Leader humility and employee psychological well-being: the roles of relational age and supervisor gender

Purpose The study aims to apply the social information processing (SIP) theory to examine the three-way interaction of leader humility, supervisor-subordinate relational age and supervisor gender on hospitality employees’ psychological well-being (PWB) through job crafting. Design/methodology/approach Data were gathered from 235 US hospitality employees through a time-lagged, multiwave survey design. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to validate the measurement model and PROCESS analyses were used to examine the hypothesized mediation and moderation effects. Findings Leader humility is positively associated with hospitality employees’ PWB directly and indirectly through job crafting. Leader humility, relational age and supervisor gender interact to impact employees’ job crafting and PWB. The positive association between leader humility and job crafting was strengthened for female supervisors across both relational age conditions. The positive relationship between leader humility and PWB was strengthened for female supervisors regardless of relational age. The indirect effect of leader humility on PWB via job crafting was positive when employees perceived female supervisors as younger or similar in age or male supervisors as older. Research limitations/implications The study extends SIP theory by showing that leader humility is interpreted through the combined social information signaled by supervisor gender and relational age. These social cues jointly influence the effects of leader humility on hospitality employees’ job crafting and PWB. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the first to investigate the joint moderating roles of supervisor gender and relational age in the effects of leader humility and to examine their conditional indirect effect on PWB via job crafting.