The leader feedback literature has paid considerable attention to the distinct and static effects of positive and negative feedback on employees, while overlooking the fact that leaders may shift their positive and negative feedback toward the same employees across time, which may jointly affect employees’ psychological experiences and work behaviors. In this study, we draw on the control theory (Carver & Scheier, 1998) to propose that an increase in leader positive feedback accompanied by a decrease in negative feedback from Time 0 to Time 1 has positive effects on employees’ felt trust at Time 1, which in turn leads to higher employee work engagement and task performance at Time 2. Results from two experience sampling studies provide support for our arguments. This study contributes to leader feedback research by proposing an integrative and dynamic perspective to investigate positive feedback and negative feedback simultaneously.
