Antecedents and consequences of follower moqi: leader humility, follower humility, and knowledge hiding

Contrasted to most leadership research which treated followers either as non-existent or as passive entities, follower moqi enriches followership literature by stressing followers’ active role in co-creating leadership and outcomes with leaders. Given the effectiveness of follower moqi in the leadership process, we integrated social information processing theory to explore its antecedents and outcomes. Specifically, we hypothesized that leader humility is positively related to follower moqi; follower moqi, in turn, decreases knowledge hiding; this mechanism of follower moqi is moderated by follower humility so that leader humility increases more follower moqi with higher follower humility. Our results supported our hypotheses in a muti-wave time-lagged study of 315 leader-follower dyads. Overall, our research highlights that leader humility has a stronger effect on follower moqi under the context of higher follower humility. In addition, follower moqi in turn decreases knowledge hiding. The theoretical and practical implications of this study are presented and discussed.