Document Type
Dissertation
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Major/Program
Business Administration
First Advisor's Name
Hock-Peng Sin
First Advisor's Committee Title
Committee chair
Second Advisor's Name
Ravi S. Gajendran
Second Advisor's Committee Title
Committee member
Third Advisor's Name
Chaitali Kapadia
Third Advisor's Committee Title
Committee member
Fourth Advisor's Name
Weidong Xia
Fourth Advisor's Committee Title
Committee member
Keywords
emotions, leader perceptions, leader effectiveness, leader attributes
Date of Defense
3-29-2023
Abstract
A main part of a leader’s role involves navigating challenging situations such as less-than-ideal outcomes, decision-making failures, or a difficult market. In these high-pressure moments, leaders may respond with a sense of calm, express their regrets in a natural way, or intentionally demonstrate their pride. Ultimately, the emotion a leader expresses can considerably affect how people perceive their leadership. However, research on these common leaders’ low-arousal emotions has by and large been ignored. Through three studies, this dissertation draws on and extends the implicit theory of leadership emotions (ITLEs) to examine, how low-arousal emotional expressions (i.e., regret, calm, and pride) impact observers’ evaluations of the leaders’ effectiveness (i.e., leader effectiveness, competence, power, confidence) and value-based attributes (i.e., leader sincerity, integrity, humility). In addition, the underlying mechanism - perceived leader prototype violation was investigated. Integrating with the literature on leader gender and leader attributes, this study also examines the moderating role of leader gender and leader attributes in altering the impacts of low-arousal emotional expressions on perceived leader effectiveness. Results support that negative low-arousal emotion expression – regret, could harm perceived leader effectiveness and the effects are mediated by the leader prototype violation, while positive low-arousal emotion expression – pride and calm, could bring positive effects on perceived leader effectiveness. Results also indicate that the impact of these emotions on the perceived leader attributes is limited, in that leader’s pride expression would decrease the perceived leader humility. Regarding the moderating factors, this study found that leader integrity and humility have a moderating effect on leader effectiveness and competence. Future study on gender’s moderating role is encouraged.
Identifier
FIDC011067
Recommended Citation
Zhou, Yuyang, "Expressing Regret, Calm, or Pride: Leader Low-arousal Emotional Expressions' Effects on Leadership Perceptions" (2023). FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 5265.
https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/5265
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