Leader's Conveyed Emotional Labor and Leadership Evaluations: The Moderating Role of Gender

Abstract

We examined whether leader gender moderated the relationship between leader's conveyed emotional labor (EL) strategies and followers' leadership evaluations [effectiveness, trust, leader-member exchange (LMX)]. Participants read a fictitious interview of a CEO (male/female) reflecting on their strategy (surface acting/deep acting/genuine displays) to express emotions. The results suggest that conveyed EL influenced evaluations of female, but not male, leaders for the three measures. Notably, females received better trust evaluations for genuine displays (vs. surface and deep acting), whereas males received similar evaluations across EL strategies. Although less clear for effectiveness and LMX ratings, the results suggest leader EL might influence evaluations of female (vs. male) leaders more strongly. This study sheds light on the role of gender stereotypes in evaluations of leaders performing EL.