Result: After shocks: Humble leadership improves employee adjustment following shock events.
Original Publication: Washington [etc.]
Further Information
Shock events are highly disruptive, threatening employees' performance and increasing the risk that they quit. Yet, little research has focused on how leaders can help employees adjust in the wake of shock events. We draw on the socialization literature to build theory about how leaders can help employees successfully adjust and adapt following shock events. We propose that humble leaders-because they are open to learning from and seeing value in employees' shock-related experiences-will be more likely to use adjustment behavior that reduces employee turnover and promotes employee performance. Focusing on the COVID-19 pandemic as a nearly universal shock event, we find evidence for our hypothesized effects across two multisource field studies (N = 2,392). Specifically, we find that humble leadership is positively related to affirming employees' shock-related experiences and giving employees autonomy over how they approach work following shock, ultimately reducing turnover and enhancing employee performance. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).
After Shocks: Humble Leadership Improves Employee Adjustment Following Shock Events
<cn> <bold>By: Grace Mele-Cormier</bold>>
> <bold>Daniel M. Cable</bold>
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> <bold>Sergey Gorbatov</bold>
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<bold>Acknowledgement: </bold>Talya N. Bauer served as action editor.This work was presented at invited talks at the University of British Columbia and the University of Washington and was submitted to the 2025 Academy of Management Meeting.The authors thank Julia Lee Cunningham, Ussama Kahn, Ting Zhang, and members of the DevelopMentor Lab at Harvard Business School for their feedback on prior drafts of this work. The authors also thank the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard for their statistical consulting.Grace Mele-Cormier played a lead role in conceptualization, data curation, formal analysis, methodology, project administration, writing–original draft, and writing–review and editing. Daniel M. Cable played a lead role in conceptualization, methodology, supervision and writing–review, and editing a supporting role in data curation, formal analysis, and writing–original draft. Sergey Gorbatov played a lead role in data curation for Study 2 and a supporting role in writing–review and editing.
During their organizational tenure many employees will experience shocks, defined as disruptive, novel, and critical events (Crawford et al., 2019; Morgeson et al., 2015). Shock events might include losing a family member, moving to another country as an expat, working for a company that is merged or acquired, or living through a global pandemic. Because of their disruptiveness, shock events often create or expose misalignment between an individual’s evolving thoughts, behaviors, and identities and those of their organization (Burton et al., 2010; Hennekam et al., 2021; Mitchell & Lee, 2001). As such, after shocks, individuals may be concerned about the extent to which their shock-related experiences can be integrated at work (Cable et al., 2013; Harris et al., 2014). If employees are not able to successfully adjust in the wake of shock events they are at risk of quitting. Indeed, research has found that shocks result in turnover in over 60% of cases (Becker & Cropanzano, 2011; Burton et al., 2010; Holtom et al., 2005, 2017; Lee & Mitchell, 1994; Mitchell & Lee, 2001; Shapiro et al., 2016).
Thus, it is important to understand how leaders can help employees adjust following the shocks they experience. In this article, we borrow from socialization research, which examines how organizations help employees adjust following significant transitions (Bauer et al., 1998; Chao et al., 1994; Ladge & Greenberg, 2015; Van Maanen & Schein, 1979), to build theory about why some leader behaviors are more likely to help employees adjust following a shock (compared to other leader behaviors). Though socialization research usually focuses on helping employees adjust as they are first introduced to the organization, the fundamental tenets of socialization theory are relevant whenever employees must adapt or adjust to new circumstances (Feldman, 1989; Louis, 1980; R. F. Morrison & Hock, 1986; Van Maanen & Schein, 1979). Given that shocks may upend employees’ sense of “fit” or alignment at work, we theorize that leaders should focus on facilitating employees’ adjustment by affirming their shock-related experiences and providing employees with autonomy as they adapt to work (Gabriel et al., 2023; Hennekam et al., 2021; Kossek et al., 2021; Kraimer et al., 2012; Ladge et al., 2012, 2018; Reiche & George, 2024). We posit that employees who experience this adjustment behavior from their leaders will ultimately be less likely to quit and more likely to perform better after shocks.
In this article, we theorize that humble leaders will be especially likely to help employees navigate adjustment successfully. This is because at the heart of humble leadership is an openness to new information and perspectives—demonstrating not only a willingness to receive information but also a tendency to see value in it (Owens et al., 2013). Conceptually, then, humble leaders should be more likely to engage in adjustment behavior that reflects their curiosity about and appreciation of employees’ shock-related experiences and their openness to granting employees autonomy during adjustment. Moreover, organizations often lack institutionalized scripts for how to help employees adjust after shocks (Crawford et al., 2019; Morgeson et al., 2015). Helping employees adjust, therefore, may require leaders to proactively engage with employees about their shock experiences, which logically is aligned with humble leaders’ “tendency to approach interpersonal interaction with a strong motive for learning through others” (Owens et al., 2013, p. 1519).
We test our hypotheses about humble leaders’ postshock adjustment behavior in the context of employees returning to in-person work following the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 was a nearly universal shock event (Bolino et al., 2024; Slaughter et al., 2021; Yuan et al., 2021) that required employees to adapt to new circumstances (Akkermans et al., 2020; Hennekam et al., 2021; Kossek et al., 2021; Reiche & George, 2024; Vaziri et al., 2020) and threatened employees’ relationships with their work and organization (Ashforth, 2020; Bolino et al., 2024). Following the shock of COVID-19, many employees had to assess whether the thoughts, behaviors, and identities they adopted in response to the shock could be carried forward when returning to in-person work (Hennekam et al., 2021; Reiche & George, 2024). This period of adjustment is often marked by uncertainty about whether employees feel they can fit into the organization, which threatens their ability to successfully adjust (Hepburn et al., 2010; Kraimer et al., 2023; Ladge & Greenberg, 2015; Van Maanen & Schein, 1979). Indeed, concerns about fit characterize adjustment following many shocks and significant work–life events such as those represented in Table 1: a new mother returning to her job following maternity leave (Chawla et al., 2024; Ladge & Greenberg, 2015; Ladge et al., 2018; Little & Masterson, 2023; Sumpter et al., 2024), an expat repatriating after a period abroad (Kraimer et al., 2012), or an employee returning to work after illness, injury, or bereavement (Haynie & Shepherd, 2011; Hepburn et al., 2010; Maitlis, 2009; Parsons et al., 2008; Pitimson, 2021). In the specific case of adjusting following the shock of COVID-19, nearly 50% of employees experienced postpandemic “reentry anxiety” (American Psychological Association, 2021), more than 40% of all employees considered leaving their jobs, and over 24 million American employees quit—an all-time record (Sull et al., 2022).
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Our work makes several contributions to the literature. First, we add an important lens to how leaders can help employees adjust following shock events (Crawford et al., 2019; Morgeson et al., 2015), reducing the likelihood that employees leave the organization. The preponderance of research on shock events has focused on the identity work that employees undergo in response to shocks (e.g., Crawford et al., 2019; Hennekam et al., 2021; Kossek et al., 2021; Reiche & George, 2024) and on factors that can serve as “buffers” following shock events (Mitchell et al., 2001; Morgeson & DeRue, 2006; Shapiro et al., 2016; Wordsworth & Nilakant, 2021; for a review, see Hom et al., 2017). For example, research has examined how the deleterious effects of shocks can be reduced by the quality of one’s social relationships (Shapiro et al., 2016), features of one’s job tasks (Burton et al., 2010; Mitchell & Lee, 2001), the competitiveness of one’s compensation (Kammeyer-Mueller et al., 2005), and one’s ties to communities outside of work (Feldman et al., 2012). Other research has revealed that, to reengage with work following shocks, employees use proactive strategies such as mental preparation and anticipatory deliberation of upcoming work tasks (Yuan et al., 2021). What is largely missing from this literature is how leaders can help employees adjust after they experience shock events.
Second, we extend the organizational socialization literature by focusing on the adjustment process of incumbent employees instead of newcomers. As recently noted by Bolino et al. (2024, p. 435), the “vast literature on newcomer sense making and adjustment (e.g., Louis, 1980) suggests that work transitions can be challenging and have a significant effect on employee attachment” and could be leveraged to “understand how employees are successfully navigating the return to work.” Supporting incumbent adjustment during transitions such as those following shocks harkens back to early conceptual work on socialization (e.g., Van Maanen & Schein, 1979, p. 7), which suggested that while the need for adjustment is “probably most obvious when a person first enters the organization,” it is relevant to “all passages undergone by members of an organization.” Efforts to help employees adjust are therefore relevant after shock events (Bolino et al., 2024; George et al., 2022), which are disruptive by nature (Morgeson et al., 2015) and often lead to quitting (Mitchell & Lee, 2001). Our work shows how socialization theory can be applied to understanding how leaders can help employees adjust in response to shocks and significant events (Jun & Wu, 2021; Yuan et al., 2021).
Finally, we add to the leadership literature by examining how humble leaders fare during times of uncertainty and change (Kelemen et al., 2023), when leaders are often expected to serve “as psychological anchors” (J. Kim et al., 2021, p. 1292). While humble leadership is often evaluated positively by employees (Chiu et al., 2016; Owens & Hekman, 2012; Owens et al., 2013, 2015; Wang et al., 2018), recent work suggests that during uncertainty humble leaders may be perceived as weak and lacking authority (Kakkar & Sivanathan, 2017; Qin et al., 2020; Zapata & Hayes-Jones, 2019). For example, a participant in Owens et al.’s (2013, p. 796) investigation of humble leadership acknowledged that “humility could be perceived as weakness unless the leader is also perceived as confident and effective,” a sentiment reinforced by a humble leader who said, “I
Adjustment After Shock
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As noted in the introduction, we draw on Morgeson et al.’s (2015) characterization of a shock event as having three distinct features: a sense of disruption, novelty, and criticality. An event is
The upending experiences associated with shocks may therefore “unfreeze” individuals (Lewin, 1951), motivating sensemaking, self-reflection, and identity work (Alvesson & Willmott, 2002; Ashforth, 2001; Beech, 2011; Beech et al., 2012; Haynie & Shepherd, 2011; Hennekam et al., 2021; Kossek et al., 2021; Maitlis, 2009; Maitlis & Christianson, 2014; Reiche & George, 2024) as well as behavioral change (Crawford et al., 2019; Morgeson et al., 2015). Indeed, shock events such as COVID-19 often prompt individuals to “think about their work, about who they [are] and who they [want] to become” (Reiche & George, 2024, p. 208). In the specific case of COVID-19, without the usual workplace boundaries many employees found that nonwork roles and identities received greater activation (e.g., roles of parent, partner, community member; Kossek et al., 2021), revealing new information about their thoughts, behaviors, and identities (George et al., 2022; Thatcher & Zhu, 2006; Vaziri et al., 2020). For example, research shows that the shock of COVID-19 spurred changes to many employees’ work–life boundaries, deepened the meaning that employees’ extract from their jobs, increased the perceived value of work relationships, and prompted employees to reject old ways of working that follow ideal worker norms in favor of self-expression (Hennekam et al., 2021; Kossek et al., 2021; Reiche & George, 2024; Vaziri et al., 2020).
Following shock events, individuals must decide how much of their shock-related experiences can be integrated with how they work moving forward. For example, during the return to in-person work following COVID-19, employees may have sought to adjust how they approached work based on changes to their work–life boundaries (Kossek et al., 2021; Vaziri et al., 2020), their desire to cater to ideal norms of professionalism (Hennekam et al., 2021; Kossek et al., 2021), or their views of appropriate work attire (Shapira, 2022). Research on shocks and significant work–life events (see Table 1) suggests that when employees do not feel their shock-related experiences are recognized and legitimized by their social world during this period of adjustment, they experience emotional distress and feelings of inauthenticity (Ibarra & Barbulescu, 2010; Jun & Wu, 2021; Swann et al., 2009). Thus, postshock adjustment can be fraught and can prevent employees from being able to fully engage with their work, reducing performance and causing them to leave their organization for alternative spaces in which they receive self-validation (Cable & Kay, 2012; Yuan et al., 2021).
To develop theory about how leaders can help employees adjust following shock events, we draw from research on organizational socialization (Bauer et al., 2007; Cable et al., 2013; Harris et al., 2014; Jones, 1986; Van Maanen & Schein, 1979). Organizational socialization refers to an adjustment process by which employees acquire the values, expected behaviors, and social knowledge needed to assume an active role as an organizational member (Bauer et al., 1998; Van Maanen & Schein, 1979). The socialization literature rests on the notion that employees seek to reduce uncertainty about how they can enact their roles by increasing the predictability of interactions within their environment (Bauer et al., 2007; Berger & Calabrese, 1975; Ellis et al., 2015). Accordingly, much socialization research has examined adjustment behavior that aims to reduce employees’ ambiguity about how they should behave (Cable et al., 2013; Jones, 1986), transmitting the organization’s behavioral norms and culture (Ashforth & Saks, 1996; Bauer et al., 1998; T. Y. Kim et al., 2005) and shifting employees’ identity-related attributes to align with those of the organization (Cable & Parsons, 2001; Jones, 1986).
However, following Van Maanen and Schein (1979, p. 250), Cable et al. (2013) proposed that rather than achieving alignment by shifting employees’ identities to match those of the organization, organizations may instead “take advantage of and build upon the skills, values, and attitudes” that employees already possess. This perspective recognizes that, in addition to being motivated to reduce uncertainty during adjustment, employees also seek environments in which they feel seen and understood (Cable & Kay, 2012; Swann & Schreiner, 2016). This approach may be particularly relevant following shock events, which trigger “judgments about how well an individual can integrate his or her values” at work which must pass an “acceptability threshold to indicate staying with the current organization” (Mitchell & Lee, 2001, p. 204). As such, an important issue following shocks is when employees experience social validation that helps legitimize their shock-related experiences and offers flexibility to draw on those experiences at work (Chawla et al., 2024; Kossek et al., 2021; Kraimer et al., 2012, 2023; Ladge et al., 2012; Little & Masterson, 2023).
We argue below that leaders can successfully support employees’ postshock adjustment by affirming their shock-related experiences and providing minimal structure around how employees approach adjustment (Jun & Wu, 2021; Kossek et al., 2021; Yuan et al., 2021). We focus on leaders’ behavior, because leaders “often have significant discretion in providing support and information to followers” and therefore may be more or less suited to help employees successfully adjust following shocks (Ellis et al., 2017, p. 993; Bolino et al., 2024; Harris et al., 2014). As Freeney et al. (2022, p. 1776) suggested, after shock events “the relationship between the manager and [employee] becomes an important resource in and of itself as a tool for navigating uncertainty.”
Although some research has highlighted the importance of identity validation and structural support when it comes to postshock employee adjustment (Bolino et al., 2024; Chawla et al., 2024; Jun & Wu, 2021; Kossek et al., 2021; Kraimer et al., 2012; Ladge et al., 2012; Little & Masterson, 2023), research has yet to recognize why some approaches to leadership may aid successful adjustment (Bolino et al., 2024). Below, we develop hypotheses around the role of leader humility, focusing on the ways that humble leaders are prone to engage with employees following shocks. We examine this idea explicitly in our article by testing humble leadership relative to other positive styles of leadership including inspirational and idealized approaches (Bass & Avolio, 1995).
<h31 id="apl-111-1-91-d19e746">Humble Leadership and Adjustment Behavior</h31>Humble leadership research takes an interpersonal view, defining humility as a characteristic that is expressed through one’s interactions with others (Davis et al., 2010, 2011; Owens et al., 2013). Humble leadership is manifested through (a) an appreciation of other’s strengths and contributions, (b) an openness to learning and seeking input from outside sources, and (c) a willingness to see oneself accurately and acknowledge one’s limitations (Owens et al., 2013). As such, humble leadership may reflect a leader’s absorptive capacity (Owens et al., 2013) or the ability to recognize, assimilate, and use new information gained through interpersonal interactions (Zahra & George, 2002). It is these tendencies that make humble leadership especially relevant during adjustment following shock events.
When helping employees adjust in the wake of a shock event, we focus on two classes of leader adjustment behavior—affirming adjustment behavior and structured adjustment behavior—which have been shown to influence employee adjustment in past research (Bauer et al., 2007, 2025; Chawla et al., 2024; Kossek et al., 2021). Leaders’ affirming adjustment behavior lies on a continuum, with less affirming behavior indicating less validation and support, and more affirming behavior indicating more validation and support (Bauer et al., 2007; Cable & Parsons, 2001; Jones, 1986; Jun & Wu, 2021; Kossek et al., 2021; Van Maanen & Schein, 1979; Yuan et al., 2021). Past research has suggested that, when adjusting to work following a major life event, employees feel affirmed when their experiences are recognized and they feel safe to self-express at work (Chawla et al., 2024; Jun & Wu, 2021; Kraimer et al., 2012; Ladge & Greenberg, 2015). As such, in the specific case of helping employees adjust during return to in-person work following the COVID-19 pandemic, adjustment behavior aimed at affirming employees likely involved efforts to learn about employees’ shock-related experiences, to convey employees’ experiences as a valuable resource, and to help employees feel empowered to apply their experiences moving forward. For example, leaders may have tried to learn about how employees changed their work–life boundaries during COVID, and how they want to carry forward or adapt these boundaries when returning to the workplace (Hennekam et al., 2021; Kossek et al., 2021; Reiche & George, 2024).
We theorize that humble leaders will be more likely to engage in adjustment behavior that affirms employees’ shock-related experiences. Humble leadership reflects an orientation toward learning from employees as well as an appreciation of others’ strengths, efforts, and contributions (Chiu et al., 2016; Owens & Hekman, 2012, 2016). Humble leaders often show “openness to new ideas and information, ha[ve] a habit of listening before speaking, and [are] very receptive to feedback” (Owens & Hekman, 2012, p. 798). Such behavior often increases employees’ sense of validation by helping them to see their own strengths (Owens et al., 2013), to feel authentic (Oc et al., 2020), and to experience psychological safety (Hu et al., 2018), even when they fall short (Chawla et al., 2024). Indeed, employees of humble leaders often feel “‘freed’ to risk being transparent about their own developmental process and show others, without self-denigration, how they [are] working to bridge the gap between their real and ideal selves” (Owens & Hekman, 2012, p. 803). As such, humble leaders should be more likely to ask employees about their shock-related experiences, soliciting employees’ unique perspectives and signaling to employees that their experiences are valuable resources that should be utilized as they enact their roles. Thus, we hypothesize:
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We next theorize that humble leadership will influence the degree of structure that leaders offer employees to help them adjust after experiencing a shock event. Structured adjustment behavior lies on a continuum from more flexible behavior to more regimented behavior when it comes to setting norms, expectations, and guidelines (Bauer et al., 2007; Cable & Parsons, 2001; Jones, 1986; Kossek et al., 2021; Van Maanen & Schein, 1979). In the case of adjustment during return to in-person work following the COVID-19 pandemic, structured adjustment behavior involved defining how, when, and where employees could carry out their work as they returned to the workplace, instead of providing flexibility (Bolino et al., 2024; Kossek et al., 2021). Specifically, leaders who engaged in more structured adjustment behavior might dictate where and when employees work—for example, from home or the office as well as the hours employees must be “online” or in the office (Kossek et al., 2021; Westfall, 2025). Leaders who engaged in highly structured adjustment behavior also might have offered guidelines on what days employees should schedule meetings and focused time or about the timeliness with which employees respond to correspondence (Boyle, 2023; Kossek et al., 2021).
We theorize that humble leadership will be negatively associated with structured adjustment behavior. Instead, we predict that humble leaders will grant employees autonomy to choose the work schedule and approaches that are most effective for them following shock events. Past research suggests that humble leaders are more flexible, often “recogniz[ing] there are a lot of different ways to accomplish something” (Owens & Hekman, 2012, p. 804). Indeed, during times of stress and change, humble leaders’ “acknowledgment of their own uncertainty helped to validate followers’ uncertainty and encouraged an environment of experimentation and learning dialogue” (Owens & Hekman, 2012, p. 804). Moreover, humble leaders often display receptivity and openness to others’ ideas, seeking to cocreate solutions that work for everyone (Owens & Hekman, 2012, p. 798). As such, rather than dictating how employees should adjust to work following shock events, we expect humble leaders to demonstrate flexibility, allowing more autonomy in how employees set up their schedules and work processes (Chiu et al., 2016; Ou et al., 2014, 2018; Owens & Hekman, 2012, 2016). Therefore, we hypothesize:
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We argue that when employees experience humble leaders’ adjustment behavior following shock events—that is, providing affirmation and minimal structure—they will be less likely to quit and more likely to demonstrate high performance. This is because when leaders adopt adjustment behavior that affirms employees’ shock-related experiences, they signal to employees that they have a place in the organization without having to mold or hide aspects of themselves that do not fit (Caza et al., 2018; Ely & Thomas, 2001; Ramarajan & Reid, 2013). When employees receive social affirmation, they may be more likely to develop high-quality relationships with organizational insiders (Bauer et al., 2007, 2025), which can promote employees’ social embeddedness (E. W. Morrison, 2002), increasing employees’ attachment to their organizations and reducing the likelihood that they quit (Bauer et al., 1998; Cable & DeRue, 2002; Cable & Kay, 2012; Cable et al., 2013). Moreover, research suggests that adjustment behavior aimed at affirming employees helps employees feel safe to self-express (Cable et al., 2013; Jun & Wu, 2021;Madjar et al., 2002; Montani et al., 2019; Tu et al., 2019), allowing them to feel alignment at work (Kammeyer-Mueller et al., 2012; Montani et al., 2019). Thus, employees will divert fewer cognitive resources to cope with misalignment (Hewlin, 2003; Higgins, 1989; Settles et al., 2002) and experience less strain as a result (Jun & Wu, 2021; Karelaia & Guillén, 2014). Instead, employees should feel more equipped to reveal and use their shock-related experiences without fear of negative consequences, increasing engagement and performance (Cable & Kay, 2012; Cable et al., 2013; Kahn, 1990; Kammeyer-Mueller et al., 2012; Montani et al., 2019). Thus, we hypothesize:
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Theoretically, when returning employees receive less rigid structure and demands about how to approach work following shocks, they are better able to make self-determined choices that align with their values, ultimately supporting their adjustment. In this way, less structured adjustment behavior gives employees the autonomy to integrate their own approaches to working with the expectations of their role (Ebrahimi et al., 2020; Montani et al., 2019), promoting employees’ perceptions of fit and reducing the likelihood that they leave. Research suggests that employees attach themselves to organizations and perform better when they feel greater fit (Bauer et al., 1998; Cable & DeRue, 2002), whereas perceptions of low fit cause employees to pursue alternative environments that are more self-aligned (Bauer et al., 2007, 2025; Light et al., 2018; Swann, 1990). Moreover, environments that allow for self-determined adjustment increase the likelihood that employees attribute their behavior and related outcomes to internal, self-driven causes (Cable et al., 2013; Kernis & Goldman, 2006; Montani et al., 2019), giving employees a greater sense self-control (Jiang et al., 2023). Thus, less rigid adjustment behaviors should increase the energy that employees dedicate to their performance (Herman & Tetrick, 2009; Kammeyer-Mueller et al., 2012; Montani et al., 2019). As such, we theorize:
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Overview of Studies
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We present our full model in Figure 1, which we test across two studies. In Study 1, we use a multiwave field survey to examine how leader humility affects leaders’ postshock adjustment behavior (Hypotheses 1 and 2) and to test whether humble leaders’ affirming and structured adjustment behavior mediate negative pathways to employee turnover intentions (Hypotheses 3–5). In Study 2, using multisource field data, we confirm our findings from Study 1 and extend that research by examining employees’ actual turnover decisions (Hypotheses 3–5) and job performance (Hypotheses 6–8) following shock. In Table 2, we provide a summary of the goals of each study and key evidence.<anchor name="b-fn1"></anchor><sups>1</sups>
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Data for Studies 1 and 2 were collected during the spring of 2021, during the first push to return to in-person work following the COVID-19 pandemic. Though employees in both samples had not yet made the physical transition from remote to in-person work, research shows that individuals undergoing such transitions begin to psychologically adjust before they physically adjust (e.g., George et al., 2022; Rouse, 2016). This aligns with socialization theory, which suggests that adjustment is often most relevant just before and just after boundary crossing (Van Maanen & Schein, 1979). As such, we focus on leaders’ affirming and structured adjustment behavior just before employees’ first day back in the physical workplace (Wanberg, 2012).
<h31 id="apl-111-1-91-d19e1119">Transparency and Openness</h31>We describe our sampling plan, all data exclusions (if any), manipulations, and study measures below following the
Study 1
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In the spring of 2021, we recruited full-time employees who were anticipating a return to in-person work in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. To mitigate problems with one-shot surveys such as mood effects and hypothesis guessing, we measured our predictor and outcome variables approximately 1 week apart (Podsakoff et al., 2003). Specifically, we first conducted an eligibility survey in which we assessed individuals’ demographics and experiences with return to in-person work following COVID-19. One week later, we measured humble leadership and leaders’ adjustment behavior at Time 1. In addition to testing our main hypotheses, we also used Study 1 to test the importance of other styles of leadership, which we also measured at Time 1. Finally, 1 week after T1, we measured employee turnover intentions at Time 2.<anchor name="b-fn2"></anchor><sups>2</sups>
<h31 id="apl-111-1-91-d19e1137">Method</h31><bold>Sample and Procedures</bold>
To recruit participants for Study 1, we used Dynata, a survey panel company. Our goal was a final sample of 500 participants. Based on expected attrition across survey waves, Dynata estimated that we should aim to recruit approximately 2,000 eligible participants. Our initial survey assessed employees’ eligibility, as well as their expectations about returning to the office and demographics. Participants were eligible to participate if they were working full time, had a supervisor at work, transitioned from working in an office to working from home at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and were anticipating a return to work in person at least 1 day a week. We successfully recruited 1,905 eligible employees, of which 1,192 also completed Survey 1 (63% of our eligible sample). Six hundred fifty-eight participants completed Survey 2 (55% of Survey 1 respondents). At the start of each survey, we included an attention check to screen participants such that only participants who completed our attention check<anchor name="b-fn3"></anchor><sups>3</sups> continued forward to complete our survey measures. A total of 658 individuals completed all three surveys (
Participant Attrition
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Although our 35% overall response rate was consistent with past multiwave survey-based adjustment research (e.g., 37% reported by Dufour et al., 2021 and Ellis et al., 2017), we assessed whether participants who remained in the study were different from participants who dropped out. Participants who completed both the eligibility and T1 surveys did not differ in the percentage of female participants (completed eligibility and T1: 47% female; only completed eligibility: 45% female) or income (average range for both groups: $110,000–119,999) compared to participants who only completed the eligibility survey. We also compared participants who responded to the T1 survey but not the final T2 survey. These two groups did not differ on gender or income, and also did not differ on characteristics of their return to in-person work experience or any of the variables in our model: humble leadership (all
<bold>Survey Measures</bold>
Humble Leadership
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To measure leader humility, we used Owens et al. (2013) nine-item scale of leader humility (e.g., “My leader is open to the ideas of others,” and “My leader takes notice of others’ strengths”; see Table 1 in the additional online material for all items). Employees rated their leaders on a Likert scale, where 1 =
Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire
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To establish the discriminant validity of our predictions, we examined whether humble leadership, compared to other leadership dimensions, has unique power in predicting leaders’ adjustment behavior. Following Northouse (2021) and Cable and Judge (2003), who placed transformational–transactional leadership along a continuum ranging from effective to ineffective leadership, we used the Multi-Factor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ; Antonakis et al., 2003; Bass & Avolio, 1995) to measure other forms of leadership. Following Cable and Judge (2003), we used four-item scales to measure idealized influence (α = .88) and inspirational motivation (α = .92) as the transformational and effective end point, and we measured management-by-exception (α = 0.85) and laissez-faire leadership (α = .92) as the transactional and least effective end point. Participants rated their agreement with each item on a Likert scale, where 1 =
Leader Adjustment Behavior
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We adapted a measure of adjustment behavior focusing on newcomer adjustment (Jones, 1986) to the domain of adjusting to in-person work following the COVID-19 pandemic. Our three items for affirming adjustment behavior were: “My leader wants to learn from my experiences working from home to make the workplace better,” “My leader is empowering me to apply what I learned from my experiences working from home to how I work in the office,” and “My leader views what I learned from my experiences working from home as a valuable resource” (α = .97). The three items for structured adjustment behavior were: “My leader is defining how I can structure my work when returning to the office,” “There are clear guidelines that I must follow for how I can structure my work when I return to the office,” “My leader is dictating the norms and expectations around how I can work when they return to the office” (α = .89). For both scales, participants rated their agreement with each item on a Likert scale, where 1 =
Turnover Intentions
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We measured employees’ turnover intentions using three items from Boroff and Lewin (1997): “I am seriously considering quitting this job for an alternative employer,” “During the next year, I will probably look for a new job,” and “I do not expect to remain in this job for much longer.” Participants rated their agreement with each item on a Likert scale, where 1 =
Demographic Control Variables
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To better isolate the effects of our key variables on employees’ return to in-person work experiences, we included relevant controls in our analyses. Given that gender and income (1 = less than $10,000, 2 = $10,000–$19,999, 3 = $20,000–$29,999, …, 21 = more than $200,000) might have affected employees’ experiences working from home (Awada et al., 2021; Bolino et al., 2024), it is possible they might also influence return to in-person work experiences, and thus we included them in the analyses. Similarly, a change in employees’ job demands may have increased stress during return to in-person work (Ellis et al., 2015, 2023), and therefore, we included a measure of whether employees were expected to return to normal upon returning to in-person work (i.e., “My company expects that things go back to the way they were before the pandemic when we return to the office”; 1 =
See Table 3 for descriptive statistics and correlations for variables used in Study 1. Notably, we find positive correlations between humble leadership and both adjustment behaviors, such that the relationship between humble leadership and structured adjustment behavior is opposite to Hypothesis 2 (i.e., positive instead of the hypothesized negative relationship).
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To test our measurement model and establish the distinctiveness of our constructs, we conducted confirmatory factor analyses in
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To test our hypotheses about the relationship between humble leadership, leader adjustment behavior, and employee turnover, we conducted a series of ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analyses. Specifically, we fit three separate linear regressions: one with humble leadership predicting affirming adjustment behavior, one with humble leadership predicting structured adjustment behavior, and one with humble leadership predicting employee turnover intentions. For each regression analysis, we first entered our predictor variables without controls, then we entered just the controls, and then both our predictors and controls. Standardized estimates are reported below, which were produced using the
>
><anchor name="tbl5"></anchor>
Hypothesis 1 predicted that humble leadership would be positively associated with affirming adjustment behavior. As shown in Table 5, Step 3, humble leadership was positively associated with affirming adjustment behavior (β = 0.77,
Hypothesis 2 predicted that humble leadership would be negatively associated with structured adjustment behavior. As shown in Table 5, Step 7, humble leadership was
We also tested the relative importance of humble leadership in predicting adjustment behavior compared to other leadership styles (i.e., leader idealized influence, inspirational motivation, management-by-exception, and laissez-faire leadership). As shown in Table 5, Step 4, when including additional leadership styles from the MLQ in our models with humble leadership predicting adjustment behavior, the positive association between humble leadership and affirming adjustment behavior remained significant (β = 0.45,
We conducted relative weight analysis (Johnson, 2000; Tonidandel & LeBreton, 2015) to test the proportional contribution of humble leadership and the leadership styles of the MLQ on adjustment behavior using the
For structured adjustment behavior, relative weight analysis revealed that humble leadership was not responsible for the largest portion of the total variance predicted. Instead, idealized influence explained the greatest portion of variance predicted (45%), followed by inspirational motivation (28%), humble leadership (20%), and the other leadership styles (management-by-exception: 4%; laissez-faire leadership: 3%). Results revealed that leader idealized influence was more strongly associated with structured adjustment behavior than humble leadership,
Hypothesis 3 states that humble leadership will be negatively associated with employee turnover intentions. We find that after including our control variables, humble leadership was negatively associated with employees’ intent to turnover, β = −0.31,
Hypotheses 4 and 5 state that humble leaders’ affirming adjustment behavior and structured adjustment behavior mediate negative pathways to employee turnover intentions. After accounting for leaders’ adjustment behavior, we find the negative effect of humble leadership on turnover intentions was still significant, though reduced (β = −0.20,
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><anchor name="fig2"></anchor>
Finally, we find that when adding the MLQ leadership dimensions to our parallel mediation model, the pathway between humble leadership and turnover intentions through affirming adjustment behavior remained significant (
In Study 1, we tested the relationships between humble leadership, leader adjustment behavior, and employees’ intentions to turnover following shock. Results showed that leader humility is positively associated with behaviors that affirm employees’ shock-related experiences, which mediate a negative pathway to employee turnover intentions. Taken together, these results suggest that—controlling for other leadership styles—the primary way that humble leaders help employees adjust following shock is negatively related to employees’ turnover intentions.
Results also showed that leader humility is positively associated with structured adjustment behavior (although the effect size for structured adjustment behavior was much smaller and did not hold when controlling for other MLQ leadership dimensions). This finding is inconsistent with Hypothesis 2.<anchor name="b-fn6"></anchor><sups>6</sups> It is possible that humble leaders simply engage in more adjustment behavior across the board than their less humble counterparts. Given their other-orientation, humble leaders may try to help ease employees’ transition by offering more (vs. less) structure while also providing more (vs. less) affirmation. Another possible explanation is that humble leaders faced organizational constraints around how to help employees adjust—for example, many organizations mandated “work-from-home” policies that stipulated who could work-from-home and how often (Wong & Bottorff, 2023). Indeed, we found that structured adjustment behavior was positively associated with organizations’ expectations to return to normal (
A limitation of Study 1 is that we focused on employees across many organizations, with little insight into how much of the variance in adjustment behavior was due to leader discretion versus organizational expectations. Furthermore, even though we separated our data collection across two time periods, all data were self-reported. For example, we focused on self-reported turnover intentions without knowing whether these intentions translated into actual turnover or performance difficulties. To address these limitations, in Study 2, we collected data from a single organization that granted supervisors discretion over their adjustment behavior. We also merged data from multiple sources, examining employees’ actual turnover decisions as well as their performance evaluations following their return to the workplace.
Study 2
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The aim of Study 2 was to examine the effect of humble leadership and leaders’ adjustment behavior on employees’ actual turnover and performance (Hypotheses 1–8). We preregistered our hypotheses related to turnover, which can be found at
<bold>Sample and Procedure</bold>
We surveyed employees at a large pharmaceutical company in the spring of 2021, when they were still working from home but anticipating a return to in-office work. We paired our survey data (humble leadership and leader adjustment behavior) with employees’ subsequent turnover data and performance data that we received from the organization.<anchor name="b-fn7"></anchor><sups>7</sups> Therefore, as in Study 1, we capture leaders’ adjustment behavior just prior to employees’ physical return to work, while extending Study 1 by examining employees’ adjustment outcomes 6 months after return to in-person work.
We opened our survey to just over 2,100 employees from the United States who signed up to participate in an online seminar offered by the organization as part of an ongoing seminar series. A total of 1,760 U.S. full-time employees completed the survey (∼84%), of which 1,607 had available performance data (91%;
<bold>Survey Measures</bold>
Humble Leadership
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We measured leader humility using the same Owens et al.’s (2013) items from Study 1. Employees rated their leaders on a Likert scale, where 1 =
Leader’s Adjustment Behavior
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We used the same items from Study 1 to measure leaders’ affirming adjustment behavior (α = .93) and structured adjustment behavior (α = .84).
Employee Turnover
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We obtained data from the company regarding turnover that occurred within 6 months of our survey, because that was most proximal to employees’ return to in-person work and was the time period when many employees pursued other jobs as part of “the Great Resignation” (Sull et al., 2022). We coded turnover as a binary variable, where 0 =
Employee Performance
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Employees’ performance was rated once per year by their primary supervisors on a 1–5 scale, with 1 =
Demographic Control Variables
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We included controls to better isolate the effects of our key variables on employees’ return to in-person work experiences. As in Study 1, we included variables that could have impacted employees’ work-from-home experiences, including employee gender (male, female), level (professional, manager, director) and tenure (in years). We also included employee function (other, commercial, corporate functions, operations, and research & development), as some work is more difficult to perform at home and might have influenced the nature of employees’ return to in-person work experiences.
<h31 id="apl-111-1-91-d19e1532">Results</h31>See Table 6 for descriptive statistics and correlations between the variables in Study 2. Consistent with Study 1, results revealed a positive correlation between humble leadership and both types of leader adjustment behavior and therefore did not support Hypothesis 2.
>
><anchor name="tbl6"></anchor>
To test our hypotheses about the relationship between humble leadership, leader adjustment behavior, and our outcome variables of employee turnover and performance, we first fit separate linear regressions: one with humble leadership predicting affirming adjustment behavior and another with humble leadership predicting structured adjustment behavior. We next fit a binomial regression model with humble leadership predicting employee turnover, because it is a dichotomous variable (Horrace & Oaxaca, 2006). Finally, we fit an OLS model with humble leadership predicting employee performance. For each regression analysis, we first entered our predictor variables without controls, then we entered just the controls, and then both our predictors and controls. As in Study 1, we report standardized estimates for linear regression produced using the
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><anchor name="tbl7"></anchor>
>
><anchor name="tbl8"></anchor>
>
><anchor name="tbl9"></anchor>
To establish the distinctiveness of our constructs, we conducted four confirmatory factor analyses in R with
>
><anchor name="tbl10"></anchor>
Hypothesis 1 predicted that humble leadership would be positively associated with affirming adjustment behaviors. As shown in Table 7, Step 3, humble leadership was positively associated with affirming adjustment behavior (β = 0.56,
Hypothesis 2 predicted that humble leadership would be negatively associated with structured adjustment behavior. As shown in Table 7, Step 6, humble leadership was positively associated with structured adjustment behavior (β = 0.29,
Hypothesis 3 states that humble leadership will be negatively associated with employee turnover. As shown in Table 8, Step 3, we find that humble leadership is negatively associated with employee turnover during the 6-month period following our survey (β = −0.41,
Hypotheses 4 and 5 state that humble leaders’ affirming adjustment behavior and structured adjustment behavior mediate negative pathways between humble leadership and employee turnover. In our model with humble leadership predicting turnover, when accounting for leaders’ adjustment behavior, we find the effect of humble leadership on employee turnover was no longer significant (β = −0.22,
Hypothesis 6 states that humble leadership will be positively associated with employee performance. As shown in Table 9, Step 3, humble leadership is positively associated with employee performance (β = 0.10,
Hypotheses 7 and 8 state that humble leaders’ affirming adjustment behavior and structured adjustment behavior mediate a positive pathway between humble leadership and employee performance. In our model with humble leadership predicting employee performance, when accounting for leaders’ adjustment behavior, we find the effect of humble leadership on employee performance is still significant, though reduced (β = 0.09,
As a robustness check, we also tested whether humble leadership significantly predicts turnover during the 1-year and 2-year periods following our survey. The positive effect of humble leadership holds over the 1-year period: β = −0.27,
Finally, it is possible that humble leaders are more likely to rely on affirming adjustment behavior and minimal structured adjustment behavior with high-performing employees. We tested whether the relationship between humble leadership and leader adjustment behavior is moderated by employees’ prior performance (i.e., in 2019 before the pandemic, and in 2020 during the pandemic). We did not find a significant interaction effect between humble leadership and prior performance on affirming adjustment behavior (2019 performance:
The purpose of Study 2 was to replicate our findings from Study 1 in a single organization that explicitly encouraged leaders to adopt their own approaches to helping employees adjust during return to in-person work following the shock of COVID-19. Study 2 also addressed concerns with self-report data by modeling employees’ actual turnover decisions and performance ratings. Results revealed that leader humility is positively associated with both adjustment behaviors aimed at providing affirmation and structure (although the effect of humble leadership on affirming adjustment behavior was twice as large as the effect of humble leadership on structured adjustment behavior). Results also showed that humble leadership is negatively associated with employee turnover, mediated through affirming adjustment behavior, and that humble leadership is positively associated with employee performance, again mediated through affirming adjustment behavior. Structured adjustment behavior was not significantly associated with employee turnover, although we found a significant negative relationship between structured adjustment behavior and employee performance.
Given that leaders in Study 2 had considerable control over how they supported employees’ adjustment, it is unlikely that the positive association between humble leadership and structured adjustment behavior is due to humble leaders trying to abide by the organization’s work-from-home policies. Instead, the fact that humble leadership was again positively associated with structured adjustment behavior may reflect them trying to help employees adjust to in-office work. As we consider in the General Discussion section, humble leaders may have found a balance between providing structure to get employees to come back to the office, while still affirming employees’ shock-related experiences at the office. In any case, results from Study 2 suggested that humble leaders engaged in affirming adjustment behaviors about twice as much as they used structured adjustment behaviors.
General Discussion
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Although relatively infrequent, shocks are significant events that mark the course of a career. “In every life, the ongoing stream of mundane daily occurrences is punctuated by distinctive, circumscribed, highly emotional and influential episodes” (Pillemer, 2001, p. 123). Following these episodes, employees often reevaluate the status quo (Crawford et al., 2019). Be it returning to work after having a child or navigating an organizational downsizing, adjusting after a shock can be uncertain and stressful as people are often significantly changed by shock events and wonder whether they can integrate their shock-related experiences at work.
We drew from the socialization research to understand how leaders can help employees adjust to their organizations following shock events. We theorized that, because shocks often threaten employees’ sense of alignment at work, leaders can facilitate effective adjustment by affirming employees’ shock-related experiences and providing less rigid structure and demands around how employees adjust. Given that humble leaders solicit and value others’ experiences and perspectives, we hypothesized that humble leaders will be especially likely to use adjustment behavior that reflects their interest in learning about employees’ experiences following shock events, and their openness to allowing employees autonomy as they adjust. We posited that humble leaders’ adjustment behavior would help employees feel a greater sense of fit and control during adjustment, reducing turnover and increasing performance following shocks.
Consistent with our hypotheses, results from two studies with complementary methodologies demonstrated that humble leaders supported employees’ postshock adjustment by prioritizing affirming adjustment behavior, ultimately reducing the likelihood of employee turnover and boosting employee performance. Counter to our hypotheses, however, our findings revealed that humble leaders also engaged in more structured adjustment behavior. Though past work highlights that humble leaders tend to opt for fluidity in organizing, it is possible that humble leaders flexed their behavior to meet the demands of the situation (Owens & Hekman, 2012). For example, one leader who Owens and Hekman (2012) interviewed said their humility was, “not serving them [followers] or the business well. I saw that I needed to adjust my leadership style back toward the more firm, command-and-control approach” (Owens & Hekman, 2012, p. 806). Perhaps in the context of supporting employees’ adjustment after shock, humble leaders try to provide structure to help employees reduce uncertainty
<bold>Adjusting After Shock Events</bold>
Shock events often expose misalignment between employees and their organizations, raising employees’ concerns about self-expression at work and increasing the likelihood that employees’ leave (Burton et al., 2010; Hennekam et al., 2021; Holtom et al., 2017; Mitchell & Lee, 2001). Thus, past research has demonstrated how individuals change in response to shock (e.g., Crawford et al., 2019; Hennekam et al., 2021; Reiche & George, 2024), and has focused on the factors that “buffer” employees following shock events (see Hom et al., 2017), such as the quality of relationships inside and outside of work (Feldman et al., 2012; Shapiro et al., 2016), job tasks (Burton et al., 2010; Mitchell & Lee, 2001), and pay level (Kammeyer-Mueller et al., 2005).
Our research adds an important theoretical lens to the literature, revealing how leaders can help employees adjust following shock events. We theorized and showed that when leaders take a humble, curious stance toward employees, they have the capacity to help employees feel affirmed, increasing performance and organizational attachment. For example, after the COVID-19 pandemic and the work-from-home orders it brought, many employees worried that new elements of their identities might not fit into their old model of work. As one employee put it, “There is this softened, unfiltered, more honest version of ourselves that I’m enjoying getting to know” (Cramer & Zaveri, 2020). Another said, “I feel like a whole person. I am living an actual life every single day, instead of trying to cram it into a day-and-a-half on the weekend … it’s definitely making me reevaluate my work–life situation” (Creswell & Eavis, 2021).
Thus, during the adjustment back to in-person work, leaders found ways to help employees build bridges between their work-from-home selves and their work-in-the-office selves. Unlike the institutionalized scripts and socialization behaviors that often accompany newcomers’ organizational entry (Jones, 1986), it was unclear how the transition back to the office would or should unfold after employees worked for months or even years at home. Beyond the need to walk an uncharted path, transitions after shock events are often invisible, with few formal organizational policies (Ladge & Greenberg, 2015). The success of these transitions often requires a dyadic, bidirectional approach to adjustment (Ashforth et al., 2007; Bauer et al., 2025). That is, adjustment after shock involves leaders proactively learning about employees’ evolving thoughts, behaviors, and identities. Our work thus draws attention to the relational nature of adjustment (Bauer et al., 2025; Hennekam & Ladge, 2023). As such, following shocks leaders might be best cast in a supporting role, actively helping employees locate and align their identities with work opportunities in ways that sustain their performance and attachment to the organization (Ibarra & Barbulescu, 2010).
<bold>Leader Approaches to Adjustment After Shock</bold>
While mounting evidence suggests that leaders can successfully support employees’ adjustment after shocks by affirming their shock-related experiences and identities (Jun & Wu, 2021; Kossek et al., 2021; Yuan et al., 2021), it is still unclear what leadership skills are needed to be effective during adjustment (Bolino et al., 2024). Indeed, recent work suggests that there may be “opportunities to more fully understand the factors that exacerbate or attenuate positive leadership as the workplace returns to its new normal” following the pandemic (Bolino et al., 2024, p. 437). Our work reveals how a relatively stable characteristic of leaders—humility—is an important source of variance in leaders’ adjustment behavior. As such, our research extends work examining the discretionary role of leaders in helping employees adjust by emphasizing how leader characteristics, as opposed to employee characteristics, explain variance in leaders’ adjustment behavior (e.g., Dufour et al., 2021; Ellis et al., 2017).
Our work also raises important questions about how employee and leader characteristics might interact to influence adjustment (Dufour et al., 2021; Ellis et al., 2017; Harris et al., 2014). For example, following dominance-complementary theory (Carson, 1969; Kiesler, 1983), leader humility and the affirming adjustment behavior it fosters might be particularly effective for employees who are self-assured. Further, research on shock experiences such as the COVID-19 pandemic suggest that certain groups, particularly minority groups, might struggle with adjustment more than others (Bolino et al., 2024) and therefore are important targets for leaders’ adjustment behavior. Such questions help move the adjustment literature beyond “which adjustment behaviors are most effective for employees?” to “which adjustment behaviors are most effective for whom?” and “who is best fit to provide different forms of adjustment behavior?”
<bold>Humble Leadership During Uncertainty</bold>
By integrating research on shock events and leader humility, we developed new theoretical predictions regarding the types of leaders who tend to engage in successful adjustment behavior following shocks. Given that humble leaders’ affirming adjustment behavior appears to have implications for less quitting and better job performance, our work offers valuable insights on an important question: How effective is humble leadership during uncertainty and change (Kelemen et al., 2023)? A prevailing view suggests that humble leaders might be less effective during times of uncertainty and transition (e.g., Owens & Hekman, 2012; Qin et al., 2020; Zapata & Hayes-Jones, 2019), because they lack the dominance needed to reestablish control (Halevy et al., 2012; Jost et al., 2003; Kakkar & Sivanathan, 2017; Spisak et al., 2011; Van Vugt & von Rueden, 2020). Indeed, as noted by a participant in Owens and Hekman (2012, p. 799) study of humble leaders, “where you have extreme change and insecurity … followers may be looking to their leader for self-confidence. The leader needs to step up and truly exhibit themselves.” From this vantage point, the very actions that humble leaders engage in—gathering input and ceding power—may be
Our research thus complements recent work (e.g., Hu et al., 2024; Owens & Hekman, 2016) demonstrating the role of humility in promoting team performance through improvement-oriented behaviors. Specifically, we reveal adjustment behaviors as another mechanism through which humble leadership results in greater performance and organizational learning. Our results align with the concept of “heedful interrelating” in the wake of adversity and change (Barton & Kahn, 2019; Kahn et al., 2013, 2018; Weick, 2001; Weick & Roberts, 1993). Indeed, as humble leaders attempted to repair the relational systems uprooted by crises and shocks, they may have “catalyzed a development-oriented relational identity” that signaled that “It is ok to be ‘a work in progress’ here” (Owens & Hekman, 2012, p. 802). That is, the ability of humble leaders to adapt to change may mean that they are particularly capable of staying in tune with employees and their evolving needs. In line with this research, our findings spotlight the role of positive forms of leadership in managing uncertainty and change (Dolamore et al., 2021; Vaziri et al., 2020; Vera & Rodriguez-Lopez, 2004) while still acknowledging that there may be limits to such leadership depending on the nature of the change (König et al., 2020; Spisak et al., 2011).
<h31 id="apl-111-1-91-d19e1995">Practical Contributions</h31>Given the significant financial cost of turnover (Li et al., 2022) and low employee performance (Gallup, 2013), our work provides meaningful practical insights. First, the fact that affirming adjustment behavior predicted lower employee turnover and increased performance was not obvious to many leaders, who demonstrated less openness after the COVID-19 shock. Indeed, some leaders such as Goldman Sachs’s CEO David Solomon were firm in their approach: “this is not ideal for us. And it’s not a new normal. It’s an aberration that we’re going to correct as soon as possible” (McKeever, 2021). More recently, Amazon’s CEO mandated a 5-day return to the workplace policy that was met with high levels of employee resistance (Levitt & Vandespyker, 2024). Other leaders, such as Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella, recognized the importance of remaining open, flexible, and curious. He noted that leaders will need to be more “inclusive of collaboration, learning and well-being to drive career advancement for every worker,” and that this needs to be accomplished through “flexibility in when, where and how people work” (Kelly, 2021).
Next, while a global transition back to in-person work following work-from-home orders may never happen again, other employee transitions following shocks and significant work–life events are common (see Table 1). Our work suggests that leaders and organizations would benefit from behaviors that validate employees’ shock-related experiences through displaying interest and openness, as these behaviors appear to be pivotal for returning employees’ turnover and performance. Better adjustment in the wake of shocks may be accomplished by investing in leadership development programs focused on humble leadership. However, given that many humble leaders also emphasized structured adjustment behavior, which was related to higher turnover intentions and lower performance, leadership programs might specifically emphasize engaging in behaviors that convey validation and support. Indeed, when leaders stayed open to employees’ experiences and approaches during adjustment, rather than authoritatively specifying how adjustment should happen, it appeared to give them an advantage (Harris et al., 2014).
Our work also underscores the importance of creating organizational norms that allow leaders to adapt to employees’ changing needs. Lack of adaptability can be particularly caustic when it prevents leaders from helping employees transition through uncertainty, as is evidenced by the experience of a new mother who desired greater flexibility,
Our results confirm that when organizations allow leaders to follow their best judgment in these situations, it becomes possible to support employees in ways that make them feel seen and valued, ultimately raising levels of performance and retention.
<h31 id="apl-111-1-91-d19e2032">Strengths, Limitations, and Future Research</h31>Our research benefits from several strengths. In addition to contributing theory around the interplay of humble leadership and adjustment following shock, we showed how these issues culminate in employee turnover and performance. In terms of research methodology, our first study used a large sample of employees who were adjusting to in-person work across more than 650 different organizations, and we used lagged measurement of our predictor and outcome variables to reduce concerns with mood effects, hypothesis guessing, and self-generated validity. We adapted existing measures of adjustment behavior (Jones, 1986) by focusing items on our specific context. Finally, we replicated and complemented these results with a second field study of employees from a single organization, where leaders had the flexibility to manage adjustment. By merging leaders’ adjustment behavior with company records on subsequent employee turnover and performance, we maximized external validity while reducing issues with common method variance.
Like all studies, there also are several limitations of our work that are worth noting as they bound the contributions we can make. First, we were unable to disentangle the extent to which interpersonal and organizational variables might have influenced a humble leader’s tendency to engage in different adjustment behavior (Griffin et al., 2000). The nature of employees’ work, or organizational cultural norms, also might affect how much leaders can act on their humility following shock. Future research could examine these linkages, as well as whether humble leaders engage in a similar pattern of adjustment behavior in the more traditional context of newcomer entry.
Furthermore, we measured leaders’ adjustment behavior just prior to employees’ physical return to in-person work. As such, it is possible that leaders’ adjustment behavior shifted focus after employees physically returned to the office. Said differently, we cannot be sure that leaders’ adjustment behavior after return to in-person work was consistent with their prereturn adjustment behavior or influenced turnover and performance as we observed. However, anticipatory adjustment is often influential in shaping employees’ expectations and subsequent experiences, and it would be interesting to explore whether humble leaders are consistent in their adjustment behavior between the anticipation and initiation phases of adjustment, and how this influences employee transition outcomes (Van Maanen & Schein, 1979; Wanberg, 2012). Next, given that all our data were gathered from U.S. employees, another relevant unmeasured variable might be national culture, particularly the power distance that exists between leaders and employees, because leader humility is more impactful when employees perceive their leader to be more powerful (Wang et al., 2018). To the extent that leader humility reduces employees’ perceptions of leaders’ power (Zapata & Hayes-Jones, 2019), humble leaders who are closer in level to their employees might engage more successfully in affirming adjustment behavior after shocks.
We are unable to make casual claims about some linkages in our model, as we were not able to randomly assign leaders to engage in certain adjustment behavior—a common limitation when focusing on phenomena that are difficult to manipulate (MacKinnon et al., 2007). Therefore, even though we separated the measurement of our predictor and outcome variables, and we measured the variables in the order suggested by theory, reverse causality is still possible such that employees’ assessments of their leaders and adjustment behavior were based on their own performance and intentions to quit. Further, our findings revealed a moderate effect size of humble leadership on turnover and a small effect size of humble leadership on performance (see Tables 8 and 9). However, effect sizes should not be confused with practical significance (Prentice & Miller, 1992), as relatively easy-to-implement strategies for retaining employees and improving their performance are valuable even if they lead to relatively small changes.
While our theorizing is broadly applicable to adjustment following shock events, our data pertain to one kind of shock in particular—a global pandemic that forced individuals to work-from-home and later return to the workplace. Despite the nearly universal nature of this shock, employees may have experienced it in different ways, leading to variation in how employees adapted their thoughts, behaviors, and identities (e.g., Bolino et al., 2024; Vaziri et al., 2020). Also, while there is much work pointing to the need for sensemaking in the wake of shock events, recent work suggests that some individuals may refrain from identity work for a period following a shock until things return to normal (Reiche & George, 2024). It may be that humble leadership, accompanied by affirming adjustment behavior, would be beneficial regardless of how employees respond to a shock event.
Nevertheless, future research may examine whether the effectiveness of adjustment behaviors depends on how employees experience a shock event and on the nature of the shock itself (e.g., whether it tends to be marked predominately by positive or negative emotion, whether it originates in work or personal life, or whether it involves many or just a few employees). Some of our theorizing focused on how humble leaders (and the adjustment behaviors they rely on) influence performance and turnover by promoting individuals’ desire for self-expression and social affirmation during adjustment. However, in line with recent work suggesting that leaders may support employee adjustment via a more instrumental path (Ellis et al., 2015, 2023), future research could explore how adjustment behaviors help employees manage interpersonal and job demands. Similarly, given that humble leadership is associated with high-quality leader–member exchange relationships (Kelemen et al., 2023), future research could explore how leader–member exchange influences leaders’ adjustment behavior and employees’ adjustment outcomes.
Finally, not all shocks require adjusting to movement across physical spaces. Indeed, individuals may experience shock events while still physically connected to their organization (e.g., Becker & Cropanzano, 2011; Pletneva, 2024; Shapiro et al., 2016). Future research could explore what adjustment looks like as individuals actively “learn about themselves and reflect upon and revise” their self-views while still deeply embedded in work relationships (Hennekam & Ladge, 2023, p. 1530).
Conclusion
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Many shocks lead to changes in perspective and behavior that challenge employees’ sense of alignment at work. Our results suggest that humble leaders effectively support employees’ adjustment by affirming their shock-related experiences and perspectives, ultimately resulting in less quitting and better performance. Our results counter notions that humble leadership is problematic during times of upheaval and change. It appears that organizations would benefit from encouraging leaders to be mindful of employees’ experiences following shocks, highlighting the value of being curious and open to what employees are learning about themselves in the process. Successful adjustment following shock events may ultimately hinge on leaders’ abilities to use their curiosity and openness to help employees feel a sense of belonging and fit.
Footnotes
<anchor name="fn1"></anchor>
<sups>
1
</sups> In the additional online material, we also report two online studies which replicate most results in a more controlled setting. The additional online material can be found on the OSF at
<sups>
2
</sups> In addition to the measures reported in the main article, we collected variables for exploratory purposes, which can be found in the Study 1 data set on the OSF repository at
<sups> 3 </sups> At the start of each survey, participants were presented with a list of three words and were asked to type the word most similar to a given target word in all lowercase letters. For example, participants were asked to “type the word that is most similar to the word ‘water’ in all lowercase letters,” and were presented with the following list: desk, LIGHT, iCe (intentionally capitalized). Participants failed the attention check if they did not write “ice.”
<anchor name="fn4"></anchor><sups> 4 </sups> We did not include a question to collect racial and/or ethnic group as this was not a key focus of our study.
<anchor name="fn5"></anchor>
<sups>
5
</sups> We also combined items from the inspirational motivation and ideal influence subdimensions of the MLQ into a broader transformational leadership scale and included this measure along with humble leadership as independent variables in a regression with affirming adjustment behavior as our dependent variable. We found that while the effect of humble leadership on affirming adjustment behavior remained significant (β = 0.51,
<sups>
6
</sups> This result is also inconsistent with our results in Supplemental Study 1a, although it is consistent with our findings from Supplemental Study 1b. See the supplement on the OSF repository at
<sups> 7 </sups> Data included in Study 2 were part of a larger data collection effort, which might be used in future publications. Future publications will not reuse any survey variables reported in the present dataset and will involve a larger international sample.
<anchor name="fn8"></anchor>
<sups>
8
</sups> These results complement results from Supplemental Study 1b, which tested whether leaders’ trust their direct reports (items from McAllister, 1995) moderated the relationship between humble leadership and leader adjustment behavior. Interaction results between humble leadership and trust were nonsignificant for both adjustment behaviors: affirmation:
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