Drawing upon the multidomain leadership development and self-verification theory, this study investigated the interplay between external evaluations from significant others at work and at home (i.e., explicit appraisal) and leaders’ leader identity in shaping leaders’ future leadership motivation following a leadership task. Specifically, we proposed that negative explicit appraisals from subordinates and life-partners would result in lower future leadership motivation compared to control condition, and that this relationship would be strengthened by leaders' own leader identity. Employing two scenario experiments, we found that negative explicit appraisal from subordinates (within-domain) negatively influenced leaders’ future leadership motivation, as predicted. However, leaders’ future leadership motivation was positively influenced by negative explicit appraisal from life-partners (cross-domain). Across both studies, we did not find the moderating effect of leader identity on the relationship between others’ explicit appraisal and future leadership motivation. Our findings demonstrate the varying effects of within-domain and cross-domain appraisals on leaders’ future leadership motivation. This study provides insights for leadership development programs, emphasizing that comprehensive feedback systems should include multiple life domains.
