16063: The Paradoxical Effects of Leader Anger Displays: A Within-Person Perspective on Work Engagement (session 25720)

Sunday, July 27, 2025

17:15 - 18:45 CEST (GMT+2)

Location: Bella Center: Hall B- B3-m7

Session Type: Paper Session
Shareable link: https://cdmcd.co/9WnpkP

Author(s)

YL

Yurong Liu

Hunan University, China
ZX

Zhengde Xiong

Hunan University
MT

March To

Graduate School of Business and Law RMIT U., Melbourne, Australia
XL

Xinxin Lu

Hunan U., China
ZY

Zhu YAO

Hunan U., China
Jz

Jialei zhu

Hunan University
LQ

Ling Qin

Hunan University

Leader anger displays in the workplace have complex effects on followers’ behaviors. To unravel this complexity, we adopt a within-person perspective, advancing the understanding of the transient nature of leader anger displays and their paradoxical effects on followers’ daily behaviors. Using Transactional stress theory as the theoretical lens, we investigate when daily leader anger displays on followers’ daily work engagement, through two opposing but potentially co-occurring daily coping responses (self-reflection and rumination). We collected daily data from 104 full-time employees over 10 consecutive workdays to test our model. Our findings show that the impacts of leaders’ daily anger displays operate through these mechanisms simultaneously: they promote daily adaptive self-reflection while simultaneously triggering maladaptive daily rumination, both of which ultimately influence followers’ daily work engagement. Moreover, followers’ perceived appropriateness of the leader’s emotional display acts as a key daily situation-based moderator, enhancing the relationship between leader anger and self-reflection, which, in turn, fosters follower engagement during the workday. This study provides theoretical insights into the dual pathways of leader anger displays and offers implications for managerial practice.

view paper (if available)