Integrating expectancy violation theory and self-conscious emotion theory, we propose that two forms of leader humor—aggressive humor and affiliative humor—differentially impact followers’ self-conscious emotions and subsequent performance and examine the moderating role of leader introversion in these relationships. In Study 1, we conduct an experiment and find that individuals indeed expect introverted leaders to be less likely to engage in affiliative and aggressive humor behaviors than extroverted leaders. Further, we test our full model in two experiments (Study 2a and 2b) and find support for our hypotheses that leader introversion amplifies the positive impact of affiliative humor on employee performance via employee pride while exacerbating the negative effects of aggressive humor on employee performance via employee shame. Replicating the findings from Study 2, we conduct a multi-wave and multi-source field study (Study 3) with 266 leaders and their followers, obtaining full support for our model. Our findings offer valuable insights for understanding how followers react to leader humor behaviors in their various forms and how leader introversion alters the relationships between different forms of leader humor and employee outcomes.
