Social bonding or depleting? A team‐level investigation of leader self‐sacrifice on team and leader work engagement

The leader self‐sacrifice literature has largely drawn on the norm of reciprocity to examine the positive impacts of leader self‐sacrifice on employee attitudes and behaviours, but little attention has been paid to the potential negative impacts of leader self‐sacrifice on leaders’ own work outcomes. Grounded in social exchange theory and ego depletion theory, our research focuses on why leader self‐sacrifice brings about both beneficial and detrimental effects and considers how leader competence shapes these effects. Two field studies were conducted to test our hypotheses. Study 1 explored the underlying mechanisms through which leader self‐sacrifice influences team/leader work engagement. Study 2 replicated and extended the findings of Study 1 by further testing the moderating role of leader competence. Our results indicated that team affective commitment to leaders acts as a key mediator of the positive relationship between leader self‐sacrifice and team work engagement, and that leader depletion serves as a crucial mechanism underlying the negative relationship between leader self‐sacrifice and leader work engagement. Additionally, leader competence affects how team members view self‐sacrificing leaders and the extent to which self‐sacrificing leaders consume their energy. For competent leaders, the positive influence of leader self‐sacrifice on team work engagement (via team affective commitment to leaders) is stronger, and the negative influence of leader self‐sacrifice on leader work engagement (via leader depletion) is weaker. Practitioner points To avoid self‐sacrificing leaders being seriously depleted, organizations should design activities or training programmes to help leaders replenish self‐control resources and, if possible, increase their self‐control capacity. To encourage team members’ investment in their work, leaders may need to establish psychological attachment and bonds with members to motivate them to repay sacrificial behaviours by fully engaging in the work. Organizations can provide systematic training to enhance leader competence to magnify the beneficial impacts and buffer the detrimental impacts of leader self‐sacrifice.