Affective Match: Leader Emotional Displays, Follower Positive Affect, and Follower Performance

Leader emotions may play an important role in leadership effectiveness. Extending this earlier research on leader emotional displays and leadership effectiveness, we propose that the “affective match” between follower positive affect (PA) and leaders’ emotional displays moderates the effectiveness of leader emotional displays. Leader display of emotions has more positive effects on follower behavior if the match between the valence of leader emotion and follower PA is strong rather than weak. Support for this hypothesis was found in two experiments. The congruency between leader emotional displays and follower PA determined follower task performance and extra-role compliance. Results from the second experiment indicated that this effect is due to the affective aspects of leader behavior and not to the valence of the content of the message.