Leader Interpersonal Emotion Regulation and Follower Performance

Cristian A. Vasquez, Karen Niven, Hector P. Madrid

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

18 Scopus citations

Abstract

Interpersonal emotion regulation (IER) refers to the actions of influencing other people s feelings. We apply this construct to the context of leadership to determine whether leader IER may explain followers performance. Drawing on emotions-as-social-information theory, we argue that leader strategies to improve or worsen followers feelings would be related to followers affect and thereby to their performance. We tested these proposals using a multisource field study involving 31 leaders and 157 followers. Results from multilevel modeling supported a mediation model in which leaders attempts to improve their followers feelings enhance followers task performance via the followers experience of positive affect. In contrast, leaders use of affect-worsening actions was associated with the experience of followers negative affect, but not related to task performance. These findings contribute by expanding knowledge on the affective underpinnings of the leader follower relationship and informing the development of leadership interventions aimed to foster employee performance.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)97-101
Number of pages5
JournalJournal of Personnel Psychology
Volume19
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 2020

Keywords

  • affect
  • interpersonal emotion regulation
  • leadership
  • task performance

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