Why and when do employees become more proactive under humble leaders? The roles of psychological need satisfaction and Chinese traditionality

Purpose Drawing on self-determination theory, this study explored how leader humility affected employees' proactive behavior through satisfying their psychological needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness. Furthermore, based on a contingency view, this paper suggested Chinese traditionality as a significant boundary condition for the effects of leader humility. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected from 465 employees and 111 direct supervisors in China using a three-wave, two-source design. Hierarchical regression analyses and Hayes' PROCESS macro were applied to test the hypotheses. Findings The results indicated that leader humility positively affected employee proactive behavior through the mediating mechanisms of psychological need satisfaction (i.e. autonomy, competence and relatedness). Furthermore, these positive effects were stronger among employees with lower Chinese traditionality beliefs. Originality/value Although prior research has examined the relationship between leadership and proactive behavior, most extant studies have focused on “top-down” leadership approaches, ignoring the effect of leader humility. Drawing on self-determination theory, the present study makes contributions to both the leader humility research and proactivity literature by identifying psychological need satisfaction as the mechanism and Chinese traditionality as the moderator.