Leadership & Organization Development Journal

Can leader “humility” spark employee “proactivity”? The mediating role of

psychological empowerment
Yanhong Chen, Baowei Liu, Li Zhang, Shanshan Qian,
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“proactivity”? The mediating role of psychological empowerment", Leadership & Organization

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Can leader “humility” spark Psychological

empowerment
employee “proactivity”? The
mediating role of psychological
empowerment
Yanhong Chen Received 16 October 2017
Revised 17 January 2018
Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China and Accepted 3 March 2018
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Mudanjiang Normal University, Mudanjiang, China

Baowei Liu and Li Zhang
Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China, and
Shanshan Qian
Nankai University, Tianjin, China

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of humble leadership on employee proactive
behavior. The authors propose that such effect is mediated by psychological empowerment, and identification
with leader moderates the intervening role of psychological empowerment in the humble leadership-employee
proactive behavior relationship.
Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected from 286 subordinate-supervisor dyads from 4
industries in Northern China. Hierarchical linear modeling analyses were applied to test the research model.
Findings – Humble leadership has a significantly positive effect on employee proactive behavior, and this effect
is mediated by psychological empowerment. Furthermore, the identification with leader moderates the mediated
relationships between humble leadership and employee proactive behavior via psychological empowerment.
Research limitations/implications – One limitation is that the data were collected cross-sectionally.
Further research could conduct longitudinal research to retest the hypotheses. The present research has a
number of implications. First, the authors extend humble leadership research. Second, the authors also
contribute to humble leadership literature by addressing the lack of attention paid to the explanatory
mechanism linking humble leader behavior to follower outcomes. Third, the authors provide a new insight
into the boundary condition of humble leadership.
Practical implications – Managers should demonstrate more humble behaviors in their leading process to
influence employees’ psychological empowerment and proactive behavior. In addition, managers should provide
employees with sincere care in relation to work and life issues to produce employees’ identification with leader.
Social implications – Humility is a modifiable trait that individuals can increase dramatically by practice.
Humble behavior is more accessible and easier to cultivate, contrary to the stable trait of humility. Besides,
our results confirmed the individuals with the virtue of humility are most likely to succeed. Thus, humble
behaviors should be highly advocated and encouraged in our society.
Originality/value – This research extends humble leadership research by constructing and verifying the
theoretical model of humble leader behavior and employee proactive behavior and by demonstrating the
value of humble leader behavior in a non-Western context, and identifies the different roles of psychological
empowerment and identification with leader on employee proactive behavior.
Keywords Psychological empowerment, Employee proactive behaviour, Humble leadership,
Identification with leader
Paper type Research paper

Introduction
In a global marketplace where problems are increasingly complex and unpredictable, it
becomes more difficult for leaders at the top to figure everything out (Owens and Hekman,
2012). The traditional model, which relies solely on the wisdom of leaders, is already
Leadership & Organization
Development Journal
This project was funded and supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China © Emerald Publishing Limited
0143-7739
(71472054, 71772052). DOI 10.1108/LODJ-10-2017-0307
 LODJ seriously inadequate in the dynamic and uncertain organizational environment. Given this,
today’s organizations increasingly rely on employees taking initiatives in solving problems,
in searching for ways to change work situations, and in making innovations to improve the
organization’s effectiveness. Understanding how to engender employee proactive behavior
has important theoretical and practical significance and will become increasingly critical
(Crant, 2000; Parker and Collins, 2010). Research has shown that leaders are a potentially
important contextual factor in employee proactive behavior (Crant, 2000). Leaders’ support,
encouragement, and appreciation have been found to be associated with increased employee
proactive behavior (Belschak and Den Hartog, 2010; Pieterse et al., 2010).
The traditional top-down leadership model pays more attention to strict superior-subordinate
management and overemphasizes the leader’s authority and influence exerted over employee
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work attitudes and behaviors (Howell and Shamir, 2005), which, to a certain extent,
limits the important role of employees in the leadership process. Consequently, humble
leadership, which emphasizes leading from the bottom and the influence of followers in the
leadership process, has attracted growing attention from both scholars and practitioners
(Ou et al., 2014; Owens and Hekman, 2012; Owens et al., 2013; Owens et al., 2015). Researchers
have suggested that humility will become more critical for leaders who direct their organizations
in increasingly dynamic and uncertain environments (Morris et al., 2005; Owens et al., 2013).
Compared with other leadership styles, humble leadership moves beyond the “great man” and
hero myth views of leadership; humble leaders display their humanness by being open about the
limitations in their knowledge and skills, and focus more on how employees influence the process
of leadership (Murrell, 1997; Uhl-Bien, 2006; Weick, 2001).Such leaders tend to view themselves
more objectively, are more appreciative of others, and are more open to new information or ideas
(Owens and Hekman, 2012). These behavioral characteristics suggest that humble leaders place
an emphasis on the growth and development of both subordinates and themselves, allow
subordinates’ psychological freedom, and spotlight subordinates’ strengths and contributions.
We thus anticipate that humble leader behavior can spark employee proactive behavior at work.
In building a theoretical model linking humble leadership and employee proactive behavior,
we posit that psychological empowerment will mediate the relationship between humble
leadership and employee proactive behavior. Psychological empowerment is the reflection of the
empowering behavior of leaders on subordinates’ psychological concepts, such as the concept of
can-do motivation, because the latter includes as its dimensions perceived competence and
perceived impact at work (Chen et al., 2011). It also encompasses self-determination and meaning
at work, which relates to the idea of having an internalized reason to take initiatives (Parker and
Wu, 2014). We argue that humble leaders, with their emphasis on spotlighting subordinates’
strengths and contributions and on acknowledging their own limitations and mistakes, provide
employees with increased intrinsic psychological motivation to be proactive.
Multiple studies have called for the need to explore the boundary conditions of the
effectiveness of humble leader behavior (e.g. Owens and Hekman, 2012; Ou et al., 2014), so
we further investigate how identification with leader serves as a boundary condition for the
motivational effect of humble leader behavior. Identification with leader captures the extent
to which the leader is included in the follower’s relational self (Kark et al., 2003;
Van Knippenberg et al., 2004). As humble leaders move beyond the “great man” and hero
myth views of leadership and display their humanness by being open about their
limitations, they are always mistaken for weak leaders (Prime and Salib, 2014). Follower
identification with leader is more likely to influence the effectiveness of humble leadership.
Thus, we posit that identification with leader functions as a key boundary condition of the
effect of humble leader behavior on employee proactive behavior through psychological
empowerment. More specifically, identification with leader strengthens the positive effects
of humble leader behaviors on psychological empowerment, which leads to increased
employee proactive behavior.
 To sum up, the purpose of our study is threefold: to explore the relationship between humble Psychological
leadership and employee proactive behavior; to investigate the mediating role of psychological empowerment
empowerment in the relationship between humble leadership and employee proactive behavior;
and to examine how identification with leader influences the intervening role of psychological
empowerment in the humble leadership-employee proactive behavior relationship (Figure 1).

Theory and hypotheses

Humble leadership
With more and more scholars exploring the connotation of humility, humility in leadership is
gradually being recognized and highly praised in an increasingly dynamic and uncertain
market environment. The consensus on humble leadership is that humble leaders are
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generally willing to view themselves accurately, to accept that there is something greater than
themselves, and to concentrate on the growth and development (Morris et al., 2005; Owens and
Hekman, 2012). Although humility in academic research originated in the West, it is a core
tenet of Chinese Confucian culture. Considering that the concept and structure of leadership is
embedded in each culture and varies according to culture, this paper adopts the definition of
humble leadership developed by Chen et al. (2017) in a Chinese cultural context. The definition,
from a behavioral perspective, defines humble leadership as approachability, correct self-
awareness, an appreciation of others’ strengths and contributions, and openness to feedback.
Although humble leadership has been associated with several important outcomes, such
as CEOs’ empowering behavior (Ou et al., 2014), employee work engagement, job
performance and turnover (Owens et al., 2013), and team performance (Owens and Hekman,
2016), the empirical support is insufficient. It is necessary for more empirical studies to
deeply clarify the process and conditions how and when humble leadership promotes
desired outcomes (Ou et al., 2014), for example, employee proactive behavior at work.

Humble leadership and employee proactive behavior at work

Employee proactive behavior refers to a form of motivated and change-oriented behavior in
the workplace (Bateman and Crant, 1993). It includes behaviors such as anticipating and
solving problems and searching for ways to change work situations (Parker and Collins,
2010; Parker et al., 2006). Researchers have argued that understanding how to enhance
employee proactive behavior is critical for contemporary organizations in order for them to
retain their adaptability and flexibility (Griffin et al., 2007; Parker and Wu, 2014).
However, proactive behavior is often psychologically risky for employees. It emphasizes
self-initiation, which increases employees’ vulnerability to blame if proactive efforts are not
successful (Parker and Wu, 2014). Grant and Ashford (2008) showed that proactive behavior
is beyond the minimum organizational requirements for employees, occurring on
unexpected occasions and in surprising manners that exceed from the expectations of
organizations and supervisors. Leaders’ support, encouragement, and appreciation have

Identification
with leader

Psychological
empowerment

Humble
leadership
Employee Figure 1.
proactive behavior Research model
 LODJ been found to be associated with increased employee proactive behavior (Belschak and
Den Hartog, 2010; Frese et al., 1999; Pieterse et al., 2010). We illustrate here how humble
leadership enhances employee proactive behavior by supporting, encouraging, and
appreciating.
Humble leadership is conceptualized as four dimensions of leader behavior:
approachability, appreciation of others’ strengths and contributions, correct self-awareness,
and openness to feedback (Chen et al., 2017). Conceptually, these behaviors are highly relevant
to employee proactive behavior. For example, humble leaders’ acknowledgment of their faults
and limitations can eliminate subordinates’ psychological pressure in exposing their own
inexperience and mistakes (Weick, 2001). In addition, humble leaders’ approachability can
facilitate a relationship between subordinates and supervisors. The quality of the exchange
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relationship between leaders and employees can affect employee proactive behavior (Parker
and Wu, 2014). Furthermore, humble leaders appreciate followers’ strengths and
contributions, which can encourage followers to take additional responsibilities, think
ahead for their job tasks, and take initiatives to improve work performance (Crant, 2000; Grant
and Ashford, 2008). Based on the above discussion, we propose the following hypothesis:
H1. Humble leadership has a positive effect on employee proactive behavior.

The mediating role of psychological empowerment

Psychological empowerment has been defined as “increased intrinsic task motivation
manifested in a set of four cognitions reflecting an individual’s orientation to his or her work
role: meaning, competence, self-determination and impact” (Spreitzer, 1995, p. 1443).
Meaning refers to the weight that individuals place on a given task as having value or
importance (Fulford and Enz, 1995; May et al., 2004). Competence refers to the individual’s
feelings of self-efficacy, which is the sense that he/she has the skills necessary to perform the
task successfully (Bandura, 1986; Fulford and Enz, 1995). Self-determination or choice refers
to the sense of freedom in making decisions about work (Fulford and Enz, 1995; Thomas
and Velthouse, 1990). Impact refers to the degree to which the individual feels that his or her
work makes a difference in achieving the purpose of the task and the extent to which the
individual believes that he or she can influence organizational outcomes in a positive way
(Thomas and Velthouse, 1990; Spreitzer, 1995).
The concept of humble leadership suggests that humble leader behaviors can empower
subordinates by influencing several aspects of their self-conception (Owens and Hekman,
2012). Humble leaders appreciate followers’ strengths, which helps followers to recognize the
significance of their contribution to organizations and acquire a sense of meaning in their jobs.
Such leaders also treat their followers with kindness and respect, rather than treating them
simply as a tool for organizational productivity. This kindness and respect for human dignity
should result in followers experiencing a strong sense of the meaning of their work.
Humble leaders’ consideration of followers’ contributions and openness to feedback
causes them to place followers in situations that facilitate their confidence in their job skills.
The influence of such leaders is one of ways in which employees might receive information
regarding their self-efficacy, which, in turn, could remove any powerlessness they may have
been experiencing in the workplace (Bandura, 1986; Conger and Kanungo, 1988).
Thus, employees of humble leaders have higher feelings of competence in their positions.
Humble leaders are more likely to admit their limitations and show themselves to be open
to new ideas; they thereby provide followers with opportunities for self-determination. Such
leaders have an orientation toward others and make the courageous decision to give up a
certain portion of power so that employees have discretion in decision making in dimensions
of their jobs. Such autonomy in the workplace encourages employees to initiate tasks with a
sense of self-determination.
 Humble leaders are more likely to provide followers with opportunities to understand the Psychological
impact they have in their position and in the organization through the appreciation of empowerment
followers’ strengths and efforts and the willingness to learn from others (Owens et al., 2013).
Such leaders encourage the full engagement of the self at work (May et al., 2004) because
this helps employees to acquire control beliefs and to feel that their own behaviors are
making a difference to work outcomes. Thus, followers of humble leaders are more likely to
have greater feelings of empowerment and a sense of impact.
Prior research indicates that followers who feel more empowered are more likely to have
internalized reasons to be proactive (Chen et al., 2011; Parker and Wu, 2014). By definition,
empowered followers see themselves as competent and as able to influence their job and
organization in a meaningful way. Because of these psychological states, they are more
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likely to engage in extra-role efforts and to act proactively (Spreitzer, 1995). Indeed,
empowered followers have improved concentration, initiative, and resiliency (Thomas and
Velthouse, 1990). Furthermore, research indicates that competence (efficacy) enhances
proactive behavior (Speier and Frese, 1997). Employees who believe themselves able to have
an impact are more likely to be proactive. Likewise, evidence suggests that beliefs about
whether one can exert control or whether one can make an impact (Ashford et al., 1998) and
have self-determination also influence proactive behavior. In sum, this study suggests that
humble leaders who empower their followers will subsequently see more proactive behavior
at work. Thus, the following hypotheses are developed:
H2. Humble leadership has a positive effect on psychological empowerment.
H3. Psychological empowerment mediates the relationship between humble leadership
and employee proactive behavior.

The moderating role of identification with leader

Humble leadership exerts its effects by influencing specific elements of the follower’s
self-concept (Owens and Hekman, 2012). There are three levels of self-concept: the personal
self, the relational self, and the collective self (Brickson, 2000; Markus and Kitayama, 1991).
Identification with leader refers to the extent to which the leader is included in the
subordinate’s relational self (Kark et al., 2003; Wang and Rode, 2010). Identification with leader
usually has two modes of identification: the subordinates share similar values with the leader
in the recognition of their self-concept, and the subordinates desire to change their self-concept
so that they can have more similar values and beliefs with those of the leader (Pratt, 1998).
High levels of relational self-concept lead an individual to experience less of a distinction
between his/her own and the focal other’s interests (Andersen and Chen, 2002). Hence,
followers with a higher identification with their leader can perceive that acting for the
benefit of the leader is acting for their own benefit and are thus more sensitive to the leader’s
expectations of their followers (Aron, 2003; Van Knippenberg et al., 2004), and are more loyal
and considerate of their leader’s needs (Sluss and Ashforth, 2007). Accordingly, we expect
identification with leader to amplify the effects of humble leadership on employee proactive
behavior through psychological empowerment. Indeed, researchers have pointed out that
identification with leader should result in a greater likelihood of being influenced by
the leader (Van Knippenberg et al., 2004). Without a high level of identification with leader,
the leader is unable to gain the credibility he/she needs to motivate employees to follow
him/her toward his/her missions, purposes, goals, and values, even if he/she displays
humble leader behaviors. In addition, since humble leadership is a bottom-up style of
leadership, a humble leader is always mistaken for a weak leader (Prime and Salib, 2014).
Thus, when humble leader behavior is aligned with followers’ identification with the
leader, followers will perceive the powers and empowering behaviors of humble
 LODJ leaders and, in turn, respond in a positive manner. Based on the above discussion, the
following hypotheses are developed:
H4. Identification with leader moderates the relationship between humble leadership and
psychological empowerment, such that the relationship will be stronger for
employees with higher identification with leader, rather than lower.
H5. Identification with leader moderates the indirect effect of humble leadership on
employee proactive behavior via psychological empowerment, such that the effect
will be stronger for employees with higher identification with leader, rather
than lower.
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Method
Sample and procedure
Participants came from four industries in northern China and had a variety of functional
backgrounds including human resource management, R&D, finance, and sales divisions.
Both employees and different levels of supervisors are in our sampling. Two sets of
questionnaires were used: a survey for subordinates and a survey for their immediate
supervisors. All subordinates filled out a questionnaire that included the measurement
items of humble leadership, psychological empowerment and identification with leader.
Supervisors rated each subordinate’s proactive behavior at work. We obtained a list of 360
randomly selected subordinates with the support of a HR manager. Each subordinate
questionnaire was assigned an identification number to match responses with their direct
supervisors’ evaluations. The first author visited relevant supervisors and subordinates
separately. Participants were informed the objective of the survey and the confidentiality of
their responses. The participants received a packet including an information sheet, a
questionnaire, and a return envelope. To ensure the integrality and confidentiality, the
participants were instructed to fill out questionnaires, seal them in the envelopes, and return
them directly to us on site.
Of the 66 supervisor and 360 subordinate questionnaires distributed, 51 supervisor and
321 subordinate questionnaires were returned, representing response rates of 77.27 and
89.17 percent, respectively. A total of 286 pairs remained after eliminating the uncompleted
and unmatched questionnaires, yielding an effective response rate of 79.44 percent.
Participants’ demographic characteristics were as follows. 60.50 percent of these participants
were male. The average age was 38.88 (SD ¼ 9.06). Given the level of education, 80.40 percent
had Bachelor’s degrees, 3.80 percent had Master’s degrees and above, and others had lower
levels of education.

Measures
Since three scales in our survey were initially developed in English, we translated
these scales into Chinese according to the process of translation and back-translation
(Brislin, 1980). All items were scored on a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1 “strongly
disagree” to 5 “strongly agree”.
Humble leadership. We used the 14-item scale developed by Chen et al. (2017) to measure
humble leadership. This scale contains four dimensions: approachability, an appreciation of
others’ strengths and contributions, correct self-awareness, and openness to feedback.
A sample item is “My supervisor can adopt reasonable suggestions of subordinates.”
Cronbach’s α for this construct was 0.94.
Psychological empowerment. We used the 12-item scale developed by Spreitzer’s (1995) to
measure individual perceptions of psychological empowerment. This scale contains three
items for each of four subscales: meaning, competence, self-determination, and impact.
 A sample item is “I have mastered the skills necessary for my job.” Cronbach’s α for this Psychological
construct was 0.85. empowerment
Identification with leader. We used the eight-item scale developed by Kark et al.’s (2003) to
measure identification with leader. A sample item is “I highly identify with my manager.”
Cronbach’s α for this construct was 0.92.
Proactive behavior at work. We asked immediate supervisors to assess their employee
proactive behaviors with Griffin et al.’s (2007) 3-item measure. The scale is widely used in
researches. A sample item is “He or She initiated better ways of doing his or her core tasks.”
Cronbach’s α for this construct was 0.86.
Control variables. In keeping with other proactive behavior research (e.g. Hartog and
Belschak, 2007; Parker et al., 2006), we controlled the participants’ gender, age, and
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education level. Gender was coded “0” for male and “1” for female; educational level was
coded “1” for high school and below, “2” for junior college and “3” for bachelor and above.

Data analysis
Because the data had a nested structure (under the same supervisor within a group),
we checked the independence of supervisor effect on ratings of employee
proactive behavior (Kenny et al., 2006). To assess the extent to which supervisor-level
effect was biasing our estimates, we computed an ICC1 coefficient (Bliese, 2000). The value
of ICC1 was 0.15 indicating that supervisor-level effect was biasing our results.
Therefore, we chose Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) to test our hypotheses
(Raudenbush et al., 2004).

Results
Confirmatory factor analysis
We conducted a confirmatory factor analysis to examine the distinctiveness of humble
leadership, psychological empowerment, employee proactive behavior, and identification
with leader using AMOS20.0. The results of the confirmatory factor analysis supported a
four-factor model very well (CMIN/df ¼ 1.76, CFI ¼ 0.93, TLI ¼ 0.92, RMSEA ¼ 0.05),
containing humble leadership, psychological empowerment, identification with leader, and
employee proactive behavior.

Descriptive statistics
Table I contains means, reliabilities, standard deviations, and correlations of the study
variables for descriptive purposes. The results of Table I show that humble leadership had a
positive effect on employee proactive behavior (r ¼ 0.51, p o0.01); a positive relationship
between humble leadership and psychological empowerment (r ¼ 0.37, p o0.01); and a
positive relationship between psychological empowerment and employee proactive
behavior (r ¼ 0.61, p o0.01).

Hypothesis testing
We used HLM to test our hypotheses. The results presented in Table II performed to test
H1-H3. H1 anticipated that humble leadership has a positive effect on employee proactive
behavior. Results showed that humble leadership increased employee proactive behavior
(γ ¼ 0.45, p o0.001, Model 1). H2 anticipated that humble leadership has a positive effect on
psychological empowerment. Results showed that humble leadership increased
psychological empowerment ( γ ¼ 0.22, p o 0.001, Model 2).Thus, H1 and H2
were supported.
In H3, we theorized that psychological empowerment mediates the effect of humble
leadership on employee proactive behavior. We used Baron and Kenny’s (1986) three-step
 LODJ method to test the mediation hypothesis. For employee proactive behavior, all three
conditions were supported. We found that humble leadership was positively associated
with employee proactive behavior (γ ¼ 0.45, p o 0.001, Model 1). Humble leadership was
associated with the mediator, psychological empowerment (γ ¼ 0.22, p o 0.001, Model 2).
Finally, for Model 3, when psychological empowerment was included in the regression
model, the effect of humble leadership on employee proactive behavior was reduced
(γ ¼ 0.27, p o 0.001, Model 3), and the association of psychological empowerment
with employee proactive behavior was significant (γ ¼ 0.78, p o 0.001, Model 3).
Therefore, there was an evidence for the partial mediation of psychological
empowerment in the relationship between humble leadership and employee proactive
behavior. Thus, H3 was supported.
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H4 anticipated that identification with leader moderates the relationship between

humble leadership and psychological empowerment. Table III shows the results of
HLM analyses performed to test H4. The results on Table III showed that identification
with leader had a moderating effect on the relationship between humble leadership and
psychological empowerment (γ ¼ 0.03, p o 0.05, Model 3). To further explain the
moderating role of psychological empowerment, we have drawn Figure 2 using Aiken and

M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

1. Age 38.88 09.06

2. Gendera 00.40 00.49 00.04
3. Educationb 02.86 00.50 −0.40** 00.03
4. HL 03.89 00.76 −0.08 −0.08 −0.04 (0.94)
5. EPB 03.89 00.68 00.04 −0.01 −0.07 00.51** (0.86)
6.PE 03.92 00.43 00.27** 00.00 −0.17** 00.37** 00.61** (0.85)
7. IL 03.73 00.49 00.13* −0.01 −0.03 00.24** 00.28** 00.49** (0.92)
Table I.
Means, standard Notes: n ¼ 286 for subordinates, 51 for supervisors. HL, humble leadership; EPB, employee proactive
deviations, behavior; PE, psychological empowerment; IL, identification with leader. a(“0” male, “1” female); b(“1” high
correlations, and school and below, “2” junior college, “3” bachelor and above). The numbers in italics on the diagonal are the
reliabilities (in italic) αs. *p o0.05; **p o0.01; ***p o0.001

Variable Model 1 Model 2 Model 3

γ SE γ SE γ SE

Intercept 3.89*** 0.04 3.93*** 0.03 3.89*** 0.03

Controls
Age 0.00 0.00 0.01*** 0.00 −0.00 0.00
Gender a 0.03 0.06 0.01 0.04 0.03 0.05
Education b 0.03 0.07 0.00 0.05 0.02 0.05
Independent variables
HL 0.45*** 0.05 0.22*** 0.03 0.27*** 0.05
Mediator
PE 0.78*** 0.07
Table II.
HLM analysis results R2 0.39 0.18 0.59
for psychological Notes: n ¼ 286 for subordinates, 51 for supervisors. HL, humble leadership; PE, psychological empowerment;
empowerment as EPB, employee proactive behavior. a(“0” male, “1” female); b(“1” high school and below,“2” junior college,“3”
mediator bachelor and above). *p o0.05; **p o0.01; ***p o0.001
 Variable PE EPB
Psychological
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 empowerment
γ SE γ SE γ SE γ SE
*** *** *** ***
Intercept 3.93 0.03 3.93 0.02 3.93 0.02 3.89 0.03
Controls
Age 0.01*** 0.00 0.01*** 0.00 0.01*** 0.00 −0.00 0.00
Gendera 0.01 0.04 0.02 0.04 0.02 0.04 0.04 0.05
Educationb 0.00 0.05 0.01 0.05 0.01 0.05 0.02 0.05
Independent variables
HL 0.22*** 0.03 0.11* 0.04 0.14** 0.04 0.19** 0.05
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Moderator
IL 0.16*** 0.04 0.15*** 0.04 0.10 0.06
HL × IL 0.03* 0.02 −0.02 0.02
Mediator
PE 0.75*** 0.08
R2 0.18 0.01 0.15 0.58 Table III.
Notes: n ¼ 286 for subordinates, 51 for supervisors. HL, humble Leadership; IL, identification with leader; HLM analysis results
PE, psychological empowerment; EPB, employee proactive behavior. a(“0” male, “1” female); b(“1” high school for identification with
and below, “2” junior college, “3” bachelor and above). *p o 0.05, **p o0.01, ***p o0.001 leader as moderator

4.5

3.5
PE

2.5

2 Low IL
Figure 2.
High IL The moderating effect
1.5 of identification with
leader on the
1 relationship between
Low HL High HL humble leadership and
psychological
Notes: HL, humble leadership; IL, identification with leader; empowerment
PE, psychological empowerment

West’s (1991) method. Figure 2 depicted the relationship between humble leadership and
psychological empowerment at both low and high level of identification with leader; the
relationship is stronger when identification with leader is high rather than low. In support
of H4, there was a positive relationship between humble leadership and psychological
empowerment when identification with leader was high (simple slope ¼ 0.15, 95% BC
CI ¼ 0.05, 0.25) and when identification with leader was low (simple slope ¼ 0.07, 95% BC
CI ¼ 0.01, 0.14). Thus, H4 was supported.
H5 anticipated that identification with leader moderates the indirect effect of humble
leadership on employee proactive behavior, via psychological empowerment, such that the
 LODJ effect will be stronger for employees with higher identification with leader, rather than
lower. The results on Table III demonstrated that identification with leader moderated the
indirect effect of humble leadership on employee proactive behavior via psychological
empowerment (γ ¼ 0.75, p o0.001). Thus, H5 was supported.

Discussion
In this study, we focused on the effect of humble leadership on employee proactive behavior
at work. We posited that psychological empowerment mediated the relationship of humble
leadership and employee proactive behavior. To build up the boundary condition,
we further proposed identification with leader as a key contingency of the effect of humble
leadership on employee proactive behavior through the mechanism. Consistent with our
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arguments, we found that humble leader behavior could promote employee proactive
behavior. Moreover, we found that the positive relationship was mediated by enhancing
followers’ psychological empowerment. Further, identification with leader was found to
moderate the mediating effect of psychological empowerment.

Theoretical implications
This present research makes several important contributions to the literature. First, it
adds to the growing literature on humble leadership and expands the nomological net by
examining employee proactive behavior at work as a result of humble leadership.
This research empirically confirms that humble leaders can promote employee proactive
behavior at work. This finding opens up the notion of proactive work behavior
development to include leader behaviors such as openness to feedback and an
appreciation of others’ strengths, which goes beyond the traditional top-down leadership
style of transformational leadership and proactive behavior (Den Hartog and
Belschak, 2012; Strauss et al., 2009).
Second, this study adds invaluable understanding to the humble leadership
literature because it demonstrates the value of these behaviors in non-Western
contexts. Cultural values can shape individuals’ attributes and behaviors, as well as what
they believe to be appropriate behaviors for others (Markus and Kitayama, 1991).
Chinese culture has long embraced the concept of humility and has a stronger natural
inclination toward humility (Vera and Rodriguez-Lopez, 2004); therefore, it may
generally be more receptive to this leadership approach than Western cultures are
(Oc et al., 2015). As the statistical analysis illustrates, humble leader behavior is
associated with increased employee proactive behavior at work. The strong and positive
relation reinforces our knowledge of the effectiveness of humble leadership in a Chinese
context and advances the application of Western research sources to
Chinese leadership.
Third, we also contribute to the humble leadership literature by addressing the lack of
attention paid to the explanatory mechanism linking humble leader behavior to follower
outcomes. Drawing from the theory of intrinsic motivation, this paper clarifies that
psychological empowerment is a relevant intervening variable in the relationship between
humble leader behavior and employee proactive work behavior.
Fourth, our research provides a new insight into the boundary condition of humble
leadership. The results show that identification with leader, integrated with humble
leadership, has a positive effect on employee proactive work behavior through
psychological empowerment. Employees with higher identification with leader are more
likely perceive the powers and empowering behaviors of humble leaders and, in turn,
respond in a positive manner. This is conducive to a deepened understanding of the
boundary function of humble leadership and provides a reference for future research.
 Practical implications Psychological
Our findings have several implications for managerial practice. The first involves the treatment empowerment
of humble leadership. Our results confirm that humble leader behavior is successful in
promoting followers’ intrinsic psychological motivation (psychological empowerment) and
behaviors (i.e. proactive behavior), which means that humble leadership is effective in a Chinese
cultural context and should be strongly advocated in organizations. In addition, humility is a
modifiable personal quality that leaders can “increase dramatically by practice” (Owens et al.,
2015). Thus, managers could demonstrate increased humble behaviors in their leading process,
with or without the trait of humility, to inspire employees’ intrinsic motivation and
desired behaviors.
The second involves the treatment of employees’ psychological empowerment. Sound
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evidence suggests that psychological empowerment serves as an important underlying

mechanism that transfers humble leadership’s effects onto employee proactive behavior at
work. Thus, managers could benefit from the cultivations of employees’ psychological
empowerment by improving employees’ feelings of self-efficacy and by influencing their
strong sense of meaning of work, their sense of self-determination, and their sense of having
an impact on the organizational outcomes.
Furthermore, our findings imply that subordinate-based contingency factors have
significant impacts on the effectiveness of humble leadership. Our results show that when
employees have a higher identification with the leader, humble leader behaviors are more
likely to promote followers’ psychological empowerment and to enhance their proactive
work behaviors. A high level of relational self-concept leads an individual to experience less
of a distinction between his/her own interests and those of the focal other (Andersen and
Chen, 2002). Managers should therefore provide employees with sincere care in relation to
work and life issues to produce employees’ identification with the leader.

Limitations and future research

Despite the noted contributions, this study has limitations. First, cross-sectional data were
collected, which implies causation can not be inferred from the findings. Further research could
conduct longitudinal research to retest the hypotheses.
Second, although followers’ psychological empowerment can explain the relationship
between humble leader behavior and employee proactive behavior, whether psychological
empowerment is capable of explaining other follower outcomes, such as creativity and task
performance, are also worthy exploring in future research.
Third, we only examined one level of identification, namely, identification with leader as
the boundary condition of the relationship between humble leadership and employee
proactive behavior. Other levels of identification, such as identification with a group or
identification with an organization, may yield additional insight into how humble leadership
affects employee behaviors. We also suggest that researchers explore whether other
boundary conditions of the influence of humble leadership, such as perceived competence,
perceived sincerity, and an organizational culture of learning (Owens and Hekman, 2012),
could be contingent on humble leader behavior. The contingencies of the effectiveness of
humble leadership could be a promising and important future research direction.

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About the authors

Yanhong Chen is an Associate professor in Business English School at Mudanjiang Normal University
and a PhD Student in School of Management at Harbin Institute of Technology. Her research interest
includes leadership, proactive behavior, and creativity.
Baowei Liu is an Assistant Professor in School of Management at Harbin Institute of Technology.
Her research interest includes leadership and job stress.
Li Zhang is a Professor in School of Management at Harbin Institute of Technology. Her research
interest includes job stress, leadership, and work family balance. Li Zhang is the corresponding author
and can be contacted at: zhanglihit@hit.edu.cn
Shanshan Qian is a PhD Student in Business School at Nankai University. Her research interest
includes human resource, turnover, and job insecurity.

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