Transforming with levity: Humor, leadership, and follower attitudes

Leadership and Organization Development Journal

Volumn 30, Issue 6, 2009, Pages 540-562

  Hughes, Larry W ^a   Avey, James B ^a  

^a CENTRAL WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Humour; Job satisfaction; Transformational leadership; Trust

Indexed keywords

EID: 70350306247     PISSN: 01437739     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1108/01437730910981926     Document Type: Article

References (94)

1. Adelsward, V. and Oberg, B. (1998), The function of laughter and joking in negotiation exercises, Humor: International Journal of Humor Research, Vol. 11 No. 4, pp. 411-29.
2. Allen, N.J. and Meyer, J.P. (1990), The measurement and antecedents of affective, continuance and normative commitment to the organization, Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, Vol. 63, pp. 1-18.
3. Angle, H. and Perry, J. (1981), An empirical assessment of organizational commitment and organizational effectiveness, Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 26, pp. 1-14.
4. Avolio, B.J. (2003), Examining the full range model of leadership: looking back to transform forward, in Day, D. and Zaccarro, S. (Eds), Leadership Development for Transforming Organizations: Grow Leaders for Tomorrow, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ, pp. 71-98.
5. Avolio, B.J., Bass, B.M. and Jung, D.I. (1999a), Re-examining the components of transformational and transactional leadership using the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire, Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, Vol. 72 No. 4, pp. 441-62.
6. Avolio, B., Howell, J. and Sosik, J. (1999b), A funny thing happened on the way to the bottom line: humor as moderator of leadership style effects, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 42, pp. 219-27.
7. Avolio, B.J., Zhu, W., Koh, W. and Bhatia, P. (2004), Transformational leadership and organizational commitment: mediating role of psychological empowerment and moderating role of structural distance, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol. 25 No. 8, pp. 951-68.
8. Ballinger, G.A. and Schoorman, F.D. (2007), Individual reactions to leadership succession in workgroups, Academy of Management Review, Vol. 32 No. 1, pp. 118-36.
9. Bass, B.M. (1985), Leadership and Performance beyond Expectations, The Free Press, New York, NY.
10. Bass, B.M. (1990), Bass and Stogdill's Handbook of Leadership, 3rd ed., The Free Press, New York, NY.
11. Bass, B.M. (1998), Transformational Leadership: Industrial, Military, and Educational Impact, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ.
12. Bass, B.M. and Avolio, B.J. (1993), Transformational leadership: a response to critiques,in Chemmers, M.M. and Ayman, R. (Eds), Leadership Theory and Research: Perspective and Direction, Academic Press, San Diego, CA, pp. 49-58.
13. Bass, B. and Riggio, R. (2006), Transformational Leadership, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ.
14. Binning, J.F. and Lord, R.G. (1980), Boundary conditions for performance cue effects on group process ratings: familiarity versus type of feedback, Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, Vol. 26, pp. 115-30.
15. Bollen, K.A. (1989), Structural Equations with Latent Variables, Wiley, New York, NY.
16. Bono, J.E. and Judge, T.A. (2003), Self-concordance at work: toward understanding the motivational effects of transformational leaders, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 46, pp. 554-71.
17. Bono, J.E., Foldes, H. and Vinson, G. (2007), Workplace emotions: the role of supervision and leadership, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 92 No. 5, pp. 1357-67.
18. Burns, J.M. (1978), Leadership, The Free Press, New York, NY.
19. Butler, J., Cantrell, R. and Flick, R. (1999), Transformational leadership behaviors, upward trust, and satisfaction in self-managed work teams, Organization Development Journal, Vol. 17, pp. 13-28.
20. Chaoping, L., Bao, T. and Kan, S. (2006), Transformational leadership and employee work attitudes: the mediating effects of multidimensional psychological empowerment, Acta Psychologica Sinica, Vol. 38 No. 2, pp. 297-307.
21. Chin, W. (1998), Partial least squares approach to structural equation modeling, in Marcoulides, G. (Ed.), Modern Methods for Business Research, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ, pp. 295-336.
22. Choi, Y. and Mai-Dalton, R.R. (1999), The model of followers' responses to self-sacrificial leadership: an empirical test, The Leadership Quarterly, Vol. 10, pp. 397-422.
23. Collinson, D.L. (1988), Engineering humour: masculinity, joking and conflict in shopfloor relations, Organization Studies, Vol. 9 No. 2, pp. 181-99.
24. Conger, J.A. (1989), The Charismatic Leader: Behind the Mystique of Exceptional Leadership, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA.
25. Cortina, J. (1993), What is coefficient alpha?, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 78, pp. 98-104.
26. Davis, A. and Kleiner, B. (1989), The value of humor in effective leadership, Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 10 No. 1, pp. 1-3.
27. Davis, J.H., Schoorman, F.D., Mayer, R.C. and Tan, H.H. (2000), The trusted general manager and business unit performance: empirical evidence of a competitive advantage, Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 21, pp. 563-76.
28. Decker, W.H. (1987), Managerial humor and subordinate satisfaction, Social Behavior and Personality: An International Journal, Vol. 15, pp. 225-32.
29. Dubinsky, A.J., Yammarino, F.J. and Jolson, M.A. (1995), An examination of linkages between personality characteristics and dimensions of transformational leadership, Journal of Business and Psychology, Vol. 9, pp. 315-35.
30. Dumdum, R., Lowe, K. and Avolio, B.J. (2002), A meta-analysis of transformational and transactional leadership correlates of effectiveness and satisfaction: an update and extension, in Avolio, B.J. and Yammarino, F.J. (Eds), Transformational and Charismatic Leadership: The Road Ahead, Elsevier Science, Oxford, pp. 35-66.
31. Dvir, T., Kass, N. and Shamir, B. (2004), The emotional bond: vision and organizational commitment among high-tech employees, Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol. 17 No. 2, pp. 126-43.
32. Falk, R. and Miller, N. (1992), A Primer for Soft Modeling, University of Akron Press, Akron, OH.
33. Fornell, C. and Larcker, D.F. (1981), Structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error: algebra and statistics, Journal of Marketing Research, Vol. 18, pp. 382-8.
34. Graen, G.B. and Uhl-Bien, M. (1998), Relationship-based approach to leadership: development of leader-member exchange (LMX) theory of leadership over 25 years: applying a multi-level multi-domain perspective, in Dansereau, F. and Yammarino, F.J. (Eds), Leadership: The Multiple-level Approaches: Contemporary and Alternative, JAI Press, Stamford, CT, pp. 103-55.
35. Hackman, J.R. and Oldham, G.R. (1980), Work Redesign, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA.
36. Hogg, M.A. (2001), A social identity theory of leadership, Personality and Social Psychology Review, Vol. 5, pp. 184-200.
37. Holmes, J. and Marra, M. (2002), Over the edge? Subversive humor between colleagues and friends, Humor: International Journal of Humor Research, Vol. 15 No. 1, pp. 65-87.
38. Holmes, J. and Marra, M. (2006), Humor and leadership style, Humor: International Journal of Humor Research, Vol. 19 No. 2, pp. 119-38.
39. Howard, A. and Wellins, R.S. (1994), High-involvement Leadership: Changing Roles for Changing Times, Development Dimensions International, Pittsburgh, PA.
40. Howell, J.M. and Avolio, B.J. (1993), Transformational leadership, transactional leadership, locus of control, and support for innovation: key predictors of consolidated-business-unit performance, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 78, pp. 891-902.
41. Hunt, J.G. (1991), Leadership: A New Synthesis, Sage Publications, Newbury Park, CA.
42. Jones, G.R. and George, J.M. (1998), The experience and evolution of trust: implications for cooperation and teamwork, Academy of Management Review, Vol. 23, pp. 531-46.
43. Judge, T.A. and Bono, J.E. (2001), Relationship of core self-evaluation traits - self-esteem, generalized self efficacy, locus of control, and emotional stability - with job-satisfaction and performance: a meta-analysis, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 86, pp. 80-92.
44. Judge, T. and Piccolo, R. (2004), Transformational and transactional leadership: a meta-analytic test of their relative validity, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 89, pp. 755-68.
45. Judge, T., Thoresen, C., Bono, J. and Patton, G. (2001), The job satisfaction-job performance relationship: a qualitative and quantitative review, Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 127, pp. 376-407.
46. Jung, D.I. and Avolio, B.J. (2000), Opening the black box: an experimental investigation of the mediating effects of trust and value congruence on transformational and transactional leadership, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol. 21, pp. 949-64.
47. Kark, R., Shamir, B. and Chen, G. (2003), The two faces of transformational leadership: empowerment and dependency, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 88, pp. 246-55.
48. Kohler, G. and Ruch, W. (1996), Sources of variance in current sense of humor inventories: how much substance, how much method variance?, Humor: International Journal of Humor Research, Vol. 9, pp. 363-97.
49. Lee, J. (2005), Effects of leadership and leader-member exchange on commitment, Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 26 No. 8, pp. 655-72.
50. Lewicki, R.J. and Bunker, B.B. (1996), Developing and maintaining trust in work relationships, in Kramer, R.M. and Tyler, T.R. (Eds), Trust in Organizations: Frontiers of Theory and Research, Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA, pp. 114-39.
51. Liao, H. and Chuang, A. (2007), Transforming service employees and climate: a multilevel, multisource examination of transformational leadership in building long-term service relationships, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 92, pp. 1006-19.
52. Lowe, K.B., Kroeck, K.G. and Sivasubramaniam, N. (1996), Effectiveness correlates of transformational and transactional leadership: a meta-analytic review of the MLQ literature, The Leadership Quarterly, Vol. 7, pp. 385-425.
53. Luthans, F., Avolio, B., Avey, J.B. and Norman, S.M. (2007), Psychological capital: measurement and relationship with performance and job satisfaction, Personnel Psychology, Vol. 60, pp. 541-72.
54. MacKenzie, S.B., Podsakoff, P.M. and Jarvis, C.B. (2005), The problem of measurement model misspecification in behavioral and organizational research and some recommended solutions, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 90 No. 4, pp. 710-30.
55. Malone, P.B. (1980), Humor: a double-edged tool for today's managers?, Academy of Management Review, Vol. 5, pp. 357-60.
56. Martin, R.A. (2007), The Psychology of Humor: An Integrative Approach, Elsevier Academic Press, Burlington, MA.
57. Mayer, R.C. and Gavin, M.B. (2005), Trust in management and performance: who minds the shop while the employees watch the boss?, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 48 No. 5, pp. 874-88.
58. Mayer, R.C., Davis, J.H. and Schoorman, F.W. (1995), An integrative model of organizational trust, Academy of Management Review, Vol. 20, pp. 709-35.
59. Meyer, J., Paunonen, S., Gellatly, I., Goffin, R. and Jackson, D. (1989), Organizational commitment and job performance: it's the nature of the commitment that counts, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 74 No. 1, pp. 152-6.
60. Meyer, J.P., Bobocel, D.R. and Allen, N.J. (1991), Development of organizational commitment during the first year of employment: a longitudinal study of pre- and post-entry influences, Journal of Management, Vol. 17, pp. 717-33.
61. Mowday, R.T., Steers, R.M. and Porter, L.W. (1979), The measurement of organizational commitment, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Vol. 14, pp. 224-47.
62. Nemanich, L.A. and Keller, R.T. (2007), Transformational leadership in an acquisition: a field study of employees, The Leadership Quarterly, Vol. 18 No. 1, pp. 49-68.
63. Nunnally, J.C. (1978), Psychometric Theory, McGraw-Hill, New York, NY.
64. O'Hare, P. (1992), Work, irony and contemplative formation, Religious Education, Vol. 87, pp. 28-44.
65. Philbrick, K. (1989), The use of humor and effective leadership styles, unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL.
66. Piccolo, R.F. and Colquitt, J.A. (2006), Transformational leadership and job behaviors: the mediating role of core job characteristics, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 49, pp. 327-40.
67. Pillai, R., Schriesheim, C.A. and Williams, E.S. (1999), Fairness perceptions and trust as mediators for transformational and transactional leadership: a two-sample study, Journal of Management, Vol. 25 No. 6, pp. 897-933.
68. Pillai, R., Williams, E., Lowe, K. and Jung, D. (2003), Personality, transformational leadership, trust and the 2000 US presidential vote, The Leadership Quarterly, Vol. 14, pp. 161-92.
69. Podsakoff, P.M., MacKenzie, S.C., Lee, J. and Podsakoff, N.P. (2003), Common method biases in behavioral research: a critical review of the literature and recommended remedies, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 88, pp. 879-903.
70. Porter, L., Steers, R., Mowday, R. and Boulian, P. (1974), Organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and turnover among psychiatric technicians, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 59, pp. 603-9.
71. Priest, R.F. and Swain, J.E. (2002), Humor and its implications for leadership effectiveness, Humor: International Journal of Humor Research, Vol. 15 No. 2, pp. 169-89.
72. Rafferty, A.E. and Griffin, M.A. (2006), Refining individualized consideration: distinguishing developmental leadership and supportive leadership, Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, Vol. 79 No. 1, pp. 37-61.
73. Reichard, R.J. and Avolio, B.J. (2005), Where are we? The status of leadership intervention research: a meta-analytic summary, in Gardner, W.L., Avolio, B.J. and Walumbwa, F.O. (Eds), Authentic Leadership Theory and Practice: Origins, Effects and Development, Monographs in Leadership and Management, Vol. 3, Elsevier, Amsterdam, pp. 203-26.
74. Riggio, R.E. (2006), Introduction to Industrial/Organizational Psychology, 4th ed., Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ.
75. Roethlisberger, F.J. and Dickson, W.J. (1939), Management and the Worker: An Account of a Research Program Conducted by the Western Electric Company, Hawthorne Works, Chicago (with H.A. Wright), Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
76. Romero, E.J. and Cruthirds, K.W. (2006), The use of humor in the workplace, Academy of Management Perspectives, Vol. 20 No. 2, pp. 58-69.
77. Rousseau, D.M., Sitkin, S.B., Burt, R.S. and Camerer, C. (1998), Not so different after all: a cross-discipline view of trust, Academy of Management Review, Vol. 23, pp. 393-404.
78. Sambamurthy, V. and Chin, W.W. (1994), The effects of group attitudes toward alternative GDSS designs on the decision-making performance of computer-supported groups, Decision Sciences, Vol. 25, pp. 215-41.
79. Schaubroeck, J., Lam, S.K. and Cha, S.E. (2007), Embracing transformational leadership: team values and the impact of leader behavior on team performance, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 92, pp. 1020-30.
80. Schoorman, F.D., Mayer, R.C. and Davis, J.H. (2007), An integrative model of organizational trust: past, present, and future, Academy of Management Review, Vol. 32 No. 2, pp. 344-54.
81. Shamir, B., House, R.J. and Arthur, M.B. (1993), The motivational effects of charismatic leadership: a self-concept based theory, Organization Science, Vol. 4, pp. 577-93.
82. Shamir, B., Zakay, E., Breinin, E. and Popper, M. (1998), Correlates of charismatic leader behavior in military units: subordinates' attitudes, unit characteristics, and superiors' appraisals of leader performance, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 41, pp. 387-409.
83. Tabachnick, B. and Fidell, L. (2006), Using Multivariate Statistics, 5th ed., Allyn & Bacon, Boston, MA.
84. Terrion, J.L. and Ashforth, B.E. (2002), From 'I' to 'we': the role of putdown humor and identity in the development of a temporary group, Human Relations, Vol. 55, pp. 55-88.
85. Thorson, J., Powell, F., Sarmany-Schuller, I. and Hampes, W. (1997), Psychological health and sense of humor, Journal of Clinical Psychology, Vol. 53, pp. 605-19.
86. Vinton, K.L. (1989), Humor in the workplace: it is more than telling jokes, Small Group Behavior, Vol. 20, pp. 151-66.
87. Walumbwa, F.O., Avolio, B.J. and Zhu, W. (2008), How transformational leadership weaves its influence on individual job performance: the role of identification and efficacy beliefs, Personnel Psychology, Vol. 61 No. 4, pp. 793-825.
88. Walumbwa, F., Orwa, B., Wang, P. and Lawler, J. (2005), Transformational leadership, organizational commitment, and job satisfaction: a comparative study of Kenyan and US financial firms, Human Resource Development Quarterly, Vol. 16 No. 2, pp. 235-56.
89. Wang, P. and Walumbwa, F. (2007), Family-friendly programs, organizational commitment, work withdrawal: moderating role transformational leadership, Personnel Psychology, Vol. 60, pp. 397-427.
90. Whitener, E.M. (1997), The impact of human resource activities on employee trust, Human Resource Management Review, Vol. 7, pp. 389-405.
91. Whittington, J., Goodwin, V.L. and Murray, B. (2004), Transformational leadership, goal difficulty, and job design: independent and interactive effects on employee outcomes, The Leadership Quarterly, Vol. 15 No. 5, pp. 593-606.
92. Wold, H. (1975), Path models with latent variables: the NIPALS approach, in Blalock, H.M., Aganbegian, A., Borodkin, F.M., Boudon, R. and Capecchi, V. (Eds), Quantitative Sociology, Academic Press, New York, NY, pp. 307-57.
93. Yammarino, F., Dionne, S., Uk Chun, J. and Dansereau, F. (2005), Leadership and levels of analysis: a state-of-the-science review, The Leadership Quarterly, Vol. 16, pp. 879-919.
94. Yukl, G. (2006), Leadership in Organizations, 6th ed., Pearson, Upper Saddle River, NJ.