Emotional labor directed at leaders: the differential effects of surface and deep acting on LMX

The Profiles and Antecedents of Supervisor-Directed Emotional Labor Strategies: The Role of Self-Identity and LMX Orientations in Emotional Labor Strategy

This study has two purposes. The first is to determine whether subordinates employ alternative combinations of emotion regulation strategies toward their supervisors beyond merely using surface and deep labor from the person-centered perspective. The second purpose is to understand why such acts of emotion regulation occur in interactions between employers and employees in the typical workplace. Utilizing latent profile analysis on data from 232 office employees in Beijing, China, collected using a two-stage sampling technique, four distinct supervisor-directed emotional labor profiles (i.e., deep actors, non-actors, moderators, and regulators) are identified. We find that these profiles are differentiated by several factors (i.e., individual identity, relational identity, and LMX orientations). Moreover, our findings suggest that employees exhibiting high levels of relational identity are more predisposed to act as deep actors, whereas individuals with high levels of individual identity are prone to being regulators as opposed to becoming deep actors, non-actors, or moderators. In addition, our results also suggest that LMX orientations have moderating effects on the relationships between self-identities and supervisor-directed emotional labor strategies. Overall, the results of this study expand the potential dimensionality of supervisor-directed emotion regulation strategies (e.g., regulating and non-acting) and bridge a gap in our understanding of the factors impacting supervisor-directed emotional labor.

Leader–follower interpersonal behaviors, emotional regulation and LMX quality

We investigate how a leader's perception of a follower's behaviours may impact the follower's perception of a leader's behaviours which in turn may relate to a leader's rating of the LMX quality. Multilevel multisource data were collected from 315 leader–member dyads in 27 military teams. At the dyadic level, a leader's perception of a follower was related to the follower's assessment of a leader's behaviours, which in turn, was positively related to how the leader rated their LMX quality. Finally, the leaders' emotional reappraisal moderated the link between a follower's perception of the leader's behaviours and leader rated LMX quality. LMX research continues to interrogate the role of the follower in the leader–follower process. The study sheds further light on how followers contribute to the leadership process.

Leader emotion regulation, leader-member exchange (LMX), and followers' task performance

Drawing on Social Exchange theory, we investigated the direct link between leaders' emotion regulation strategies (i.e., surface acting and deep acting) and follower task performance. In addition, we investigated the indirect link between leaders' emotion regulation strategies and follower task performance via leader-member exchange (LMX). Using survey data (N = 301) from the banking industry, we found that leader surface acting only has an indirect negative relationship with follower task performance via LMX, while leader deep acting has both a direct and an indirect positive relationship with follower task performance. The result showed that leader emotion regulation strategies perform a key role in enhancing/damaging LMX and that leaders need to be vigilant regarding their own emotional behaviors. That is, they can develop positive relationships with their followers by employing deep acting but that surface acting damages their relationship with followers. Implications of this study, limitations, and future research are discussed.