Research On The Influence Of Leader Self-deprecating Humor Behavior On Employees’ Constructive Challenging Behavior

In the era of VUCA,enterprises are faced with more intense competition than ever before,and the environment is more complex and changeable.If managers are solely relied on to make decisions,the limitations of personal knowledge,skills and experience will inevitably cause losses to the enterprise due to omissions.As a result,organizations increasingly expect employees to be involved in decisionmaking.The organization hopes that when employees have different ideas from the leader,they can bravely put them forward.It also hopes that employees can take certain actions to prevent when they find that the leader’s decision may bring losses to the team and the organization,that is,the organization encourages employees to make constructive challenging behaviors.However,because constructive challenge behavior is risky,such expectations are often not responded by employees.Previous research has found that leadership humor can bring positive emotions and cognition to employees and contribute to many behaviors,including constructive challenging behaviors.There are many types of humor,such as agreeableness,aggression,self-improvement,and so on.Different kinds of humor,even for the same behavior,may have different mechanisms of action.Leadership self-deprecating humor is special in that it is about the leader’s shortcomings and missteps.Hence,compared with other styles of leadership humor,self-deprecating leadership humor may be more able to motivate employees’ constructive challenging behaviors.Therefore,based on the social information processing theory,this study talks about the specific mechanism of self-deprecating humor behaviors of leaders on constructive challenging behaviors of employees.And how does employee power distance,as a boundary condition,affect the direct effect of leaders’ self-deprecating humor behavior on employees’ humble leadership perception and psychological security,and how does it affect the indirect effect of leaders’ self-deprecating humor behavior on employees’ constructive challenging behavior?Self-deprecating leadership humor is when a leader moderately jokes about his or her own shortcomings and missteps and allows employees to make fun of him or her about them.Based on the social information processing theory,this paper proposes that when leaders make self-deprecating humor,it will convey to employees that they are willing to be honest about their bad behavior,and want to break the hierarchical system to establish a closer relationship with employees,and that the communication between leaders and employees is easy,which can make employees feel that the leader is a humble person.Furthermore,self-deprecating humor behavior of leaders can reduce the psychological burden of employees to implement constructive challenging behavior,stimulate their willingness to implement constructive challenging behavior,and help employees increase constructive challenging behavior.At the same time,self-deprecating humor behaviors of leaders indicate that leaders are tolerant to mistakes,trust employees,and want to get close to employees.This helps employees to see free expression as safe,thus giving them the courage to engage in constructive challenging behaviors.Employees’ reception and interpretation of information will be affected by their idiosyncrasies to some extent.Power distance reflects the degree to which an individual can accept the unequal distribution of power.Employees with high power distance believe that leaders have absolute authority and subordinates cannot change the working style and behavior of leaders.Therefore,they want to know what kind of leaders are,so that they are more sensitive to the words and actions of leaders.Moreover,employees with high power distance do not expect to get along with leaders equally and tend to believe that leaders’ self-deprecating humor is moral behavior.As a result,leaders who use self-deprecating humor are perceived as humbler.Based on the social information processing theory,this study believes that employee power distance will enhance the relationship between self-deprecating humor behavior of leaders and employees’ perception of humble leadership,as well as the indirect effect of self-deprecating humor behavior of leaders on employees’ constructive challenging behavior through employees’ perception of humble leadership.In addition,employees with high power distance want to establish formal relationships with their leaders.Leaders’ self-deprecating humor behaviors,which are intended to build personal relationships,do not meet their expectations.Moreover,the self-deprecating humor of leaders implies minor code violations and is not well received by employees with high power distance.Therefore,employee power distance will weaken the relationship between leaders’ self-deprecating humor behavior and employees’ psychological security,and the effect of leaders’ self-deprecating humor behavior indirectly on employees’ constructive challenging behavior through employees’ psychological security.In this study,by issuing an electronic questionnaire on the Credamo online platform,I obtained data.After analyzing the data of 357 subjects,it is found that the self-deprecating humor behavior of managers has a positive influence on the positive challenge behavior of employees.This influence can be played by both humble leadership perception and psychological security of employees.Employees’ humble leadership perception and psychological security partly mediate the influence of self-deprecating humor behavior on employees’ constructive challenging behavior.That is,leaders’ self-deprecating humor will increase employees’ constructive challenging behavior by increasing their humble leadership perception.Self-deprecating humor behaviors of leaders can also increase employees’ constructive challenging behaviors through their psychological security.The moderating effect of employee power distance has not been verified.In the end of the study,there are some suggestions that are made for organizations and managers,as well as prospects for future research.