Do I feel elevated? Unraveling the emotional and value-based mechanisms behind humble leadership.

INTRODUCTION: Humble leadership is increasingly recognized as a catalyst for organizational adaptability. Although prior research has examined several cognitive, relational, and affective mechanisms underlying humble leadership, less is known about whether humble leadership evokes specific self-transcendent moral emotions, such as elevation, that motivate followers to engage in risky but prosocial voice behavior. Departing from traditional exchange-based leadership perspectives, this study draws on Affective Events Theory to conceptualize humble leadership as a "moral event" that elicits elevation-a distinct, other-praising emotion triggered by witnessing moral excellence-and examines whether this emotional response motivates followers to engage in voice behavior, a risky and organization-oriented prosocial act. Furthermore, this study investigates whether follower altruistic value serves as a boundary condition that amplifies this process.

METHODS: A two-wave, dyadic design was employed with 313 leader-follower pairs from Chinese organizations-a cultural context where Confucian values and high power distance render humble leadership both counter-normative and morally salient. A moderated mediation model was tested using structural equation modeling in Mplus 8.0, with Monte Carlo simulation (20,000 resamples) to assess indirect effects.

RESULTS: Results demonstrate that humble leadership is positively related to follower voice behavior through the mediating role of elevation. Crucially, follower altruistic value strengthens this indirect effect, suggesting that the moral-emotional influence of humble leadership is more pronounced when it resonates with followers' intrinsic values.

DISCUSSION: These findings contribute to the leadership and organizational behavior literature by identifying elevation as a theoretically meaningful moral-emotional pathway underlying follower voice, highlighting how moral emotions serve as an important emotional pathway for social influence in hierarchical organizations, and offering a culturally grounded account of how the Chinese organizational context shapes the emotional impact of humble leadership.