The Harder You are on Yourself, the More I Respect You: Employee Affective and Behavioral Reactions to Leader’s Self-Oriented Perfectionism

Purpose: Whereas prior research has centered on leaders’other-oriented perfectionism and its effects on followers, this study draws on appraisal theories of emotion to examine how and when employees’ perceptions of leader self-oriented perfectionism elicit leader-directed responses, particularly affiliation. Methods: Drawing on data from a three-wave, multi-source field study of 228 leader–subordinate dyads from a large manufacturing company in China, we conducted the analyses using SPSS, Mplus, and R. Results: We find that employees’admiration is higher when they perceive their leaders as self-oriented perfectionists; this admiration in turn is associated with stronger leader-directed affiliation and partially mediates the relationship between perceived leader self-oriented perfectionism and leader-directed affiliation. Furthermore, we find that both the direct effect of perceived leader self-oriented perfectionism on employee admiration and the indirect effect of such perceptions on leader-directed affiliation through employee admiration are moderated by the leader’s competence, such that these positive associations are stronger when leader competence is high rather than low. Conclusion: Employees’ perceptions of leader self-oriented perfectionism enhance employee admiration, which in turn increases employees’affiliation with the leader; the higher the leader’s competence, the stronger both the positive direct effect on admiration and the positive indirect effect on affiliation through admiration. These findings advance understanding of how perceived leader self-oriented perfectionism shapes employee responses and how appraisal theories of emotion apply to perfectionism.