shalley et al. (2004) that
intrinsic motivation (PsyCap here) is the psychological key to creativity, and leadership
style plays a key role in enhancing intrinsic motivation.
Third, it has long been recognized that PsyCap has important effect on positive
organizational outcomes. However, little research has considered the antecedents of PsyCap
in theoretical models (Avey, 2014). Our research is unique in explicating the connection
of humble leader behaviors with PsyCap. Specifically, as expected, our study indicates that
humble leader behaviors are positively related to PsyCap. We thus also introduce important
boundary conditions, growth need strength. By showing that humble leader behaviors have
a stronger direct effect on PsyCap for followers with high growth need strength, our
findings support the notion that followers may differ in the degree to which they are
receptive to leaders effect (Wang et al., 2014).

Practical implications
As noted earlier, the turbulent and unpredictable environments lead contemporary
organizations to create a high need for follower creativity. Thus, from a practical point of
view, our findings are important because they provide insight into how and when humble
leader behaviors promote follower creativity. Humble leader behaviors are found to be
related to follower creativity in our research. Thus, organizations who wish to facilitate
follower creativity should establish effective procedures for selecting leaders with
humility or provide leadership training and development programs. Additionally, our
results reveal that developing follower PsyCap is also a helpful strategy for motivating
follower creativity. Therefore, organizations may consider PsyCap as a selective criterion
of new employees or content for training and development programs, because PsyCap has
been demonstrated to be malleable, open to development through short training
interventions (Luthans et al., 2010).
 The moderating role of growth need strength shows that humble leader behaviors are not PsyCap and
beneficial for all followers and followers are not simply passive recipients of humble leader growth need
behaviors. The findings suggest that successful leaders should individualize their style strength
consistent with each follower’s preferences, needs and motivations, but not treat all followers the
same (Zhao et al., 2014). For followers with high growth need strength, humble leader should
create more growth opportunities for them by providing greater job latitude, challenging
assignments, because they value personal development, and thus will gain more pleasure from
the challenging work (Bottger and Chew, 1986). However, followers with low growth need
strength may response apathetically or even negatively to these opportunities (Graen et al., 1986).
Thus, humble leader should provide these followers with coaching and developmental training
that increase their interest in learning new things and utilizing their competencies, achieving
success and excellence, or promoting valued change in the organization (Zargar et al., 2014).
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Limitations and future directions. In the study, several limitations should be noted. First,
questionnaire-based measures for all variables may raise concerns about common method
variance (CMV ). According to Podsakoff et al. (2003), it can be reduced by our research
design that the measures of research variables were gathered from different sources and
with time separation. In addition, the results of Harman’s single factor test show that the
model fits are poor and unacceptable. Therefore, we believe that it is not a serious problem,
even if CMV is present in this study.
Second, our research is limited to an individual-level analysis because we are interested
in how and when humble leader behaviors perceived by followers influence their
creativity. However, successful organizational innovation depends not only on individual
creativity, but also on team creativity (Liao et al., 2010). Although team creativity requires
members to first engage in individual-level creativity (Drazin and Kazanjian, 1999), it is
not the average of individual creativity, but the integration of individual creative
potentials (Gong et al., 2013). Therefore, to enrich theory and knowledge of leadership and
team creativity, future research should examine whether and how humble leader
behaviors influences team creativity.
Third, this study is conducted in a single cultural context, which may raise the question
about the generalizability of our findings to other cultural contexts. As Owens and Hekman
(2012) argue, humility is foundational to other positive virtues, because it can keep them
within the Confucian zhong yong (Confucius, 2006), and prevent them from becoming extreme.
The literature has indicated that East Asians, especially Chinese, trend to behave in ways
compatible with the “ZhongYong-oriented action model” (Yao et al., 2010). Thus, humble leader
behaviors are more likely to emerge in Chinese cultural context, and followers in such context
are supposed to be more reactive to such leadership style. Therefore, researchers are
suggested to extend this study to other cultural contexts to cross-validate our findings.

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Further reading
Senge, P.M. (1997), “The fifth discipline”, Measuring Business Excellence, Vol. 1 No. 3, pp. 46-51.
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and Shalley, C.E. (Eds), Handbook of Organizational Creativity, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates,
New York, NY, pp. 3-31.

Corresponding author
Yanfei Wang can be contacted at: brave_wang@hotmail.com

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