Administrative Science Quarterly 2014 Ou 34 72

Humble Chief
Executive Officers
Connections to Top
Management Team
Integration and Middle
Managers Responses
Administrative Science Quarterly

59 (1)3472
The Author(s) 2014
Reprints and permissions:
sagepub.com/
journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0001839213520131
asq.sagepub.com
Amy Y. Ou,1 Anne S. Tsui,2 Angelo J. Kinicki,3

David A. Waldman,3 Zhixing Xiao,4 and
Lynda Jiwen Song5
Abstract
In this article, we examine the concept of humility among chief executive officers (CEOs) and the process through which it is connected to integration in the
top management team (TMT) and middle managers responses. We develop
and validate a comprehensive measure of humility using multiple samples and
then test a multilevel model of how CEOs humility links to the processes of
top and middle managers. Our methodology involves survey data gathered
twice from 328 TMT members and 645 middle managers in 63 private companies in China. We find CEO humility to be positively associated with empowering leadership behaviors, which in turn correlates with TMT integration. TMT
integration then positively relates to middle managers perception of having an
empowering organizational climate, which is then associated with their work
engagement, affective commitment, and job performance. Findings confirm
our hypotheses based on social information processing theory: humble CEOs
connect to top and middle managers through collective perceptions of empowerment at both levels. Qualitative data from interviews with 51 CEOs provide
additional insight into the meaning of humility among CEOs and differences
between those with high and low humility.
Keywords: CEO humility, top management team integration, empowerment,
middle managers
NUS Business School, National University of Singapore

W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University and Guanghua School of Management,
Peking University
3
W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University
4
China Research Institute, George Washington University
5
School of Business, Renmin University of China
2
Downloaded from asq.sagepub.com by guest on January 20, 2015
Ou et al.
35
Upper echelon theorists have proposed and observed that CEOs characteristics significantly and broadly affect organizations (Finkelstein, Hambrick, and
Cannella, 2009). For example, self-aggrandizing CEOs tend to make riskier
investments (Malmendier and Tate, 2005), pay higher premiums for acquisitions (Hayward and Hambrick, 1997), pursue more dynamic and grandiose strategies, and create fluctuating organizational performance (Chatterjee and
Hambrick, 2007). These effects are often channeled through CEOs unconstrained exercise of power (House and Aditya, 1997), suggesting that a CEOs
high self-regard can be potentially detrimental to organizations. Alternatively,
scholars have suggested that leaders should drop airs of omniscience and
authority, avoid communicating in monologues (Drucker, 1992; Weick, 2001),
and learn along with others, or make up for their missing skills by relying on
others (Ancona et al., 2007: 92). These characteristics are often recognized as
typical manifestations of humility.
Humility has become a fast-growing research topic in psychology and management despite being mistakenly viewed as low self-esteem in the 1980s
(Weiss and Knight, 1980). Tangney (2002) systematically reviewed the construct in theological, philosophical, and psychological literatures, summarized
positive elements embedded in humility, and differentiated it from other related
constructs such as modesty and narcissism. Psychologists have developed various measures and tested the positive implications of humility (Exline and
Geyer, 2004; Peterson and Seligman, 2004; Rowatt et al., 2006; Davis et al.,
2011). Empirical studies on humility have surged since Lee and Ashton (2004)
expanded the classic Big-Five Personality Inventory to the Big-Six HEXACO
Inventory, which included a dimension labeled honesty-humility. Management
research on humility has shown similar momentum. Collins (2001) conducted
case studies on the humility of CEOs who managed high-performing organizations, and Vera and Rodriquez-Lopez (2004) and Morris, Brotheridge, and
Urbanski (2005) laid solid theoretical foundations for humility in management
and leadership. Humility has been conceptually associated with virtuous, moral,
ethical, participative, empowering, and servant leadership (Guillen and
Gonzalez, 2001; Morris, Brotheridge, and Urbanski, 2005; Hackett and Wang,
2012). Most recently, Owens and colleagues (Owens and Hekman, 2012;
Owens, Johnson, and Mitchell, 2013) developed a behavioral measure of humility and conducted rigorous empirical studies on humble leaders.
Despite theoretical discussions (Vera and Rodriguez-Lopez, 2004; Morris,
Brotheridge, and Urbanski, 2005), case studies (Collins, 2001; Hayes and
Comer, 2010), and qualitative interviews (Owens and Hekman, 2012) on humble CEOs, current research has still fallen short in providing empirical information on the nature and effects of humble CEOs in two ways. First, working
definitions and, correspondingly, measures of humility have not fully captured
coherent dimensions of humility. Various definitions include a wide range of
dimensions (from three to thirteen) (Vera and Rodriguez-Lopez, 2004; Owens,
Johnson, and Mitchell, 2013), without clear theoretical justifications for which
dimensions belong to its core content domain versus which ones are simply
correlates of humility. For example, some definitions include dimensions such
as frugality (Vera and Rodriguez-Lopez, 2004), sincerity, or fairness (Lee and
Ashton, 2004) that seem to lack face validity (Davis, Worthington, and Hook,
2010). Relatedly, some leadership researchers regard humility as a trait (e.g.,
Morris, Brotheridge, and Urbanski, 2005), while others treat it as a component
36
Administrative Science Quarterly 59 (2014)
of leadership undifferentiated from leader behaviors (e.g., Level 5 Leadership,

Collins, 2001; spiritual leadership, Fry, 2003; servant leadership, van
Dierendonck and Nuijten, 2011).
Moreover, most operational measures of humility focus on behavioral manifestations (Ashton and Lee, 2005; van Dierendonck, 2011; Owens, Johnson,
and Mitchell, 2013), neglecting the constructs cognitive and motivational components (Tangney, 2002; Peterson and Seligman, 2004; Morris, Brotheridge,
and Urbanski, 2005). These limitations in existing work may substantially constrain the potential contribution of humility research to the upper echelon literature, because CEOs behaviors and decisions usually result from complex
processes of information collection, filtering, interpretation, and evaluation of
alternatives that necessarily involve cognitive and motivational functioning
(Finkelstein, Hambrick, and Cannella, 2009). Hence our first objective here is to
provide a theory-based, comprehensive definition and develop a reliable and
valid measure of CEO humility based on that definition.
Second, past research does not clarify the mechanisms by which CEOs
humility cascades downward across organizational levels. Theories of indirect
leadership (Yammarino, 1994; Waldman and Yammarino, 1999) suggest that
CEOs can influence distant followers through cascading leadership behaviors
or through direct interaction, bypassing the intermediate leaders. But such theories may not be capable of fully revealing the potential effects of humble
CEOs, who are often described as quiet, reserved, and understated (Collins,
2001), and they might avoid the type of high visibility that would be noticed by
distant followers. Nor is the upper echelon theory informative for understanding
the nature of the effects of humble CEOs. Hambrick (2005: 122) lamented that
his biggest disappointment with the upper echelon theory was the lack of
research directly examining the psychological and social processes that stand
between executive characteristics on the one hand and executive behavior on
the other. Scholars suggest that a multilevel theory is needed to describe how
CEOs characteristics and behaviors, such as humility, may affect performance
across organizational levels (Cannella and Holcomb, 2005; Yukl, 2008).
Therefore our second objective is to examine how CEO humility is experienced
across hierarchical levels, focusing on the connection of CEO humility across
two subordinate levels immediately below the CEO as a foundation for the
future assessment of the effects of CEO humility across organizational levels.
We build on the premises of social information processing theory (Salancik and
Pfeffer, 1978) to model CEO humilitys cascading effects down the hierarchy.
CEOs, as a salient source of contextual information, shape the collective perceptions of the top management teams (TMT) and through them, the perceptions and reactions of middle managers.
We tested our model using a sample of 63 local, private companies in China.
Though our research model is not intended to be China-specific, Chinas economic, geographic, and cultural aspects make it an appropriate setting to test
the model (Tsui and Lau, 2002). Although traditional values continue to influence Chinese people, Chinas fast-changing economy and active interactions
with the rest of world (Alon et al., 2011) impose challenges to traditional values
and also infuse foreign values into the society, resulting in pluralistic cultural
norms. China has a huge landmass with many regions embracing their own
subcultures. In addition, Chinese culture imposes various expectations on leaders. High power distance suggests that leaders should have authority over
Ou et al.
37
subordinates and thus should show less humility. Conversely, Confucianism

and Daoism, still strong in China (Pan, Rowney, and Peterson, 2012), teach
leaders to be self-deprecating and lead without overtly appearing to lead (Tsui
et al., 2004; Fu et al., 2010). Finally, CEOs usually have past work experience in
various organizations, such as government, foreign, state-owned, or local private companies, which require different leadership characteristics. Therefore
we expect sufficient variance in CEO humility in this context.
CEO HUMILITY AND ITS CONNECTIONS TO TOP AND MIDDLE
MANAGERS
The Concept of Humility
Humility has rich theological and philosophical roots (Templeton, 1997;
Grenberg, 2005) and is a relatively stable trait that is grounded in a self-view
that something greater than the self exists (Morris, Brotheridge, and Urbanski,
2005). In essence, humble people accept that they are not the center of the
universe (Templeton, 1997). They recognize their insignificance in comparison
with (1) moral laws (Grenberg, 2005), (2) universal truths or superior powers
(Morris, Brotheridge, and Urbanski, 2005), (3) responsibilities for others
(Peterson and Seligman, 2004), or (4) the larger collective or community
(Tangney, 2002).
Recent conceptualization and measurement work on humility in psychology
and management (e.g., Ashton and Lee, 2005; Owens, Johnson, and Mitchell,
2013) has not addressed humilitys cognitive foundation, however, nor has it
provided a theoretical framework to integrate the dimensions of humility.
Furthermore, leadership approaches such as servant leadership (van
Dierendonck and Nuijten, 2011), spiritual leadership (Fry, 2003), and Level 5
Leadership (Collins, 2001) include humility in their definitions of leadership. But
they focus only on limited aspects of humility and fail to distinguish humility as
a personal characteristic of the leader from leadership behaviors. Others regard
humility as a personal trait associated with leadership behaviors (e.g., Morris,
Brotheridge, and Urbanski, 2005; Hackett and Wang, 2012). The distinction is
important because leaders traits and leadership behaviors are not isomorphic;
they account for significant, independent criterion variance (DeRue et al.,
2011). Online Appendix A (http://asq.sagepub.com/supplemental) shows a
sample of humility conceptualizations in psychology and leadership studies,
revealing their divergent and inconsistent treatment of the construct.
Given that humility is essentially a self-based trait (Tangney, 2002; Peterson
and Seligman, 2004), we adopt Baumeisters (1998) self-experience framework
to define the content domain of humility. The framework suggests that individuals experience who they are through (1) reflexive consciousness, or understanding the self in relation to the world, (2) interpersonal being, or appreciating
the self in relation to others, and (3) executive function, or experiencing the self
by what the individual does. These three categories form a comprehensive and
coherent domain of self-experiences, and there are cogent reasons why the
content domain of humility should include them all.
First, humble people, in their experience of reflexive consciousness, are willing to seek accurate self-knowledge and are open to feedback (Tangney, 2002;
Peterson and Seligman, 2004). By recognizing something greater than the self,
38
humble people accept their imperfections (Templeton, 1997). Such selfacceptance, however, does not imply self-abasement or self-degradation. To
the contrary, humble people are fully aware of their talents and abilities.
Knowing their limitations helps them put their strengths in perspective
(Tangney, 2002), allowing them to avoid arrogance or self-contempt. Selfacceptance allows them to willingly disclose themselves, admit their limitations
or mistakes, and actively seek feedback. Thus, through reflective consciousness, humility is associated with open-mindedness and willingness to learn
from others (Templeton, 1997).
Second, in their experience of interpersonal being, humble people appreciate
others as being like themselves, with strengths and weaknesses. As Newman
(1982: 283) pointed out, humility requires a severe appraisal of oneself combined with a reasonably generous appraisal of others. Humble people appreciate others positive worth, strengths, and contributions (Morris, Brotheridge,
and Urbanski, 2005). Such appreciation is grounded in the understanding of
their own strengths and thus generates no need for entitlement or dominance
over others (Peterson and Seligman, 2004).
Third, in their experience of executive functions, humble people are less
self-focused and more engaged in self-transcendent pursuits. Humility is
regarded as a virtue leading to growth (Owens and Hekman, 2012) and selfrealization (Newman, 1982). Being aware of something greater than the self,
humble people understand that they fall short of a standard that they are striving to reach. Their life pursuits are less about themselves than about the larger
community, the greater whole, moral principles, or ultimate universal truth
(Grenberg, 2005; Morris, Brotheridge, and Urbanski, 2005), causing them to forget the self (Tangney, 2002). Self-transcendence protects them from excessive
ego and pursuits of materialism or excessive luxury (Peterson and Seligman,
2004).
Overall, humility is grounded in a self-view of accepting that something is
greater than the self and manifests in self-awareness, openness to feedback,
appreciation of others, low self-focus, and self-transcendent pursuit. Those six
dimensions form a coherent domain of humility with the transcendent self-view
as the cognitive core and low self-focus and self-transcendent pursuit as deeplevel motivations. Both cognition and motivation drive behavioral manifestations
of self-awareness, openness to feedback, and appreciation of others. Although
individuals may exhibit humble behaviors without incorporating a transcendent
self-view, such behaviors may be inauthentic or inconsistent over time.
Defining humility from a self-experience framework also distinguishes it
from other related constructs such as narcissism and modesty. Narcissism
may appear to be an antonym of humility because it predominantly features a
strong desire for self-focus, attention, or continuous self-affirmation (Chatterjee
and Hambrick, 2007) and may relate negatively to humilitys low self-focus. But
humility encompasses other facets such as openness to feedback, appreciation
of others, self-transcendent pursuits, and a transcendent self-concept, all of
which do not conceptually overlap with narcissisms definition or behavioral
manifestations. Modesty is a moderate, non-boastful self-presentation (Tice
et al., 1995). Although humility should positively relate to modesty, the latter is
more about self-presentation and less about fundamental self-views (Peterson
and Seligman, 2004).
Ou et al.
39
How Humble CEOs Connect to Top and Middle Managers

With transcendent self-views and desires to approach something greater than
themselves, humble CEOs are likely to embrace a collective organizational
vision that is oriented toward the greater good, rather than a vision of personal
glory (House and Aditya, 1997). Understanding that they are limited in reaching
their self-transcendent visions while appreciating others strengths, humble
CEOs are most willing to fully realize everyones unique potential and to
empower others (Drucker, 1992). Empowerment across various hierarchical
levels and different departments, however, requires shared understandings of
organizational contexts that, if lacking, can cause overall coordination redundancies, cannibalization, or failures to synchronize and sequence actions (Lanaj
et al., 2013). Social information processing theory (Salancik and Pfeffer, 1978)
suggests that information from other people influences individuals attitudes
and behaviors. We thus focus on leaders roles as managers of shared meaning
(Smircich and Morgan, 1982) and architects of organizational culture (Schein,
2010) and propose that the essence of humble CEOs influence is likely to be
the process by which their behaviors create shared understandings about values, norms, and expectations within their organizations.
Humble CEOs may develop shared perceptions of integration among TMT
members who, in turn, can foster a collective perception of an empowering
organizational climate among middle managers. TMT integration refers to
members willingness to collaborate, share information, make joint decisions,
and develop a shared vision, all of which are critical for coordinating actions
among TMT members (Hambrick, 1994) and for improving the quality of strategic decisions (Carmeli and Schaubroeck, 2006). Earlier work used the term strategic consensus (Dess, 1987) to refer to agreements among TMT members
and used social integration (Smith et al., 1994) or behavioral integration
(Simsek et al., 2005) to emphasize the social (collaborative behavior) and task
(information sharing and joint decision-making) aspects of integration. As
shared understanding is an important cognitive aspect of integration, we use
the term shared vision to capture shared understanding: . . . a common mental model of the future state of the team or its tasks that provides the basis for
action within the team (Pearce and Ensley, 2004: 260261). Shared vision is a
part of integration because it creates a sense of shared fate, motivating team
members to collaborate and share information, and it also unites divergent perspectives and reduces destructive relational conflicts that impede joint decision
making (Tsai and Ghoshal, 1998).
Previous research reveals that CEOs can affect lower-level employees
through various mechanisms such as leadership, management practices,
resource allocation, or organizational culture (Yukl, 2008; Finkelstein, Hambrick,
and Cannella, 2009; Schein, 2010). Building on these findings, we focus on the
effects of humble CEOs on TMT integration as the focal mediating mechanism.
Their low self-focus may make them less visible to middle managers, and their
appreciation of others may motivate them to delegate to the TMT, thereby
influencing lower levels. Therefore, their effects on middle managers would be
through shaping the meaning construction of TMT members who, in turn, build
an empowering organizational climate below the TMT level.
An empowering organizational climate represents middle managers shared
perceptions about how extensively organizational practices, policies,
40
procedures, and routines allow information sharing, autonomy, and teambased self-management (Blanchard, Carlos, and Randolph, 1995)the contextual conditions that enable empowerment in the workplace (Spreitzer, 2008).
Empowering organizational climate relates to, but is distinct from, psychological
empowerment, which involves individuals perceptions of meaning, competence, self-determination, and impact in their work roles (Spreitzer, 1995),
their psychological experience about the nature of the work itself.
An empowering climate fulfills needs for competence and autonomy and
stimulates intrinsic motivation to perform well (Spreitzer, 2008). Middle managers shared perceptions of an organizational empowering climate shape their
attitudes and behaviors (Salancik and Pfeffer, 1978). First, they may respond
with work engagement, a work-related state of mind characterized by vigor,
dedication, and absorption (Schaufeli, Bakker, and Salanova, 2006). A second
response is affective commitment, or emotional attachment to the organization
(Meyer, Allen, and Smith, 1993). Third, they may respond with enhanced job
performance and task completion (Tsui et al., 1997). Together, work engagement elevates middle managers psychological well-being; affective commitment enables organizations to keep loyal talent; and their enhanced job
performance contributes to strategy implementation. These three responses
reflect a comprehensive assessment of attitudes and behaviors that potentially
contribute to individual and organizational effectiveness (Harter, Schmidt, and
Hayes, 2002).
CEOs humility and empowering leadership. Empowering leadership
constitutes behaviors that enhance the meaningfulness of work, foster participation in decision making, express confidence in high performance, and
provide autonomy (Ahearne, Mathieu, and Rapp, 2005). Humble CEOs, recognizing their own limitations, are likely to use subordinates strengths to compensate and are eager to recruit capable employees who might even question
their own ideas or beliefs (Drucker, 1992). CEOs who communicate selftranscendent pursuits help subordinates understand the value of their work in
relation to larger organizational purposes. By acknowledging their limitations
and appreciating others strengths (Morris, Brotheridge, and Urbanski, 2005),
sharing power with others becomes the natural, behavioral self-expression of
humble CEOs. They admit their reliance on others (Weick, 2001), express a
propensity to treat subordinates as equals (Whitener et al., 1998), provide
autonomy, and include subordinates in decision making. These tendencies further demonstrate their confidence in subordinates. Although not empirically
tested previously, theoretical discussions about humility have also suggested
an association between leaders humility and empowerment (Morris,
Brotheridge, and Urbanski, 2005; Owens and Hekman, 2012). Hence, we
hypothesize:
Hypothesis 1: CEOs humility will relate positively to their empowering leadership
behaviors.
CEOs empowering leadership and TMT integration. Sharing power could

undermine CEOs charisma, making them seem less authoritative than the
highly capable, competent TMT members. In their pursuit of something higher
Ou et al.
41
than themselves, humble CEOs are likely to use power in a collectively

oriented and egalitarian manner (House and Aditya, 1997). In this sense, they
may enjoy socialized charisma, a characteristic of leaders who are driven by
moral justifications and the collective sharing of power (Bligh and Robinson,
2010). Similarly, empowering leadership motivates TMT members, satisfies
their needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness (Spreitzer, 2008), and
shapes their perceptions of the meaning of leadership and team behavior,
such as information sharing, joint decision making, and collaboration.
Empowering CEOs facilitate shared perceptions of the TMTs integration by
creating opportunities for frequent interactions among team members and
demonstrating equal respect without favoritism. The network extension of
social information processing theory (Roberson and Colquitt, 2005) suggests
that shared perceptions are more likely among strongly linked people who
occupy structurally equivalent positions. Frequent interactions among
TMT members facilitate strong ties, increase familiarity, create trust (Gulati,
1995), and form commitment to shared visions (Pearce and Ensley, 2004).
Empowerment without favoritism prevents power imbalance, so that members
perceive team members as sharing a common fate rather than as competitors
with conflicting interests (Eisenhardt and Bourgeois, 1988). A sense of common fate further encourages members to strive to benefit the team, thus they
check, suspend, regroup and transform their own perceptions (Schneider
and Reichers, 1983: 30) and reach convergent perceptions of proper interactions. Previous research on the antecedents of integration has mainly focused
on TMT diversity and CEO demographics (Simsek et al., 2005). Recently, behavioral integration of the TMT was found to be positively connected to CEOs
transformational leadership (Ling et al., 2008) and empowering leadership
(Carmeli, Schaubroeck, and Tishler, 2011). Although the link between CEOs
empowering leadership and TMT integration has been considered previously,
we affirm the connection by expanding both concepts and examining their relationship in our Chinese sample of CEOs. Hence we propose:
Hypothesis 2: CEOs empowering leadership behaviors will relate positively to top
management team integration.
TMT integration and empowering organizational climate. Consistent

with social information processing theory, TMT members directly influence
organizational climate by communicating meaning (Pless, Maak, and Waldman,
2012) in three ways. First, members convey their interpretations of interactions
among TMT members to middle managers, perhaps mentioning the nature of
their relationships with the CEO and other TMT members. As the CEO fosters
these interactions through empowering leadership, middle managers receive
cues that the organization values cooperation and communication across units
and departments. Second, social information processing theory suggests that
people tend to seek opinions from similar others; therefore, middle managers
are likely to share information about the TMT with other middle managers
within or across units and departments. Such information sharing, often
through conversation, stories, or myths, conveys complex interpretive messages, including not only facts but also feelings and values (Boje, 1991). Middle
managers are likely to use such messages to form perceptions about
42
organizational policies and practices (Pless, Maak, and Waldman, 2012). Third,
information from different middle managers is compared and negotiated. TMT
integration allows middle managers to receive consistent information and form
convergent perceptions that the organization values information sharing, autonomy, and self-management, all of which constitute behavioral norms consistent
with empowering organizational climates (Blanchard, Carlos, and Randolph,
1995). We thus propose:
Hypothesis 3: Top management team integration will relate positively to middle managers perceptions of an empowering organizational climate.
Empowering organizational climate and middle managers responses.

Social information processing theory suggests that shared organizational climates
provide powerful information about organizationally desired behavioral norms and
performance expectations. Engagement is enhanced when jobs are meaningful
and autonomous, so managers in highly empowered work settings are likely to
be more engaged in accomplishing tasks. Empowering climates generate individual perceptions that their work has an impact, which in turn fosters their affective
commitment through emotional attachment, involvement, and identification with
the company (Spreitzer, 2008). Empowering climates reduce counterproductive
behaviors by providing more cognitive, physical, and socioemotional resources
for managers to apply toward work tasks as they are not expending resources on
understanding their environment (Howell and Shamir, 2005: 842). Empowering
climates thus cue managers about how to spend their time and focus their attention. Productivity increases when the social information cueing process is coupled
with significant employee engagement and commitment associated with an
empowering climate. Empowering climates have been related to job performance
and satisfaction (Seibert, Silver and Randolph, 2004), as well as to employee
feedback-seeking behavior, overall team performance, and individual performance
(Seibert, Silver, and Randolph, 2004; Chen, Lam, and Zhong, 2007; Wallace et al.,
2011). Zhang and Bartol (2010) have found perceived psychological empowerment and employee creativity to be positively related, and we expect an empowering climate to be similarly motivating. Thus we hypothesize:
Hypothesis 4: An empowering organizational climate will relate positively to middle
managers work engagement, affective commitment, and job performance.
Figure 1 illustrates our multilevel model of CEO humility. To test the hypotheses, we conducted two quantitative studies supplemented by interviews with
CEOs. Study 1 developed items for three new dimensions of humilitylow
self-focus, self-transcendent pursuit, and transcendent self-conceptand validated them together with the other three dimensions of self-awareness, openness to feedback, and appreciation of others, which are similar to Owens
(2009) three behavioral dimensions: willingness to view oneself accurately,
teachability, and appreciation of others strengths and contributions. Study 2
used the validated comprehensive six-dimensional measure of humility to test
our proposed model with multilevel and multiphase data obtained from a sample of 63 organizations in China. Qualitative data from personal interviews with
Ou et al.
43
Figure 1. Hypothesized model of mechanisms linking CEO humility and middle managers
responses.
COMPANY LEVEL
H1 (+)
CEO Humility
Self-awareness
Openness to feedback
Appreciation of others
Low self-focus
Self-transcendent
pursuit
Transcendent selfconcept
H2 (+)
CEO Empowering
Leadership
Meaningfulness
Participation
Confidence
Autonomy
TMT integration
Collaborative
behavior
Joint decision
making
Information
sharing
Shared vision
INDIVIDUAL LEVEL
H3 (+)
Empowering
organizational
Climate
Information
sharing
Autonomy
Team
responsibility
H4 (+)
Middle Managers
Responses
Work engagement
Affective commitment
Job performance
participating CEOs provided further evidence for the cognitive, motivational,

and behavioral manifestations of humility among the CEOs.
STUDY 1: DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF A HUMILITY MEASURE
We followed well-established procedures (Hinkin, 1998) to develop a reliable
and valid measure of CEO humility. The process involved three phases. In
phase 1, we generated items for the three dimensions of humility without preexisting scales. In phase 2, we refined the new scales, combined them with
existing scales for the three behavioral dimensions (Owens, 2009), and
assessed the basic psychometric properties of all six scales through exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. In phase 3, we assessed the final 18-item
multidimensional scales convergent and discriminant validity.
Phase 1: Item Development and Content Validity Assessment
We developed new items using deductive and inductive approaches (Hinkin,
1998). We began with a deductive approach because the humility literature provides sufficient theoretical grounding for item generation. This approach generated three items for low self-focus, two items for self-transcendent pursuit,
and three items for transcendent self-concept. We then invited 17 subject
experts (eight management professors, three management consultants, and
six working professionals) to participate in an inductive item-generation exercise to ensure the adequacy of the content domain of the three new dimensions. The eight management professors were active researchers and lecturers
on leadership topics; the three management consultants had rich leadership
consulting experience with senior executives; the six working professionals
commented from a subordinates point of view. We gave participants definitions of the three new humility dimensions and asked them to recall behavioral
examples of people who matched these definitions. After proposing new items
based on their experience, they reviewed the eight items that we derived from
the deductive process. This process yielded a total of 24 items.
We used 12 management doctoral students, trained in psychometrics and
leadership research, to assess the content validity of the 24-item pool. They
44
sorted items into one of the three new dimensions of humility or a fourth
does not fit category. We discarded items when fewer than 75 percent of
the judges correctly assigned them to their a-priori dimensions (Hinkin, 1998).
Seventeen items remained after the procedure.
Phase 2: Scale Refinement through Factor Analysis
We adopted two steps with two samples to assess the reliability and factor
structure for scale refinement (Gerbing and Hamilton, 1996). In Step 1, we
used exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to refine the three new dimensions. In
Step 2, we included both the new dimensions and Owens (2009) dimensions
for confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) for further refinement of a sixdimensional scale.
Step 1: Exploratory factor analysis. The sample consisted of 276 full-time
undergraduate students in China. Professors invited students to voluntarily participate in a survey administered after class. The response rate was 97.7 percent. On average, students were 20.7 years old (S.D. = 1.03), and 60 percent
were women. The items were translated into Chinese, and respondents indicated on a 6-point scale, from 1 = strongly disagree to 6 = strongly agree,
the extent to which they agreed that each of the 17 humility items described
them. We used a 6-point scale to increase variance in responses because East
Asians are more likely to choose the midpoint in odd-numbered scales (Si and
Cullen, 1998). We used principal-axis factor analyses with oblimin rotation to
impose a three-factor solution and deleted items if their factor loadings were
less than .40 or had high cross-loadings on other factors (Hinkin, 1998).
Results supported the proposed three-factor structure. We retained the 14
items that met the retention criteria. Cronbachs alphas were .81, .75, and .77,
respectively, thereby meeting standards for applied research (Nunnally, 1978).
These results provided preliminary evidence of the structure and internal consistency of the three new dimensions of humility.
Step 2: Confirmatory factor analysis. We submitted the items for all six
humility dimensions (14 new items and 8 from Owens 2009 measure) to a CFA
to further refine the scale and assess its psychometric properties. We collected
data from 286 M.B.A. students in China. Each student invited another person to
evaluate his or her respective humility because observers can assess more accurately personal characteristics that are either highly observable (self-awareness,
openness to feedback, and appreciation of others) or highly evaluative and subject
to self-serving biases (i.e., low self-focus, self-transcendent pursuit, and transcendent self-concept) (Vazire, 2010). On average, the students were 29.1 years old
(S.D. = 5.50) and had a work tenure of 7.49 years (S.D. = 5.30); 66 percent were
women. Those who evaluated the students humility had known the students for
an average of 8.56 years (S.D. = 8.36). The survey was presented in Chinese and
used the same 6-point scale. We used three criteria to assess overall model fit:
RMSEA lower than .06, and TLI and CFI higher than .90 (Hu and Bentler, 1999).
We examined whether each item significantly loaded on its a-priori factor and
deleted items with modification indices higher than 10 (Bollen, 1989).
Results showed four items with high modification indices that caused model
misfit, and we deleted them. The remaining 18 items demonstrated
Ou et al.
45
satisfactory goodness-of-fit indices (2[115] = 194.74, p < .05; CFI = .95,

TLI = .94, and RMSEA = .05). All items significantly loaded on their intended
factors, and the standardized loadings were substantial in size (average
loading = .70, S.D. = .11). The average composite reliability of the dimensions
was 0.75, ranging from 0.66 to 0.81.1 We also ran a second-order CFA to test
whether the six dimensions were best represented by a higher-order superordinate construct or the theorized multidimensional construct (Williams,
Vandenberg, and Edwards, 2009). Results revealed that a second-order factor
produced a slightly poorer overall fit (2[124] = 236.77, p < .05; CFI = .93,
TLI = .92 and RMSEA = .06) than the six-factor model, suggesting that humility
is a multidimensional construct composed of six dimensions.
Phase 3: Assessment of Convergent and Discriminant Validity
Convergent validity reflects the extent to which a measure is correlated with
other measures of the same construct, and discriminant validity refers to the
degree to which measures of different constructs are distinct (Bagozzi, Li, and
Phillips, 1991). With no other suitable humility measure for leaders, we
assessed convergent validity between the three new cognitive and motivational dimensions with the three behavioral dimensions of Owens (2009). Four
other constructs are related to, but distinct from, humility, and were used for
assessing discriminant validity. We expected humility to relate positively to
core self-evaluation (Judge et al., 2003) because it comes from awareness of
ones strengths. We expected humility to positively relate to learning goal
orientation (Vandewalle, 1997) because humble people are interested in selfimprovement. Last, we expected humility to correlate positively with modesty
and have a low negative or null correlation with narcissism.
We collected data from the same sample of 286 M.B.A.s who participated
in the CFA study in phase 2. Students reported their core self-evaluation, learning goal orientation, modesty, and narcissism, while another person familiar
with the focal student completed the humility items about the focal student.
This design avoids the problems of common method variance (Podsakoff et al.,
2003) and self-serving bias. Core self-evaluation (a = .88) was measured using
a 12-item scale by Judge et al. (2003) and learning goal orientation (a = .84)
with a 5-item scale by Vandewalle (1997). Modesty (a = .92) was measured by
nine items from Whetstone, Okun, and Cialdini (1992) and five items from
Chen et al. (2009) to reflect recent conceptual advancement on modesty. We
used fourteen items from the NPI-16 (Ames, Rose, and Anderson, 2006)
to measure narcissism (a = .83), with two items excluded because of
duplicate meanings. All measures used the same 6-point scale. Owens
(2009) measure of behavioral humility included eight items (a = .88). The new
cognitive-motivational humility included 10 items (a = .80). For discriminant
validity, we used the comprehensive humility scale of 18 items (a = .88).
We assessed convergent and discriminant validity in three steps. First, we
examined the correlation between the new dimensions of humility and Owens
1
Only the reliability of transcendent self-concept was below .70 (reliability = .66). This may have
occurred because we used student samples in the scale development study. The evaluators may
not be familiar with the students, and we relied on only a single evaluator for each student. In the
main study, we relied on multiple TMT members to evaluate the CEO, and all dimensions had
acceptable reliabilities, ranging from .78 to .81.
46
(2009) measure of humility and the correlation of the comprehensive humility

measure with core self-evaluation, learning goal orientation, modesty, and narcissism. Second, a series of CFAs assessed whether each of the six humility
dimensions were distinct from the four validation constructs (Anderson and
Gerbing, 1988). For each distinct construct, we ran a seven-factor baseline
model including this construct and six humility dimensions and then six, sixfactor models combining it with one humility dimension. The nested models
were compared using chi-square difference tests (Bollen, 1989). The discriminant validity of humility dimensions was supported when all six-factor models
generated significantly higher chi-squares or poorer fit indices than the sevenfactor models. Finally, using a similar method, we assessed whether humility,
as a comprehensive construct, was distinct from all other related constructs.
We ran a baseline five-factor model including humility and the other four related
constructs and then compared it with four, four-factor models combining humility with one of the related constructs.
The correlation analysis showed that the cognitive-motivational measure of
humility had a strong positive correlation with behavioral humility (r = .60, p <
.01), confirming convergent validity. The comprehensive humility measure had
positive, but much smaller correlations with core self-evaluation (r = .16, p <
.05), learning goal orientation (r = .23, p < .01), and modesty (r = .17, p < .05)
and had a nonsignificant correlation with narcissism (r = .08, p > .05), supporting discriminant validity. Table 1 shows that the baseline model of seven
factors (six humility dimensions and one related construct) has the lowest chisquare compared with the alternative models, suggesting that humility dimensions were distinct from other constructs. Table 2 shows that all four-factor
models combining humility with one related construct had significantly higher
chi-square than the baseline model of five factors (humility, core self-evaluation,
learning goal orientation, modesty, and narcissism), confirming the discriminant
validity of humility.
Validation results thus supported an 18-item measure of six humility dimensions, including 10 newly developed items and eight items from Owens (2009).
The humility measure exhibited good reliability and content, convergent, and
discriminant validity.
STUDY 2: TEST OF THE CEO HUMILITY MODEL
Sample and Data Collection
We recruited CEOs who were alumni of a large business school in China. We
contacted 130 CEOs who fulfilled our requirement of leading local, private companies in the Yangtze River Delta region.2 The final sample included 63 CEOs
(48.4 percent response rate), 328 TMT members, and 645 middle managers. A
variety of industries were represented, with 41 percent in manufacturing and
59 percent in service or trading. Company sizes ranged from fewer than 100 to
12,000 employees (mean = 823, S.D. = 1,927), and company ages ranged
from 6 to 56 years (mean = 14.03, S.D. = 9.22). CEOs averaged 41.7 years
old (S.D. = 9.21), TMT members averaged 39.3 (S.D. = 8.61), and middle
2
We used local, private companies to ensure sufficient managerial discretion to detect CEO effects
(Hambrick and Finkelstein, 1987; Li and Tang, 2010) and confined the sample to the Yangtze River
Delta area to control for regional variance in companies.
Ou et al.
47
Table 1. Confirmatory Factor Analysis for Humility Dimensions Discriminant Validity with
Related Constructs*
Model
Humility dimensions with core self-evaluation
Model 0 (baseline model): 7 factors
Model 1 combining self-awareness and core self-evaluation
Model 2 combining appreciation of others and core self-evaluation
Model 3 combining openness to feedback and core self-evaluation
Model 4 combining low self-focus and core self-evaluation
Model 5 combining self-transcendent pursuit and core self-evaluation
Model 6 combining transcendent self-concept and core self-evaluation
Humility dimensions with learning goal orientation
Model 1 combining self-awareness and learning goal orientation
Model 2 combining appreciation of others and learning goal orientation
Model 3 combining openness to feedback and learning goal orientation
Model 4 combining low self-focus and learning goal orientation
Model 5 combining self-transcendent pursuit and learning goal orientation
Model 6 combining transcendent self-concept and learning goal orientation
Humility dimensions with modesty
Model 1 combining self-awareness and modesty
Model 2 combining appreciation of others and modesty
Model 3 combining openness to feedback and modesty
Model 4 combining low self-focus and modesty
Model 5 combining self-transcendent pursuit and modesty
Model 6 combining transcendent self-concept and modesty
Humility dimensions with narcissism
Model 1 combining self-awareness and narcissism
Model 2 combining appreciation of others and narcissism
Model 3 combining openness to feedback and narcissism
Model 4 combining low self-focus and narcissism
Model 5 combining self-transcendent pursuit and narcissism
Model 6 combining transcendent self-concept and narcissism
w2
w2
250.25
517.26
593.94
435.97
499.83
411.24
724.00
267.01
343.69
185.72
249.58
160.99
473.75
228.06
472.82
493.93
380.50
487.68
405.69
557.85
244.76
265.87
152.44
259.62
177.63
329.79
250.42
546.92
651.96
477.20
414.12
465.19
698.96
296.50
401.54
226.78
163.70
214.77
448.54
240.78
530.32
636.58
470.10
460.24
468.40
858.68
289.54
395.80
229.32
219.46
227.62
617.90
* 2 = change in chi-square between the alternative model and the baseline model. All 2 are significant at the
p < .01 level.
Table 2. Confirmatory Factor Analysis for Humility with Related Constructs*

Model
Model 0 (baseline model): 5-factor model including humility, core
self-evaluation, learning goal orientation, modesty and narcissism.
Model 1: 4-factor model combining humility and core self-evaluation
Model 2: 4-factor model combining humility and learning goal
orientation
Model 3: 4-factor model combining humility and modesty
Model 4: 4-factor model combining humility and narcissism
w2
d.f.
RMSEA
CFI
TLI
w2
160.36
109
.04
.98
.98
678.51
491.20
113
113
.13
.11
.78
.85
.73
.82
518.15
330.84
832.54
689.28
113
113
.15
.13
.72
.78
.66
.73
672.18
528.92
* RMSEA = root-mean-square error of approximation; CFI = comparative fit index; TLI = Tucker-Lewis Index; and
2 = change in chi-square between the alternative model and the baseline model. All 2 and 2 are significant at
the p < .01 level.
48
managers averaged 35.2 (S.D. = 7.90). Most respondents were male (89 percent of CEOs, 70 percent of TMT members, and 61 percent of middle managers) and had college or above education (97 percent of CEOs, 86 percent of
TMT members, and 83 percent of middle managers). On average, the CEOs
had been in their positions for 7.91 years (S.D. = 4.22), and the TMT members
had been working with the CEOs for 6.11 years (S.D. = 4.96). Most CEOs were
founders (71 percent), 18 percent were internally promoted, and 11 percent
were external hires.
We collected data from multiple sources and at two time periods to minimize common method variance (Podsakoff et al., 2003). We obtained a list of
TMT members from the CEO and a list of middle managers from the companys human resource manager. We visited each company, interviewed CEOs
to understand their management experience and philosophy, and administered
the surveys to other participants in a conference room. We explained to the
participants the importance of truthful answers for scientific research and
ensured confidentiality by guaranteeing that only the researchers would see
individual answers and that the company would receive only a company-level
summary.3 TMT members completed a survey containing items for CEOs
humility, leadership style, TMT integration, and some control variables, while
the middle manager survey contained items for empowering organizational climate and items on their demographics. Two weeks later, the human resource
manager administrated the second surveys, in which TMT members evaluated
middle managers performance and provided a subjective measure of organizational performance (which we used as a control variable), while middle managers reported on work engagement, affective commitment, and job satisfaction.
Participants submitted surveys in self-sealed envelopes to ensure confidentiality. The human resource managers provided the data on objective measures of
organizational level controls and CEOs demographics.
Measures
The study involved four constructs at the organization levelCEO humility,
empowering leadership, TMT integration, and empowering organizational
climateand three measures at the individual levelmiddle managers work
engagement, affective commitment, and job performance. All measures,
except job performance, use 6-point scales ranging from 1 = strongly disagree
or almost never to 6 = strongly agree or always. Because we tested relations among latent variables, we created indicators from dimensional scores or
item parcels using the item-to-construct-balance method to reduce the number
of parameters to be estimated (Williams, Vandenberg, and Edwards, 2009).
The four organization-level measures were aggregated from individual-level
data. Aggregation was confirmed by using ANOVA, rwg(j), ICC(1), and ICC(2).
The aggregation of data is appropriate when the F statistic for ANOVA is significant, rwg(j) is higher than .70 (James, Demaree, and Wolf, 1984), and ICC(1) is
3
To express our appreciation to the company and managers for supporting the research, we provided a company report after the study and gave each manager a small gift for participation in data
collection. We also invited as many as three managers from each company to participate in a oneday seminar held within six months after the study was completed. In this seminar, we shared the
research findings, and two guest lecturers spoke on popular management topics. This gesture
partly facilitated the good response rate.
Ou et al.
49
non-zero (Bliese, 2000). Ideally, ICC(2) values should be higher than .70
(Kozlowski and Klein, 2000), but a low ICC(2) value does not prevent aggregation, although it may result in lower power in detecting relationships involving
Level 2 variables (Bliese, 2000).
We measured CEO humility using 18 items from the newly validated scale
and one additional item from Owens update on the openness to feedback
dimension (Owens, Johnson, and Mitchell, 2013) to ensure that we used the
most current measure of the behavioral dimensions. The scale had good psychometric properties (a for each dimension ranges from .78 to .81), and aggregation was supported: ANOVA F = 1.89, p < .01; median rwg(j) = .98; ICC(1) =
.14; ICC(2) = .47. The full measure of 19 items is shown in Online Appendix B.
We measured CEO empowering leadership behaviors with the Chinese version (Zhang and Bartol, 2010) of the 12-item scale by Ahearn, Mathieu, and
Rapp (2005). We added four items specific to executive-level leaders. This
scale has four dimensions: enhancing the meaningfulness of work, fostering
participation in decision making, expressing confidence in high performance,
and providing autonomy from bureaucratic constraints. Online Appendix B lists
the 16 items. The measure had good psychometric properties (a for each
dimension ranges from .81 to .88; ANOVA F = 1.50, p < .05; median rwg(j) =
.97; ICC[1] = .08; ICC[2] = .33).
We used a split sampling approach to avoid common method variance
because TMT members assessed both CEO humility and CEO empowering
leadership. We randomly selected half of a top management team to measure
CEO humility and the other half to assess CEO empowering leadership behaviors. This approach has been shown to remove the problem of common
method bias (Ostroff, Kinicki, and Clark, 2002).
We measured TMT integration with nine items adapted from Simsek et al.
(2005) and four items from Pearce and Ensley (2004) on shared vision (see
Online Appendix B). The measure had good psychometric properties (a for
each dimension ranges from .84 to .91; ANOVA F = 1.43, p < .05; median
rwg(j) = .96; ICC[1] = .07; ICC[2] = .30).
We measured empowering organizational climate with the Chinese version
(Chen, Lam, and Zhong, 2007) of Blanchard, Carlos, and Randolphs (1995)
30-item scale. It includes three dimensions: information sharing, autonomy
through boundaries, and team responsibility and accountability. A sample item
is We receive the information needed to help us understand the performance
of our organization. The measure displayed acceptable psychometric properties (a for each dimension ranges from .88 to .92; ANOVA F = 2.43, p < .01;
median rwg(j) = .97; ICC[1] = .12; ICC[2] = .59).
Managerial responses. We measured work engagement (a = .93) with the
Chinese version (Zhang and Gan, 2005) of the nine-item Utrecht work engagement scale (Schaufeli, Bakker, and Salanova, 2006). Affective commitment
(a = .89) was measured with a six-item Chinese version (Chen and Francesco,
2003) of the affective commitment scale (Meyer, Allen, and Smith, 1993). We
measured managerial performance (a = .90) with six items, adapted from Tsui
et al. (1997), measuring quality, efficiency, professional standards, ability, judgment, and job knowledge using a 5-point Likert-type scale, with 1 = below
average and 5 = above average. We created a latent variable of managerial
responses with work engagement, affective commitment, and job performance
as indicators. We used this latent variable throughout the hypothesis tests and
50
performed robustness checks using each outcome as a separate latent dependent variable.
Control Variables
We controlled for firm performance, CEO education, TMT size, and average
team tenure to rule out alternative explanations of TMT integration. Firm performance affects TMT members perceptions of their internal dynamics (Simsek
et al., 2005). The measure was a two-item scale asking respondents to evaluate their companys sales and return on assets (ROA) relative to their major
competitors (Sully de Luque et al., 2008). TMT members assessed it at Time 2,
and we aggregated it to the company level after assessing within-group agreement and between-group variance (a = .87; median rwg(j) = .76; ICC[1] = .45;
ICC[2] = .81). We used a subjective measure because the socially constructed
reality, rather than the actual figures, may be more likely to affect TMT members perceptions and behaviors (Berger and Luckmann, 1966). Moreover, 12
companies refused to disclose objective performance data. The correlation
between subjective performance and available, objective same-year ROA was
.35 (p < .05), confirming the validity of the subjective measure. We omitted
other company and CEO demographics such as company age, size, industry,
and CEO age, gender, work tenure, organization tenure, tenure as a CEO, and
founder status because those variables did not significantly correlate with the
key variables in the research model. We controlled for TMT size and average
team tenure because larger teams tend to have more conflict (Amason and
Sapienza, 1997), and longer average team tenure is likely to generate better
coordination and communication (Smith et al., 1994). We also controlled for
CEOs narcissism to test whether humility provides predictive power beyond
narcissism. CEOs assessed their own narcissism using 14 items (a = .86) from
NPI-16 (Ames, Rose, and Anderson, 2006). We further controlled for CEO
transformational leadership (completed by TMT members) to test whether
empowering leadership provides predictive power beyond transformational
leadership. Transformational leadership was measured by 20 items (a = .93;
median rwg(j) = .98; ICC[1] = .19; ICC[2] = .56) from the Multifactor Leadership
Questionnaire 5X (Bass and Avolio, 1995).
For managerial responses, we included both organization-level and
individual-level controls. For the former, we controlled for company age, size,
industry sector, and subjective firm performance. We measured company size
as the natural log of the number of employees. We coded industry as a dummy
variable with 1 = manufacturing and 0 = service or trading. Such dichotomization of industry helps reduce industry-based indicators (Gomez-Mejia, LarrazaKintana, and Makri, 2003). We controlled for middle managers demographics,
including gender, education level, work tenure, company tenure, and job satisfaction. We measured job satisfaction with three items (a = .89) from Bono
and Judge (2003).
Analyses
We tested the hypotheses using multilevel structural equation modeling
(MSEM) with Mplus 6.12 (Muthen and Muthen, 2007). This method allows
simultaneous investigation of multiple paths at different levels and accounts for
Ou et al.
51
measurement errors. We followed Anderson and Gerbings (1988) two-step

procedures to test the hypothesized model depicted in figure 1. We first confirmed the measurement model using a two-level CFA. Items for CEO humility,
empowering leadership, TMT integration, and empowering organizational climate were specified at the organization level. Middle managers responses
were embedded within organizations and thus modeled at both the individual
level and the organization level to allow detection of the cross-level effect of
organizational factors on the outcomes. We then performed MSEM and examined chi-square, RMSEA, CFI, and NFI to assess model fit. Mplus generated
Satorra-Bentler scaled, chi-square statistics that were robust to non-normality
but could not be directly compared, and these statistics were converted to chisquare statistics based on scaling correction factors (Muthen and Muthen,
2007). We then compared the model with various alternative models to ensure
the robustness of the findings.
To assess each hypothesis, we examined the overall model fit indices and
the significance and direction of each path coefficient. We then tested the
mediation effects linking CEO humility and middle managers responses
(MacKinnon et al., 2002). First, each path coefficient in the chain should be significant, and it is one of the best methods to test mediation effects because it
balances Type I error and statistical power. Next, we calculated the product
term of these path coefficients to evaluate the indirect effect of CEO humility
on each construct, the significance of which supports the mediation effect.
This method has low statistical power to detect mediation, however, because
the distribution of the product term is not normal.
Results
Table 3 shows the means, standard deviations, correlations, and Cronbachs
alphas for all the variables in this study, presented at their appropriate levels.
Table 4 shows that a two-level, baseline measurement model fits the data well:
2 (56) = 70.79, p < .10; CFI = .98; TLI = .97; RMSEA = .02. All factor loadings
were significant, and the average loading was .77. The alternative models
included a one-factor model combining all parcels, three four-factor models,
each combining humility with one other organization-level variable, and a fourfactor model combining empowering climate and TMT integration. Table 4
reveals that no alternative models yielded better chi-square or fit indices, indicating a good measurement model and warranting SEM analysis.
The hypothesized model shown in figure 2a generated good fit indices: 2
(62) = 73.97, p = .14; CFI = .98; TLI = .98; RMSEA = .02. All path coefficients
were significant and positive, supporting all four hypotheses. CEO humility was
positively associated with CEO empowering leadership, supporting hypothesis
1; CEO empowering leadership related positively to TMT integration, supporting hypothesis 2; and TMT integration significantly predicted empowering organizational climate, supporting hypothesis 3, which in turn was associated with
middle managers responses, supporting hypothesis 4.
We then examined the mediation paths linking CEO humility and middle
managers responses by calculating the direct, indirect, and total effects of
CEO humility on the study variables. Confirming hypotheses 1 and 2, CEO
humility had a direct effect of .45 (p < .01) on CEO empowering leadership,
and indirect effects of .33 (p < .05) on TMT integration. The indirect effect of
52
Table 3. Means, Standard Deviations, and Intercorrelations of Study Variables*

Variable
Mean S.D.
1. MM work
4.75 .70 (.94)
engagement
2. MM affective
4.66 .85 .66 (.91)
commitment
3. MM job
3.66 .68 .12 .12 (.90)
performance
.08
.05
4. CEO humility
4.47 .50 .09
5. CEO empowering
4.53 .46 .01
.04
.15
leadership
6. Top management
4.27 .43 .09
.11 .18
team integration
7. Empowering
4.03 .36 .16 .20 .18
organizational climate
.09
.04
8. Company size
5.57 1.42 .08
(Ln of no. of employees)
.09
.02
9. Company age
14.03 9.22 .13
10. Industry
.41 .50 .04
.04
.04
11. Company subjective
4.26 1.41 .02
.02
.05
performance
.06 .02
12. MM gender
0.61 .49 .10
13. MM work tenure
12.96 8.58 .18 .17 .01
14. MM company tenure
6.13 6.02 .08
.14 .05
15. MM education
3.33 .92 .12 .19 .05
16. MM job satisfaction
4.36 .89 .71 .64 .08
17. CEO narcissism
3.56 .68 .03
.00
.09
18. CEO transformational
4.49 .59 .19 .18 .21
leadership
19. CEO gender
.89 .32 .06
.04
.04
20. CEO company tenure
9.71 5.12 .01
.07
.08
21. CEO tenure as CEO
7.91 4.22 .08
.01
.01
22. CEO education
4.32 1.03 .10
.08
.11
23. CEO founder status
.71 .46 .15 .08 .04
24. TMT size
5.49 2.98 .04
.08
.05
25. TMT average
4.30 1.98 .03
.06
.06
team tenure
Variable
13. MM work tenure
14. MM company tenure
15. MM education
16. MM job satisfaction
17. CEO narcissism
18. CEO transformational
leadership
19. CEO gender
20. CEO company tenure
21. CEO tenure as CEO
22. CEO education
23. CEO founder status
24. TMT size
25. TMT average
team tenure
10
11
(.90)
.31
(.88)
.41
.57 (.95)
.31
.36
.23
.02
.06
.07
.14
.02
.05
.04
.14
.11
.17
.16
.26
.03
.01
.15
.41
.09 .18
(.87)
.05
.07
.06
.07
.06
.24
.26
.05 .06 .07

.14 .13 .12 .07
.01
.01
.04
.23
.27 .19 .10
.02
.09
.04
.27 .46 .20 .11
.12 .03 .05 .08 .23 .18 .12
.02
.08
.21 .01 .07
.02
.03
.11
.06
.02 .13 .14
.01
.10
.47 .51 .36 .06
.07
.02
.32
.02
.23
.07
.04
.01
.06
.31
.08
.01
.04
.28
.09
.01
.24
.47 (.96)
.06
.05
.02
.25
.07
.09
.25
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
.15
.06
.01
.11
.10
.05
.51
.32
.18
.07
.02
.36
.06
.04
.01
.11
.06
.04
(.89)
.02
.13
(.86)
.14
(.97)
.13
.03
.13
.02
.16
.04
.05
.10
.07
.06
.07
.24
.06
.16
.05
.21
.02
.04
.29
.12
.41
.06
.16
.13
.22
.10
.17
.13
.10
.06
.03
.12
.09
.02
.02
.01
.08
.02
.01
.08
.10
.03
.07
.05
.17
.21
.11
.09
.05
.35
.37
.11
.11
.05
.06
.16
.06
.07
.07
.17
.13
.20
.23
.21
.10
.01 .01 .01
.16 .05 .13
.27 .54 .18
.47 .18
.30
.29
.47 .08
.32
.11
.12
.17
.04
.17
.10
19
20
21
22
23
24
.02
.06
.04
.22
.14
.01
.66
.11
.09
.25
.28
.14
.45
.33
.18
.08
.01
.01
.08
.15
.15
p < .05; p < .01; two-tailed test.
* All variables were presented at their appropriate levels. Therefore, for correlations of middle-manager-level
variables, N = 645; for correlations of organization-level variables, N = 63; for cross-level correlations, organizationlevel data were disaggregated, and N = 645. MM = middle manager; TMT = top management team; and CEO =
chief executive officer.
Ou et al.
53
Table 4. Two-Level Confirmatory Factor Analysis Tests of Discriminant Validity*

w2
Model
1. 5-factor model: distinct factors for CEO humility, CEO
empowering leadership, TMT integration, empowering
organizational climate, and middle manager responses
2. One-factor model
3. 4-factor model: CEO humility and empowering leadership
combined
4. 4-factor model: CEO humility and TMT integration combined
5. 4-factor model: CEO empowering leadership and TMT integration
combined
6. 4-factor model: empowering organizational climate and TMT
integration combined
d.f. RMSEA CFI TLI
w2
70.79
56
.02
.98 .97
237.30
118.96
65
60
.06
.04
.73 .67 314.57

.91 .88 82.48
10
4
112.83
123.98
60
60
.04
.04
.92 .89
.90 .87
34.57
25.50
4
4
162.41
60
.05
.84 .78
43.92
d.f.
p < .05; p < .01.
* 2 = Satorra-Bentler scaled 2; RMSEA = root-mean-square error of approximation; CFI = comparative fit index;
TLI = Tucker-Lewis index; and 2 = Satorra-Bentler scaled adjusted 2 difference.
CEO humility on empowering organizational climate (.16, p < .10) and on middle managers responses (.11, p < .10) were only marginally significant, rendering weaker support for hypotheses 3 and 4. As this method has a low
power to detect mediation (MacKinnon et al., 2002), and all mediation paths
were significant, we concluded that hypotheses 3 and 4 were still supported.
The results confirm that CEO humility is associated with middle managers
responses through empowering leadership behaviors, TMT integration, and
middle managers perceptions of an organizational empowering climate.
Robustness Checks
We conducted five robustness tests using a series of structural models to rule
out alternative explanations of the findings. The results are shown in Online
Appendix C. First, we reran the research model using each middle manager
outcome as a dependent variable. Models 2, 3, and 4 illustrate that all three
models fit the data well, and the path coefficients demonstrated the same pattern found for our baseline structural model (model 1).
Next, we included control variables for TMT integration and middle managers responses. We separately included control variables for TMT integration
(model 5) and for middle managers responses (model 6) to accommodate the
modest sample size. Results reveal that model 5 (2 [135] = 232.58, p < .01;
CFI = .87; TLI = .85; RMSEA = .03) fits the data worse than model 1, but path
patterns are similar across the two models (see figure 2b). The estimated parameters were slightly smaller but remained significant. Among the control variables, only CEO transformational leadership related significantly to TMT
integration ( = .33, p < .05). These results provided strong evidence on the
predictive power of CEO humility and empowering leadership, net of the effect
of narcissism and transformational leadership.
Model 6 included both organization-level and individual-level controls for middle manager responses. This model fit the data less well (2 [132] = 192.95,
p < .01; CFI = .95; TLI = .94; RMSEA = .03) than model 1. As shown in figure
H2
H1
.45
H3
.68
.73
TMT
integration
TI2
.96
.48
.95
EC1
CEO
empowering
leadership
.52
TMT
integration
.45
Empowering
organizational
climate
.69
Middle
managers
responses
.79
EC3
.71
CEO
humility
.45
CEO
empowering
leadership
.73
TMT
integration
.50
Empowering
organizational
climate
.37
Middle
managers
responses
2c: Model including controls for middle managers responses
CEO
humility
.43
.77
EC2
Empowering
organizational
climate
2b: Model including controls for TMT integration
EL2
.76
EL1
.80
CEO
empowering
leadership
TI1
.90
p < .05; p < .01.

* Control variables and error terms are not shown in the figures to keep the model simple.
CEO
humility
.89
.70
2a: Baseline research model
Figure 2. Mplus results for the between-organization structural models.*
.99
OC
Middle
managers
responses
.54
TP
.82
WE
54
Ou et al.
55
2c, the path patterns are similar to the baseline model except that the linkage
between empowering organizational climate and middle managers responses
drops from .71 to .37 (p < .01). Among the organization-level controls, only
company size was significant ( = .22, p < .05). At the individual level, only
managers education ( = .07, p < .05) and job satisfaction ( = .84, p < .05)
had significant effects on managerial responses; other control variables had no
effect.
Third, we examined potential reverse causality in the research model. We
tested four possible alternative sequences and reported the results in models 7
through 10.We compared the fit of these models with model 1 using Akaikes
(1987) information criterion (AIC), which is appropriate for non-nested model
comparisons; the model with the lowest AIC is the best-fitting model (Akaike,
1987). Online Appendix C shows that the baseline model (model 1) has the
lowest AIC (4262.43), supporting the original mediation sequence.
We further examined whether the proposed variables fully mediated the
effect of CEO humility and whether subjective firm performance reduced the
effects of CEO humility and empowering leadership. Based on model 1, model
11 added a path from empowering leadership to empowering organizational climate ( = .13, p > .10) and a path from TMT integration to middle managers
responses ( = .03, p > .10). Neither path was significant, and model 11 was
no better than model 1 (2[2] = .59, p > .10). Similarly, model 12 added
direct paths from CEO humility ( = .04, p > .10) and empowering leadership
( = .05, p > .10) to middle managers responses. The model was no better
than model 1 (2[2] = .11, p > .10), and neither path was significant.
Following the parsimony principle (Bollen, 1989), the full mediation sequence in
model 1 represented a better model than models 11 and 12. Model 13 tested
whether subjective firm performance affected TMTs assessment of CEO
humility and empowering leadership by adding paths from firm performance to
CEO humility ( = .06, p > .10) and empowering leadership ( = .22, p > .10).
Again, neither path was significant; other path coefficients did not change, and
AIC was higher than that for model 1.
Finally, we tested for common method bias, despite using a split sample
approach to measure CEO humility and CEO empowering leadership, because
the two latent variables partially shared the sample with TMT integration, and
all three variables were measured at Time 1. As Podsakoff et al. (2003) suggested, we followed Williams, Cote, and Buckley (1989) to examine the influence of common method variance among the three variables. We compared
the baseline measurement model of the three constructs with a null model
whereby all items were independent, a model of two method factors, and a
bi-factor model of both measure and method factors. The method model was
better than the null model (2[9] = 195.33, p < .05), and the bi-factor model
did improve model fit from the baseline model (2[7] = 12.7, p < .05), suggesting method bias in our results. That said, the method effects accounted for
only 12 percent of the variance, which was much lower than the 25 percent
benchmark reported by Williams, Cote, and Buckley (1989). In addition, parcels
for TMT integration had no significant loadings on the method factor, demonstrating that the method model was suboptimal. Therefore we concluded that
common method variance was not a major concern for this study.
Using the same method, we tested the impact of potential social desirability
bias, because all participants were gathered in the same room to complete
56
surveys in the presence of other colleagues for the Time 1 survey. We constructed a method factor that combined all four latent variables measured at
Time 1, namely, CEO humility, CEO empowering leadership, TMT integration,
and empowering organizational climate. The method model was worse than
the null model (2[24] = 69.45, p < .05), and the bi-factor model, including
the baseline latent variables and the method factor, was worse than the baseline model (2[7]= 24.42, p < .05). These results suggest that social desirability bias was not a concern.
Qualitative Evidence on CEO Humility
To substantiate our quantitative assessment of CEO humility, we adopted Fu
et al.s (2010) method to identify CEO humility qualitatively by asking CEOs
questions indirectly related to humility. To capture transcendent self-views, we
asked CEOs whether they believed that man can conquer nature. In Chinese,
nature broadly means something that is greater than any individual, whether
the power comes from universal natural laws or social concepts of heaven or
god(s). To delve into self-awareness and openness to feedback, we asked
CEOs to assess their strengths and weaknesses and their views of their
organizations problems and future constraints. We probed their appreciation
of others by asking them to assess the TMT members and describe their
decision-making styles. We examined CEOs self-focus and self-transcendent
pursuit by asking why they wanted to be CEOs. Twelve CEOs declined to be
audio-taped, so we included 51 interviews in the content analysis.
Data coding. The 51 interviews yielded 518 single-spaced pages; on average, each interview engendered 48.8 paragraphs and 9,814.8 words. The first
author trained two coders to ensure that they understood the definitions and
items of humility and its dimensions. The two coders were Masters students
in management and were blind to the hypotheses. Both coders independently
coded all transcripts, compared their codes, and discussed discrepancies. They
could change or retain their original coding after discussion. The first author
met with the coders to clarify ambiguities and answer questions. For each
interview transcript, they coded each paragraph as strong, weak, or neutral
reflections of each of the six humility dimensions. Cohens Kappa for these
two coders was .95, indicating acceptable interrater agreement (Landis and
Koch, 1977; Sun, 2011). The coders also provided an overall rating of the
CEOs humility: 1 = strong, 0 = neutral, and 1 = weak. We averaged this
rating of CEO humility by the two coders and compared it with TMT members
ratings.
Results. The coders ratings and the TMT members ratings of CEO humility
correlated at .28 (p < .05), suggesting a moderate agreement. A closer comparison revealed some interesting findings. Using a mean split, we recoded the
TMT members ratings to 1 = above-average humility and 1 = below-average
humility, similar to the coders overall rating of humility. TMT members rated
27 CEOs with above-average humility, among which 19 were also in the
coders list, suggesting a 70-percent agreement level. In contrast, among the
24 CEOs rated by TMT members as below-average humility, nine were also in
Ou et al.
57
Table 5. Coding Summary of Interviews with CEOs on Their Humility and Management
Philosophy
CEOs with Lower Humility
Interview
Questions
Observations
Sample quotes
CEOs with Higher Humility

Observations
Sample quotes
1. Self-concept (transcendent self-concept)

Do you believe
More likely to
man can
believe in
conquer nature? personal
capability.
Luck is needed, but most

More likely to believe I believe that man proposes
[of success] relies on
man is under
and Tian disposes. I believe
personal effort. [Have you
certain constraints.
that sometimes we cannot
gotten help from others
obtain things that we work
during your career?) No. . . .
very hard for, but I accept the
As long as you persist,
inevitable. As long as I have
then your direction will be
tried my best, I have a clear
correct; as long as you
conscience (CEO 130: 76).
work hard and are
I believe in fate. Some things
professional in everything
are predetermined, although
you do, I think it is difficult
some things need our own
not to succeed
effort. . . . I think I am very
(CEO 117: 59).
lucky and I have received
Well, one cannot
help from others all along the
exaggerate the power of
way (CEO 202: 1112).
individuals. Bigger
environments, such as
people around,
government policies, can
be influential. However, in
a certain domain,
individuals can still be very
powerful, e.g., myself in
my own company (CEO
410: 30).
2. Reflexive consciousness (self-awareness and openness to feedback)

2.1 Views on
their own
strengths and
weaknesses
More emphasis
on strengths
and less on
weaknesses.
Weaknesses
identified are
more like
strengths in
disguise.
A great scholar with high

Acknowledge
I have a lot of experience in
morality,an ambassador
strengths, but also
selling jeans. but. . . . Now
with grand mission and
objectively
we need to find a direction
continuous contribution.
acknowledge
for future innovation, and it
These descriptions by
weaknesses.
needs a lot of effort to figure
others about me concisely Keen on learning new it out (CEO 504: 2).
summarized me (CEO
knowledge.
When other people say that I
112: 1).
have a bright future, I dont
I am familiar with sales,
think so; on the contrary, I
operation, and technology
am very confused. I am not a
. . . I havent spent
person who is satisfied with
sufficient time on team
the status quo (CEO 506:
building, but it can be done
20).
gradually. . . . So my
I regard my job as a happy
biggest constraint is time.
learning vacation with pay
I feel that my knowledge
(CEO 413: 47).
base is sufficient, just not
yet time to use all of
them (CEO 117: 31).
(continued)
58
Table 5. (continued)
Interview
Questions
2.2 Views on the
organizations
problems /
constraints on
future
Observations
More likely to
attribute
problems to
external forces.
Less likely to see
constraints on
organizations
future.
Sample quotes

Observations
[Regarding the collective

Objectively see
betrayal of my sales
constraints on
managers], I think it is the
organizations
societys fault. Many people
future.
rising from the grass roots
like me cannot grow to a
higher level, and they pursue
only short-term goals (CEO
303: 14).
If everything is arranged well,
there should be no
constraints [on the
development potential of my
company] (CEO 117: 23).
Sample quotes
In the foreseeable future, I will
only work on one business.
The society has a clear
division of labor; if you can do
one thing successfully, it is
already an accomplishment
(CEO 130: 14).
Our company grows rapidly,
and many companies have
asked us to distribute their
brands; it is very tempting, but
we think that we are not yet
ready (CEO 504: 4).
3. Interpersonal being (appreciation of others)

3.1 Views on
TMT members
See more
weaknesses.
Less appreciation
of the TMTs
capability.
3.2 Decision
making styles
Tend to withdraw
I went through several
Usually I come up with
Tend to make
from making
stages. Before 2004, I was
some ideas, then I let them
decisions by
decisions alone and
the main one making
themselves and
discuss them. Most of the
decisions and they
time, they execute what Ive to empower TMT
ask the TMT
members to make
implemented; during 2004
decided (CEO 410: 13).
members to
decisions together.
2008, 23 people made all
implement.
What is the use of
the decisions; now it was a
discussion? You make your
group discussion model. The
decision, inform them, and
TMT meets once a month to
then let them implement it. I
figure out future strategy
think many Chinese are not
(CEO 504: 27).
good at discussion; most of
I have to withdraw, let go, force
the time they wait for the
bosss decision, and they
them to take responsibility. . . .
dont bring up their ideas
Starting last May, I forced
during discussions, so
myself not to come to the
sometimes you spend a lot of
office everyday. Gradually, I
time discussing with people
found several of them grew
below you, and it ends up
quickly and became more
wasting time (CEO 124: 37).
mature in making decisions
(CEO 201: 21).
In general, I am not happy

See more strengths. I appreciate my team
with my TMT . . . about
More appreciation of
members passion and
their innovation capability.
the TMTs
identification with this
Some of them cannot even
capabilities.
company. They are not yet
abide to the lowest moral
See TMT members
professional, but with
standard. They dont have a compensate for the
continuous internal and
correct outlook on life and
CEOs weaknesses. external training, they will
values (CEO 303: 25-26).
grow (CEO 504: 38).
[Many of the TMT
The chair, our team, and I are
members] come from the
building a platform for the
rural area, some of them
future together. We all play a
cannot even speak fluent
role on the stage. Although
Mandarin; it is very very
roles are different, we are
difficult to communicate
performing in the same play
with them (CEO 410: 13).
(CEO 506: 33).
I purposely choose partners
who complement me in
capability and personality
(CEO 120: 13).
(continued)
Ou et al.
59
Table 5. (continued)
Interview
Questions
Observations
Sample quotes

Observations
Sample quotes
4. Executive function (low self-focus and self-transcendent pursuit)

Purpose for being More likely to
My outlook of life is to
More likely to
a CEO
mention selfachieve something,
mention grand
related pursuits. influence many people
vision beyond
around me, and receive the individual gain.
respect and recognition
from the society (CEO
303: 27).
More likely to
I think, considering my
More likely
emphasize their
[young] age and [short]
emphasize
own
tenure, I can receive
responsibilities
achievement.
speech invitations from so
toward others.
many different sectors,
remain highly active in the
field, and be recognized
internationally. As a
Chinese, I think no one can
compare with me in this
field (CEO 124: 12).
The drive that led me to

entrepreneurship is that I
think people must work
diligently for the society
(CEO 130: 21).
A persons value does not

equal how much he/she
earns. As CEOs, we have
good career development,
positive social influence and
high status, but more
importantly, many
employees depend on us for
earning their bread (CEO
102: 58).
the coders list, only a 38-percent agreement. If we assume that TMT members are more able to detect true humility as they more frequently interact with
their CEOs, low agreement for CEOs with low humility suggests that CEOs
with low humility may be more inclined to feign humility in their answers to
interviewers. We then focused on the 28 CEOs with agreement in humility
level between TMT members and coders ratings19 CEOs with relatively
higher humility (average TMT rating = 4.86, average coder rating = 0.76) and
nine with relatively lower humility (average TMT rating = 4.00, average coder
rating = 0.81)in identifying their cognitive, motivational, and behavioral
manifestations of humility.
Table 5 summarizes the representative observations and quotes from the
interviews. The two groups differ in transcendent self-concept. CEOs with
lower humility tended to believe that man can conquer nature and to believe in
personal capability. CEOs with higher humility tended to believe that man proposes and nature disposes (CEO 130) and that mankind exists under certain
constraints. In terms of self-awareness and openness to feedback, the more
humble CEOs acknowledged their strengths but were also open to discussing
their weaknesses. For example, CEO 504, from a very successful apparel company, said, I have a lot of experience in selling jeans, but I need a lot of effort
to figure out . . . a direction for future innovation. Humble CEOs also showed
eagerness to learn. As CEO 413 said, I regard my job as a happy learning
vacation with pay. On appreciation of others, the more humble CEOs tended
to appreciate their TMT members capability and to treat them as complementing the CEO. For example, CEO 503 said, I appreciate my team members
passion and identification with this company. CEO 506 treated TMT members
60
as partners and said that he purposefully chose those who complemented him
in capability and personality. They also tended to withdraw from making decisions solely by themselves. For example, a CEO managing a supermarket chain
said that he forced himself to avoid coming to the office daily because his
absence allowed TMT members to mature more rapidly.
When asked about why they wanted to be CEOs, the more-humble ones
mentioned goals beyond individual gain such as responsibility to society and
employees. CEO 130 said, The drive that led me to entrepreneurship is that I
think people must work diligently for societys sake. CEO 102 said, A persons value does not equal how much he or she earns. Those statements
reflect a low self-focus and self-transcendent pursuit. Such a perspective is in
line with what has been characterized as socialized charisma (Brown and
Trevino, 2006).
DISCUSSION
Our two empirical studies provide strong support for our conceptualization of
humility and our hypotheses on CEO humilitys links to top management teams
and middle managers. Study 1 produced six humility dimensions that constitute
a coherent multidimensional construct with good content, convergent, and discriminant validity and reliabilities. Study 2 confirmed the criterion-related validity
of CEO humility by its positive correlations with empowering leadership, TMT
integration, and empowering organizational climate. Findings from Study 2 support our conceptualization based on social information processing theory that
humble CEOs are connected to TMTs and middle managers responses by
shared perceptions that cascade across hierarchical levels.
Theoretical Contributions
Our study helps clarify the conceptual foundation of CEO humility and provides
additional insight into executive leadership and influence. First, our conceptualization alters the common misunderstanding that humble CEOs may lack confidence or may not be able to motivate others. We theorize that humble CEOs
willingly admit both their strengths and weaknesses, have self-confidence, and
are appreciative of others strengths. We further posit that humble CEOs have
self-transcendent pursuits, and our qualitative findings suggest that they often
have a broad perspective of service to society that others would find inspiring.
As our qualitative analysis illustrates, such perspectives are often socialized for
the collective good rather than for individual glory.
Second, the positive effects of CEO humility provoke new thinking about
traits of effective leaders. Besides confirming the value of studying leaders
traits (DeRue et al., 2011), our study challenges previous reviews that have
consistently found influential leaders to be masculine, dominant, and authoritarian (Lord, De Vader, and Alliger, 1986; Koenig et al., 2011). Those views suggest that leadership requires a strong personal desire for influence. But the
reviews overlook the second piece of the influence puzzle: leadership also
depends on whether subordinates accept leaders influence (Blau, 1964).
Research shows that bold and assertive leaders who lack genuine concern for
others undermine their influence on subordinates (Fu et al., 2010; Galvin,
Waldman, and Balthazard, 2010). Our study is consistent with that research in
Ou et al.
61
finding that CEO humility wins acceptance from top and middle managers by
appealing to collective interests and downplaying strong ego dominance. By
putting collective interests over self-interest, humility becomes a powerful
source of socialized charisma (House and Aditya, 1997). Relatedly, leaders who
lack strong egos are able to reduce status differences and gain trust among
status-seeking groups such as managers.
Third, our results contribute to understanding the multilevel effects of leadership, which the strategic leadership literature has heretofore not adequately
addressed (Cannella and Holcomb, 2005). Derived from social information processing theory, we view leaders as meaning managers (Smircich and Morgan,
1982) or cultural architects (Schein, 2010). Our findings suggest that CEOs can
form collective meanings across hierarchical levels, which in turn affect the attitudes and behaviors of employees at lower levels. Our research model reveals
several novel multilevel processes underlying strategic leadership. For example,
finding CEOs roles in cascading meaning to lower levels through TMT integration adds new understanding to indirect leadership theory (Yammarino, 1994).
Our results also demonstrate humble CEOs strategic value in building competitive advantage through cultivating shared perceptions across hierarchical levels
(Wong, Ormiston, and Tetlock, 2011). Furthermore, our finding of a significant
connection between TMT integration and empowering organizational climate
directly responds to a recent call for studies clarifying how a TMTs coordinated
actions or teamness may influence middle managers (Raes et al., 2011). This
finding also supports Griffin and Mathieus (1997) proposition of the connection
between higher-level group interactions and lower-level employees collective
perceptions.
Limitations and Future Research Directions
Our study has several limitations that future research should address. First, our
findings are based on a moderate sample size, despite our effort to secure
high-quality surveys and a high response rate from respondents at different
hierarchical levels from multiple companies. A moderate sample size rendered
lower power to detect mediation using the product term method, resulting in
weaker support for hypotheses 3 and 4. It also constrained our ability to completely dispute the concern about common method variance. We could have
directly controlled for common method variances by including method factors
in the multilevel structural equation models if the sample size were large
enough to do so. We tested for this bias as best we could, however, and our
results suggested that the extent of method bias was small compared with
past research.
Second, we focus only on TMT integration linking CEO humility to middle
managers responses, but other mediators might be important as well. For
example, the process by which CEOs communicate goals and create vertical
and horizontal alignments of goals across organizational levels has been posited
to mediate CEOs leadership and outcomes (Kinicki et al., 2011). Dean and
Sharfman (1996: 378) also recommended studying the impact of CEOs on the
quality of decision implementation, defined as the competence with which
steps are taken to execute the strategic decision. Carmeli and Schaubroek
(2006) have found TMT behavior integration to improve the quality of strategic
decisions. Our study suggests that humble CEOs could improve decisions
62
indirectly by enhancing TMT integration. It would be valuable to understand

whether humble CEOs approach goal cascading, goal alignment, and strategic
implementation differently than do less humble leaders.
Third, our study is limited in its predictions. Future research could determine
whether humble CEOs, compared with less-humble counterparts, make qualitatively different decisions. Recent research suggests that moral decisions
develop as a result of contemplation, whereas rapid choices tend to be more
self-centered (Gunia et al., 2012). CEO humility and moral decision making may
be linked because humble CEOs value joint decision making with TMT members and submit to the greater good and collective interests. For example, a
recent study of implicit leadership indicates that people are more likely to be
perceived as leaders when they discretely display compassion (Melwani,
Mueller, and Overbeck, 2012). Humble CEOs may respond differently to social
expectations for compassionate activities (Jia and Zhang, 2013). Are humble
leaders more likely to be compassionate? Management research has been
overwhelmingly dominated by attention to economic outcomes (Walsh,
Weber, and Margolis, 2003; Tsui and Jia, 2013). Could humble CEOs integrate
the needs of multiple stakeholders, while less-humble leaders focus more on
economic outcomes (Pless, Maak, and Waldman, 2012)? A focus on CEO
humility may expand important future research on human welfare or compassionate outcomes (Rynes et al., 2012; Tsui, 2013; Tsui and Jia, 2013).
Furthermore, we need to know whether humble CEOs generate superior
firm performance. Although we found positive effects on managerial responses
such as engagement, commitment, and job performance, individual-level outcomes do not automatically translate into firm performance, particularly if strategic goals are not aligned vertically across hierarchical levels and horizontally
across departments or business units.
Fourth, we do not know whether our theoretical model and results can be
generalized beyond China. It would be interesting to explore how subordinates
respond to humble CEOs or leaders in Western contexts such as the United
States, where humility is assumed to be more rare or less valued (House et al.,
2004). Generally, we do not expect our findings and our new measure to be
unique to China. Given the global nature of business, cross-cultural studies of
leaders humility would add value to both scholarship and practice. Beyond
national culture, other contextual factors may limit the generalization of our
findings. For example, whether companies with humble CEOs perform well in
dynamic environments has been debated. Humble CEOs may perform poorly if
they cannot decide swiftly and act boldly (Chatterjee and Hambrick, 2007).
Some scholars counter that humble CEOs make sense of frequent and complex changes by fully utilizing others talents (Weick, 2001; Ancona et al.,
2007). The organizational context may also constrain humility. Owens and
Hekmans (2012) qualitative study suggested that humility is effective only
when leaders have competence, external threats are not critical, and organizations have learning cultures. Future research can examine whether humility
works when CEOs are new, recruited from outside, or entering the company
during a crisis. The establishment of the universal nature of CEO humility and
the contingencies of its influence in organizations represents a promising and
important future research direction.
Finally, our study treats humility as a stable trait and does not consider it in
relation to other personality traits. Life span research on personality traits has
Ou et al.
63
shown that traits continue to change throughout adulthood, and scholars propose that with some life changes and role transitions, individuals can become
functionally more mature, as indicated by increases in conscientiousness and
emotional stability (Caspi, Roberts, and Shiner, 2005). Future research can
explore whether certain life experiences or systematic training increase leaders
humility. In addition, human beings are holistic organisms constituted of many
attributes, and the effects of one attribute can be better understood by considering it in connection with other attributes (Allport, 1961). For example, our
study found only a weak correlation between humility and narcissism, implying
a possibility that these two traits may co-exist in some people. Can some leaders possess contradictory attributes simultaneously? Can they be narcissistic
when pursuing status and become humble when they reach the top? These
exciting and meaningful questions are among many to explore about humility.
We hope our study serves as a foundation for future inquiry on the roles of humble CEOs in organizational outcomes, economic and humanistic, for lower-level
employees, customers, shareholders, and the broader society.
Acknowledgments
We thank Don Lange, David Zhu, Peter Hom, Zhen Zhang, Donald Hambrick, Alan
Randolph, Yan Ling, Bradley Owens, and Michael Lubatkin for sharing their insights in
conceptualizing and measuring the key constructs in this paper. We appreciate the help
of Yanling Lian, Liangding Jia, Duanxu Huang, and Jianwu Jiang for data collection. This
work was supported by Singapore Ministry of Education Tier 1 Academic Research
Fund (grant number R-317-000-097-133), National Natural Science Foundation of China
(grant numbers 71032001 and 71072142), Arizona State University GPSA dissertation
grant (2009), and the International Association for Chinese Management Research /
Li-Ning Dissertation Proposal Grant (2010).
REFERENCES
Ahearne, M., J. Mathieu, and A. Rapp
2005 To empower or not to empower your sales force? An empirical examination of
the influence of leadership empowerment behavior on customer satisfaction and performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90: 945955.
Akaike, H.
1987 Factor analysis and AIC. Psychometrika, 52: 317332.
Allport, G. W.
1961 Pattern and Growth in Personality. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Alon, I., J. Child, S. Li, and J. R. McIntyre
2011 Globalization of Chinese firms: Theoretical universalism or particularism.
Management and Organization Review, 7: 191200.
Amason, A. C., and H. J. Sapienza
1997 The effects of top management team size and interaction norms on cognitive
and affective conflict. Journal of Management, 23: 495516.
Ames, D. R., P. Rose, and C. P. Anderson
2006 The NPI-16 as a short measure of narcissism. Journal of Research in Personality, 40: 440450.
Ancona, D., T. W. Malone, W. J. Orlikowski, and P. M. Senge
2007 In praise of the incomplete leader. Harvard Business Review, 85 (2): 92103.
Anderson, J. C., and D. W. Gerbing
1988 Structural equation modeling in practice: A review and recommended twostep approach. Psychological Bulletin, 103: 411423.
64
Ashton, M. C., and K. Lee

2005 Honesty-humility, the Big Five, and the Five-factor Model. Journal of Personality, 73: 13211353.
Bagozzi, R. P., Y. J. Li, and L. W. Phillips
1991 Assessing construct-validity in organizational research. Administrative Science Quarterly, 36: 421458.
Bass, B. M., and B. J. Avolio
1995 MLQ Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire for Research: Permission Set. Redwood City, CA: Mindgarden.
Baumeister, R. F.
1998 The self. In D. Gilbert, S. T. Fiske, and G. Lindzey (eds.), Handbook of Social
Psychology: 680740. Boston: McGraw-Hill.
Berger, P. L., and T. Luckmann
1966 The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge.
New York: Anchor Books.
Blanchard, K. H., J. P. Carlos, and W. A. Randolph
1995 The Empowerment Barometer and Action Plan. Escondido, CA: Blanchard
Training and Development.
Blau, P. M.
1964 Power and Exchange in Social Life. New York: Wiley.
Bliese, P. D.
2000 Within-group agreement, non-independence, and reliability: Implications for
data aggregation and analysis. In K. J. Klein and S. W. J. Kozlowski (eds.), Multilevel
Theory, Research, and Methods in Organizations: Foundations, Extensions, and New
Directions: 349381. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Bligh, M. C., and J. L. Robinson
2010 Was Gandhi charismatic? Exploring the rhetorical leadership of Mahatma
Gandhi. Leadership Quarterly, 21: 844855.
Boje, D. M.
1991 The storytelling organization: A study of story performance in an office-supply
firm. Administrative Science Quarterly, 36: 106126.
Bollen, K. A.
1989 Structural Equations with Latent Variables. New York: Wiley.
Bono, J. E., and T. A. Judge
2003 Self-concordance at work: Toward understanding the motivational effects of
transformational leaders. Academy of Management Journal, 46: 554571.
Brown, M. E., and L. K. Trevino
2006 Socialized charismatic leadership, values congruence, and deviance in work
groups. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91: 954962.
Cannella, A. A., and T. R. Holcomb
2005 A multilevel analysis of the upper-echelon model. In A. Dansereau and F. J.
Yammarino (eds.), Research in Multi-level Issues: Multi-level Issues in Strategy and
Methods: 197237. Oxford: Elsevier.
Carmeli, A., and J. Schaubroeck
2006 Top management team behavioral integration, decision quality, and organizational decline. Leadership Quarterly, 17: 441453.
Carmeli, A., J. Schaubroeck, and A. Tishler
2011 How CEO empowering leadership shapes top management team processes:
Implications for firm performance. Leadership Quarterly, 22: 399411.
Caspi, A., B. W. Roberts, and R. L. Shiner
2005 Personality development: Stability and change. Annual Review of Psychology, 56: 453484.
Ou et al.
65
Chatterjee, A., and D. C. Hambrick

2007 Its all about me: Narcissistic chief executive officers and their effects on company strategy and performance. Administrative Science Quarterly, 52: 351386.
Chen, S. X., M. H. Bond, B. Chan, D.-H. Tang, and E. E. Buchtel
2009 Behavioral manifestations of modesty. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology,
40: 603626.
Chen, Z. G., W. Lam, and J. A. Zhong
2007 Leader-member exchange and member performance: A new look at individual-level negative feedback-seeking behavior and team-level empowerment climate.
Journal of Applied Psychology, 92: 202212.
Chen, Z. X., and A. M. Francesco
2003 The relationship between the three components of commitment and
employee performance in China. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 62: 490510.
Collins, J. C.
2001 Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap . . . and Others Dont.
New York: Jim Collins.
Davis, D. E., J. N. Hook, E. L. Worthington, D. R. Van Tongeren, A. L. Gartner,
D. J. Jennings, and R. A. Emmons
2011 Relational humility: Conceptualizing and measuring humility as a personality
judgment. Journal of Personality Assessment, 93: 225234.
Davis, D. E., E. L. Worthington, and J. N. Hook
2010 Humility: Review of measurement strategies and conceptualization as personality judgment. Journal of Positive Psychology, 5: 243252.
Dean, J. W., and M. P. Sharfman
1996 Does decision process matter? A study of strategic decision-making effectiveness. Academy of Management Journal, 39: 368392.
DeRue, D. S., J. D. Nahrgang, N. Wellman, and S. E. Humphrey
2011 Trait and behavioral theories of leadership: An integration and meta-analytic
test of their relative validity. Personnel Psychology, 64: 752.
Dess, G. G.
1987 Consensus on strategy formulation and organizational performance: Competitors in a fragmented industry. Strategic Management Journal, 8: 259277.
Drucker, P. F.
1992 Managing for the Future: The 1990s and Beyond. New York: Truman Talley/
Dutton.
Eisenhardt, K. M., and L. J. Bourgeois
1988 Politics of strategic decision making in high-velocity environments: Toward a
midrange theory. Academy of Management Journal, 31: 737770.
Exline, J. J., and A. L. Geyer
2004 Perceptions of humility: A preliminary study. Self and Identity, 3: 95114.
Finkelstein, S., D. C. Hambrick, and A. A. Cannella
2009 Strategic Leadership: Theory and Research on Executives, Top Management
Teams, and Boards. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Fry, L. W.
2003 Toward a theory of spiritual leadership. Leadership Quarterly, 14: 693727.
Fu, P. P., A. S. Tsui, J. Liu, and L. Li
2010 Pursuit of whose happiness? Executive leaders transformational behaviors
and personal values. Administrative Science Quarterly, 55: 222254.
Galvin, B. M., D. A. Waldman, and P. Balthazard
2010 Visionary communication qualities as mediators of the relationship between
narcissism and attributions of leader charisma. Personnel Psychology, 63: 509537.
Gerbing, D. W., and J. G. Hamilton
1996 Viability of exploratory factor analysis as a precursor to confirmatory factor
analysis. Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 3: 6272.
66
Gomez-Mejia, L. R., M. Larraza-Kintana, and M. Makri

2003 The determinants of executive compensation in family-controlled public corporations. Academy of Management Journal, 46: 226237.
Grenberg, J.
2005 Kant and the Ethics of Humility. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Griffin, M. A., and J. E. Mathieu
1997 Modeling organizational processes across hierarchical levels: Climate, leadership, and group process in work groups. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 18:
731744.
Guillen, M., and T. F. Gonzalez
2001 The ethical dimension of managerial leadership: Two illustrative case studies
in TQM. Journal of Business Ethics, 34: 175189.
Gulati, R.
1995 Does familiarity breed trust: The implications of repeated ties for contractual
choice in alliances. Academy of Management Journal, 38: 85112.
Gunia, B. C., L. Wang, L. Huang, J. Wang, and J. K. Murnighan
2012 Contemplation and conversation: Subtle influences on moral decision making.
Academy of Management Journal, 55: 1333.
Hackett, R. D., and G. Wang
2012 Virtues and leadership: An integrating conceptual framework founded in Aristotelian and Confucian perspectives on virtues. Management Decision, 50: 868
899.
Hambrick, D. C.
1994 Top management groups: A conceptual integration and reconsideration of the
team label. In L. L. Cummings and B. M. Staw (eds.), Research in Organizational
Behavior, 16: 171213. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
Hambrick, D.
2005 Upper echelon theory: Origins, twists and turns, and lessons learned. In K. G.
Smith and M. A. Hitt (eds.), Great Minds in Management: The Process of Theory
Development: 109127. New York: Oxford University Press.
Hambrick, D. C., and S. Finkelstein
1987 Managerial discretion: A bridge between polar views of organizational outcomes. In L. L. Cummings and B. M. Staw (eds.), Research in Organizational Behavior, 9: 369406. Greenwich: JAI Press.
Harter, J. K., F. L. Schmidt, and T. L. Hayes
2002 Business-unit-level relationship between employee satisfaction, employee
engagement, and business outcomes: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87: 268279.
Hayes, M., and M. Comer
2010 Start with Humility: Lessons from Americas Quiet CEOs on How to Build Trust
and Inspire Followers. Westfield, IN: Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership.
Hayward, M. L. A., and D. C. Hambrick
1997 Explaining the premiums paid for large acquisitions: Evidence of CEO hubris.
Administrative Science Quarterly, 42: 103127.
Hinkin, T. R.
1998 A brief tutorial on the development of measures for use in survey questionnaires. Organizational Research Methods, 1: 104121.
House, R. J., and R. N. Aditya
1997 The social scientific study of leadership: Quo vadis? Journal of Management,
23: 409473.
House, R. J., P. J. Hanges, M. Javidan, P. W. Dorfman, and V. Gupta
2004 Culture, Leadership, and Organizations: The GLOBE Study of 62 Societies.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Ou et al.
67
Howell, J. M., and B. Shamir

2005 The role of followers in the charismatic leadership process: Relationships and
their consequences. Academy of Management Review, 30: 96112.
Hu, L., and P. M. Bentler
1999 Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis: Conventional
criteria versus new alternatives. Structural Equation Modeling, 6: 155.
James, L. R., R. G. Demaree, and G. Wolf
1984 Estimating within: Group interrater reliability with and without response bias.
Journal of Applied Psychology, 69: 8598.
Jia, M., and Z. Zhang
2013 The CEOs representation of demands and the corporations response to
external pressures: Do politically affiliated firms donate more? Management and
Organization Review, 9: 87114.
Judge, T. A., A. Erez, J. E. Bono, and C. J. Thoresen
2003 The core self-evaluations scale: Development of a measure. Personnel
Psychology, 56: 303331.
Kinicki, A. J., K. J. L. Jacobson, B. M. Galvin, and G. E. Prussia
2011 A multilevel systems model of leadership. Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies, 18: 133149.
Koenig, A. M., A. H. Eagly, A. A. Mitchell, and T. Ristikari
2011 Are leader stereotypes masculine? A meta-analysis of three research paradigms. Psychological Bulletin, 137: 616642.
Kozlowski, S. W. J., and K. J. Klein
2000 A multilevel approach to theory and research in organizations: Contextual, temporal, and emergent processes. In K. J. Klein and S. W. J. Kozlowski (eds.), Multilevel Theory, Research, and Methods in Organizations: Foundations, Extensions, and
New Directions: 390. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Lanaj, K., J. R. Hollenbeck, D. R. Ilgen, C. M. Barnes, and S. S. Harmon
2013 The double-edged sword of decentralized planning in multiteam systems.
Landis, J. R., and G. G. Koch
1977 The measurement of observer agreement for categorical data. Biometrics,
33: 159174.
Lee, K., and M. C. Ashton
2004 Psychometric properties of the HEXACO personality inventory. Multivariate
Behavioral Research, 39: 329358.
Li, J., and Y. I. Tang
2010 CEO hubris and firm risk taking in China: The moderating role of managerial
discretion. Academy of Management Journal, 53: 4568.
Ling, Y., Z. Simsek, M. H. Lubatkin, and J. F. Veiga
2008 Transformational leaderships role in promoting corporate entrepreneurship:
Examining the CEO-TMT interface. Academy of Management Journal, 51: 557576.
Lord, R. G., C. L. De Vader, and G. M. Alliger
1986 A meta-analysis of the relation between personality traits and leadership perceptions: An application of validity generalization procedures. Journal of Applied
Psychology, 71: 402410.
MacKinnon, D. P., C. M. Lockwood, J. M. Hoffman, S. G. West, and V. Sheets
2002 A comparison of methods to test mediation and other intervening variable
effects. Psychological Methods, 7: 83104.
Malmendier, U., and G. Tate
2005 CEO overconfidence and corporate investment. Journal of Finance, 60:
26612700.
68
Melwani, S., J. S. Mueller, and J. R. Overbeck

2012 Looking down: The influence of contempt and compassion on emergent leadership categorizations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 97: 11711185.
Meyer, J. P., N. J. Allen, and C. A. Smith
1993 Commitment to organizations and occupations: Extension and test of a
3-component conceptualization. Journal of Applied Psychology, 78: 538551.
Morris, J. A., C. M. Brotheridge, and J. C. Urbanski
2005 Bringing humility to leadership: Antecedents and consequences of leader
humility. Human Relations, 58: 13231350.
Muthen, L. K., and B. O. Muthen
2007 Mplus: Statistical Analysis with Latent Variables: Users Guide. Los Angeles:
Muthen & Muthen.
Newman, J.
1982 Humility and self-realization. Journal of Value Inquiry, 16: 275285.
Nunnally, J. C.
1978 Psychometric Theory. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Ostroff, C., A. J. Kinicki, and M. A. Clark
2002 Substantive and operational issues of response bias across levels of analysis:
An example of climate-satisfaction relationships. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87:
355368.
Owens, B.
2009 Humility in organizational leadership. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Washington, Seattle.
Owens, B., and D. Hekman
2012 Modeling how to grow: An inductive examination of humble leader behaviors,
contingencies, and outcomes. Academy of Management Journal, 55: 787818.
Owens, B. P., M. D. Johnson, and T. R. Mitchell
2013 Expressed humility in organizations: Implications for performance, teams, and
leadership. Organization Science, 24: 15171538.
Pan, Y., J. A. Rowney, and M. F. Peterson
2012 The structure of Chinese cultural traditions: An empirical study of business
employees in China. Management and Organization Review, 8: 7795.
Pearce, C. L., and M. D. Ensley
2004 A reciprocal and longitudinal investigation of the innovation process: The central role of shared vision in product and process innovation teams (PPITs). Journal of
Organizational Behavior, 25: 259278.
Peterson, C., and M. E. P. Seligman
2004 Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Pless, N. M., T. Maak, and D. A. Waldman
2012 Different approaches toward doing the right thing: Mapping the responsibility
orientations of leaders. Academy of Management Perspectives, 26: 5165.
Podsakoff, P. M., S. B. MacKenzie, J. Y. Lee, and N. P. Podsakoff
2003 Common method biases in behavioral research: A critical review of the literature and recommended remedies. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88: 879903.
Raes, A. M. L., M. G. Heijltjes, U. Glunk, and R. A. Roe
2011 The interface of the top management team and middle managers: A process
model. Academy of Management Review, 36: 102126.
Roberson, Q. M., and J. A. Colquitt
2005 Shared and configural justice: A social network model of justice in teams.
Academy of Management Review, 30: 595607.
Rowatt, W. C., C. Powers, V. Targhetta, J. Comer, S. Kennedy, and J. Labouff
2006 Development and initial validation of an implicit measure of humility relative to
arrogance. Journal of Positive Psychology, 1: 198211.
Ou et al.
69
Rynes, S. L., J. M. Bartunek, J. E. Dutton, and J. D. Margolis

2012 Care and compassion through an organizational lens: Opening up new possibilities. Academy of Management Review, 37: 503523.
Salancik, G. R., and J. Pfeffer
1978 A social information processing approach to job attitudes and task design.
Administrative Science Quarterly, 23: 224253.
Schaufeli, W. B., A. B. Bakker, and M. Salanova
2006 The measurement of work engagement with a short questionnaire. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 66: 701716.
Schein, E. H.
2010 Organizational Culture and Leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Schneider, B., and A. E. Reichers
1983 On the etiology of climates. Personnel Psychology, 36: 1939.
Seibert, S. E., S. R. Silver, and W. A. Randolph
2004 Taking empowerment to the next level: A multiple-level model of empowerment, performance, and satisfaction. Academy of Management Journal, 47: 332
349.
Si, S. X., and J. B. Cullen
1998 Response categories and potential cultural bias: Effects of an explicit middle
point in cross-cultural surveys. International Journal of Organizational Analysis, 6:
218230.
Simsek, Z., J. F. Veiga, M. H. Lubatkin, and R. N. Dino
2005 Modeling the multilevel determinants of top management team behavioral
integration. Academy of Management Journal, 48: 6984.
Smircich, L., and G. Morgan
1982 Leadership: The management of meaning. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 18: 257273.
Smith, K. G., K. A. Smith, J. D. Olian, H. P. Sims, P. Obannon, and J. A. Scully
1994 Top management team demography and process: The role of social integration and communication. Administrative Science Quarterly, 39: 412438.
Spreitzer, G. M.
1995 Psychological empowerment in the workplace: Dimensions, measurement,
and validation. Academy of Management Journal, 38: 14421465.
Spreitzer, G. M.
2008 Taking stock: A review of more than twenty years of research on empowerment at work. In J. Barling and C. Cooper (eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Organizational Behavior: 5472. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Sully de Luque, M., N. T. Washburn, D. A. Waldman, and R. J. House
2008 Unrequited profit: How stakeholder and economic values relate to subordinates perceptions of leadership and firm performance. Administrative Science
Quarterly, 53: 626654.
Sun, S.
2011 Meta-analysis of Cohens kappa. Health Services and Outcomes Research
Methodology, 11: 145163.
Tangney, J. P.
2002 Humility. In C. R. Snyder (ed.), Handbook of Positive Psychology: 411419.
New York: Oxford University Press.
Templeton, J. M.
1997 Worldwide Laws of Life. Philadelphia: Templeton Foundation Press.
Tice, D. M., J. L. Butler, M. B. Muraven, and A. M. Stillwell
1995 When modesty prevails: Differential favorability of self-presentation to friends
and strangers. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69: 11201138.
70
Tsai, W. P., and S. Ghoshal

1998 Social capital and value creation: The role of intrafirm networks. Academy of
Management Journal, 41: 464476.
Tsui, A. S.
2013 On compassionate scholarship: Why should we care? Academy of Management Review, 38: 167181.
Tsui, A. S., and L. D. Jia
2013 Calling for humanistic scholarship in China. Management and Organization
Review, 9: 115.
Tsui, A. S., and C.-M. Lau
2002 The Management of Enterprises in the Peoples Republic of China. Norwell,
MA: Kluwer Academic.
Tsui, A. S., J. L. Pearce, L. W. Porter, and A. M. Tripoli
1997 Alternative approaches to the employee-organization relationship: Does investment in employees pay off? Academy of Management Journal, 40: 10891121.
Tsui, A. S., H. Wang, K. Xin, L. Zhang, and P. P. Fu
2004 Let a thousand flowers bloom: Variation of leadership styles among Chinese
CEOs. Organizational Dynamics, 33: 520.
van Dierendonck, D.
2011 Servant leadership: A review and synthesis. Journal of Management, 37:
12281261.
van Dierendonck, D., and I. Nuijten
2011 The servant leadership survey: Development and validation of a multidimensional measure. Journal of Business and Psychology, 26: 249267.
Vandewalle, D.
1997 Development and validation of a work domain goal orientation instrument.
Educational and Psychological Measurement, 57: 9951015.
Vazire, S.
2010 Who knows what about a person? The self-other knowledge asymmetry
(SOKA) model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98: 281300.
Vera, D., and A. Rodriguez-Lopez
2004 Strategic virtues: Humility as a source of competitive advantage. Organizational Dynamics, 33: 393408.
Waldman, D. A., and F. J. Yammarino
1999 CEO charismatic leadership: Levels-of-management and levels-of-analysis
effects. Academy of Management Review, 24: 266285.
Wallace, J. C., P. D. Johnson, K. Mathe, and J. Paul
2011 Structural and psychological empowerment climates, performance, and the
moderating role of shared felt accountability: A managerial perspective. Journal of
Applied Psychology, 96: 840850.
Walsh, J. P., K. Weber, and J. D. Margolis
2003 Social issues and management: Our lost cause found. Journal of Management, 29: 859881.
Weick, K. E.
2001 Leadership as the legitimation of doubt. In W. Bennis, G. M. Spreitzer, and
T. G. Cummings (eds.), The Future of Leadership: Todays Top Leadership Thinkers
Speak to Tomorrows Leaders: 91102. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Weiss, H. M., and P. A. Knight
1980 The utility of humility: Self-esteem, information search, and problem-solving
efficiency. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 25: 216223.
Whetstone, M. R., M. A. Okun, and R. B. Cialdini
1992 The modest responding scale. Paper presented at the Convention of the
American Psychological Society, San Diego, CA.
Ou et al.
71
Whitener, E. M., S. E. Brodt, M. A. Korsgaard, and J. M. Werner

1998 Managers as initiators of trust: An exchange relationship framework for understanding managerial trustworthy behavior. Academy of Management Review, 23:
513530.
Williams, L. J., J. A. Cote, and M. R. Buckley
1989 Lack of method variance in self-reported affect and perceptions at work: Reality or artifact. Journal of Applied Psychology, 74: 462468.
Williams, L. J., R. J. Vandenberg, and J. R. Edwards
2009 Structural equation modeling in management research: A guide for improved
analysis. Academy of Management Annals, 3: 543604.
Wong, E. M., M. E. Ormiston, and P. E. Tetlock
2011 The effects of top management team integrative complexity and decentralized
decision making on corporate social performance. Academy of Management Journal, 54: 12071228.
Yammarino, F. J.
1994 Indirect leadership: Transformational leadership at a distance. In B. M. Bass
and B. J. Avolio (eds.), Improving Organizational Effectiveness through Transformational Leadership: 2647. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Yukl, G.
2008 How leaders influence organizational effectiveness. Leadership Quarterly, 19:
708722.
Zhang, X. M., and K. M. Bartol
2010 Linking empowering leadership and employee creativity: The influence of psychological empowerment, intrinsic motivation, and creative process engagement.
Zhang, Y. W., and Y. Q. Gan
2005 The reliability and validity test of the Chinese Utrecht Work Engagement Scale
(UWES). Chinese Journal of Clinical Psychology, 13: 268270.
Authors Biographies
Amy Y. Ou is an assistant professor of organizational behavior at NUS Business School,
National University of Singapore, 15 Kent Ridge Drive, Singapore 119245 (e-mail:
bizyo@nus.edu.sg). Her current research interests include executive leadership, organizational culture, and cross-cultural management. She received her Ph.D. in management
from Arizona State University.
Anne S. Tsui is the Motorola Professor of International Management (20032011,
emerita since 2011) at the W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University,
Tempe, AZ 85287 (e-mail: anne.tsui@asu.edu). She is also Distinguished Visiting
Professor at Peking University, Fudan University, and Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
Her current research interests include executive leadership, employment relationships,
guanxi networks, and Chinese management research methods. She received her Ph.D.
in management from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Angelo J. Kinicki is the Weatherup/Overby Chair in Leadership and Professor of
Management at the W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University, Tempe,
AZ 85287 (e-mail: angelo.kinicki@asu.edu). His current research interests include leadership, organizational culture, and organizational change. He received his D.B.A. in organization behavior from Kent State University.
David A. Waldman is a professor of management at the W. P. Carey School of
Business, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287 (e-mail: waldman@asu.edu). His
research interests focus on responsible leadership at strategic levels of management,
72
as well as neuroscience applications to the study of leadership. He received his Ph.D. in

industrial/organizational psychology from Colorado State University.
Zhixing Xiao is Distinguished Visiting Professor of Chinese Business at George
Washington University, Washington, DC 20052 (e-mail: xzhixing@gwu.edu). His current
research interests include social networks, social cognitions, leadership and institutional
logics. He received his Ph.D. in management from INSEAD.
Lynda Jiwen Song is an associate professor of organizational behavior at the School of
Business, Renmin University of China, 59 Zhongguancun Street, Beijing, P. R. China
100872 (e-mail: songjiwen@rbs.org.cn). Her current research interests include leadership, the employment relationship, creativity, emotional intelligence, and diversity. She
received her Ph.D. in organizational management from the Hong Kong University of
Science and Technology.

Administrative Science Quarterly 2014 Ou 34 72

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Administrative Science Quarterly 2014 Ou 34 72

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Humble Chief

Administrative Science Quarterly

Amy Y. Ou,1 Anne S. Tsui,2 Angelo J. Kinicki,3

NUS Business School, National University of Singapore

Downloaded from asq.sagepub.com by guest on January 20, 2015

Administrative Science Quarterly 59 (2014)

of leadership undifferentiated from leader behaviors (e.g., Level 5 Leadership,

subordinates and thus should show less humility. Conversely, Confucianism

Administrative Science Quarterly 59 (2014)

Downloaded from asq.sagepub.com by guest on January 20, 2015

How Humble CEOs Connect to Top and Middle Managers

Administrative Science Quarterly 59 (2014)

CEOs empowering leadership and TMT integration. Sharing power could

than themselves, humble CEOs are likely to use power in a collectively

TMT integration and empowering organizational climate. Consistent

Administrative Science Quarterly 59 (2014)

Empowering organizational climate and middle managers responses.

Downloaded from asq.sagepub.com by guest on January 20, 2015

participating CEOs provided further evidence for the cognitive, motivational,

Administrative Science Quarterly 59 (2014)

satisfactory goodness-of-fit indices (2[115] = 194.74, p < .05; CFI = .95,

Downloaded from asq.sagepub.com by guest on January 20, 2015

Administrative Science Quarterly 59 (2014)

(2009) measure of humility and the correlation of the comprehensive humility

Downloaded from asq.sagepub.com by guest on January 20, 2015

Table 2. Confirmatory Factor Analysis for Humility with Related Constructs*

Downloaded from asq.sagepub.com by guest on January 20, 2015

Administrative Science Quarterly 59 (2014)

Downloaded from asq.sagepub.com by guest on January 20, 2015

Administrative Science Quarterly 59 (2014)

measurement errors. We followed Anderson and Gerbings (1988) two-step

Administrative Science Quarterly 59 (2014)

Table 3. Means, Standard Deviations, and Intercorrelations of Study Variables*

.05 .06 .07

p < .05; p < .01; two-tailed test.

Table 4. Two-Level Confirmatory Factor Analysis Tests of Discriminant Validity*

d.f. RMSEA CFI TLI

.73 .67 314.57

p < .05; p < .01.

Downloaded from asq.sagepub.com by guest on January 20, 2015

2c: Model including controls for middle managers responses

2b: Model including controls for TMT integration

p < .05; p < .01.

2a: Baseline research model

Figure 2. Mplus results for the between-organization structural models.*

Administrative Science Quarterly 59 (2014)

CEOs with Higher Humility

1. Self-concept (transcendent self-concept)

Luck is needed, but most

2. Reflexive consciousness (self-awareness and openness to feedback)

A great scholar with high

Downloaded from asq.sagepub.com by guest on January 20, 2015

Administrative Science Quarterly 59 (2014)

CEOs with Higher Humility

[Regarding the collective

3. Interpersonal being (appreciation of others)

In general, I am not happy

CEOs with Higher Humility

4. Executive function (low self-focus and self-transcendent pursuit)

The drive that led me to

A persons value does not

Administrative Science Quarterly 59 (2014)

Administrative Science Quarterly 59 (2014)

indirectly by enhancing TMT integration. It would be valuable to understand