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JMP
30,8
878
Received 15 March 2013
Revised 30 September 2013
10 April 2014
13 July 2014
Accepted 16 July 2014
Journal of Managerial Psychology
Vol. 30 No. 8, 2015
pp. 878-893
© Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0268-3946
DOI 10.1108/JMP-03-2013-0082
The relationship between
humorous leadership and
innovative behavior
Alexander Pundt
Department of Psychology, Work and Organizational Psychology,
University of Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between humorous leadership
and innovative behavior and the moderator effects of creative requirement and perceived innovation
climate, beyond transformational leadership, and leader-member exchange (LMX).
Design/methodology/approach – Questionnaire data were collected from 150 employees of various
organizations in Germany.
Findings – Employees whose leader used humor more frequently reported to be more innovative,
when the employees perceived their tasks to require creativity and innovation. Perceived innovation
climate did not moderate the relationship.
Research limitations/implications – Different humor styles rather than just positive humor should
be investigated in the future. Future research should incorporate multi-level designs and objective data
on innovative behavior.
Practical implications – Humorous leadership is an important element of innovation-relevant
leadership behavior. Its use may be integrated in broader leadership development approaches.
Originality/value – The study contributes to knowledge on humorous leadership and its relationship
to organizational behavior. It enhances theoretical developments by considering the employees’ task
and perceived innovation climate as moderator variables. It helps establish humor as a leadership tool
beyond constructs such as LMX or transformational leadership.
Keywords Innovation, Leadership, Creative thinking
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Although leadership research has a long tradition in managerial psychology (Day and
Antonakis, 2012), it has widely neglected the role of humor in leadership. Researchers
define humorous leadership as a communication strategy based on verbal or nonverbal
activity that elicits a positive cognitive or affective response from listeners (Crawford,
1994). Humorous leaders intend to amuse followers by sharing funny events with them
(Cooper, 2005). Initial research has shown that humorous leadership is related to
employee performance, satisfaction, or commitment (Avolio et al., 1999; Hughes and
Avey, 2009; Priest and Swain, 2002; Vecchio et al., 2009).
Despite this evidence, important questions remain unanswered. First, it is unclear how
humorous leadership is related to other leadership outcomes. Such knowledge is needed
to understand how humor enhances the leadership process. Second, research has hardly
included any moderator. However, this would be necessary to learn about boundary
conditions of humorous leadership. Third, not much is known about the relationship
of humor to established leadership constructs and about the unique contribution of
The author gratefully thanks Franziska Franke, Jan Schilling, Sabine Sonnentag, Laura Venz,
Shay Tzafrir, Lois Tetrick, and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier
versions of this manuscript.
humorous leadership. These questions need to be addressed in order to establish humor Humorous
as a leadership tool and to understand how and when humorous leadership has positive leadership and
effects (Malone, 1980).
This study addresses the relationship between humorous leadership and employees’
innovative
innovative behavior. In changing environments, organizations increasingly rely on behavior
innovative initiatives of “ordinary” employees (Frese et al., 1999). Fostering innovative
behavior is one of the most important leadership functions in today’s organizations. 879
Initial evidence suggests a relationship between humor and creativity on the individual
level (Lang and Lee, 2010; Slatten et al., 2011). This can be explained by cognitive and
social processes. Humor allows for playfully combining ideas that are incongruent at first
glance (Martin, 2007). It also establishes an atmosphere fostering open discussion of
unusual ideas. In her qualitative study, Holmes (2007) showed that humorous comments
during team meetings kept the idea generation process going although humorously
presented ideas were often unrelated to the actual solution. However, teams were more
open to discuss ideas after humorous comments – albeit by the leader or team members.
Thus, humorous leadership may foster innovative behavior. Although this interpretation
is supported by Holmes’ (2007) qualitative findings, it has not yet been tested with
quantitative data. Therefore, the first aim of this study is to quantitatively test the
relationship between humorous leadership and innovative behavior.
In their recent meta-analysis, Mesmer-Magnus et al. (2012) found humorous leadership
to be related to leadership outcomes such as performance or satisfaction. However, they
also found a high amount of variance between studies. Obviously, humorous leadership
does not always have positive consequences. Therefore, moderator variables such as the
employees’ task (Volmer et al., 2012) and the organizations’ innovation climate (Wang
and Rode, 2010) need to be considered. My second aim is to investigate creative
requirement and perceived innovation climate as moderators of the relationship between
humorous leadership and innovative behavior.
In studying its usefulness, the unique contribution of humorous leadership beyond
well-established and effective leadership concepts needs to be addressed. The third aim of
this study is to investigate the contribution of humorous leadership to innovative behavior
beyond leader-member exchange (LMX) and transformational leadership. Holmes (2007)
found that humorous leadership contributes to positive leader-follower relationships and
is intellectually stimulating. Hence, humorous leadership may be related to LMX (Graen
and Uhl-Bien, 1995) and transformational leadership (Bass, 1985), both of which are
predictors of innovative behavior (Hammond et al., 2011). Therefore, it is necessary to
show that humorous leadership is uniquely related to innovative behavior.
This paper makes three main contributions: first, it contributes to knowledge about
humorous leadership by investigating innovative behavior as an outcome. Second, it
contributes by considering the employees’ task and their perception of innovation
climate as moderator variables, hence acknowledging the complexity of the
relationship between humorous leadership and outcomes. Third, it contributes to the
leadership literature by taking a step in establishing humor as a leadership tool and
investigating its contribution beyond well-established leadership constructs such as
LMX or transformational leadership. Figure 1 shows the overall research model.

2. Humorous leadership and innovative behavior

Innovation is defined as the “intentional introduction and application within a role, group
or organization of ideas, processes, products or procedures, new to the relevant unit of
adoption, designed to significantly benefit the individual, the group, the organization or
JMP Creative
30,8 Requirement

H2 +

Humorous H1 + Innovative
880 Leadership Behavior

Leader-Member
Exchange

H3 +
Transformational
Figure 1. Leadership Innovation
Research model Climate

wider society” (West and Farr, 1990, p. 9). Innovative behavior refers to employee
initiatives related to any innovation in the organization including the generation of new
and useful ideas, the communication of ideas and suggestions, and the implementation of
ideas (Rank et al., 2004).
Humorous leadership as a communicative strategy is positively related to
innovative behavior because it triggers relevant cognitive, affective, and relational
processes. Hence, humorous leadership gives way to creativity and idea generation as
part of innovative behavior (Rank et al., 2004). Incongruity is a cognitive element of
humor (Martin, 2007). It means that at least two situational features are cognitively
incompatible. Situations that violate expectations, but are simultaneously perceived
as being normal overall are typically perceived as humorous (Veatch, 1998).
Incongruity results from unusual associations and makes people try to combine
incongruous elements of the situation. Thus, humorous incongruity stimulates new
ways of thinking and playing with ideas and leads to unusual associations and new
ideas (Holmes, 2007).
Moreover, humorous leadership fosters employees’ positive affect (Eisend, 2009).
Humorous stimuli activate brain regions that are associated with reward and laughter
(Robert and Wilbanks, 2012). Additionally, workplace humor is a specific category of
affective events that triggers positive affective states such as joy, fun, or cheerfulness.
As these states are associated with a high level of activation, humorous leadership
triggers highly activated positive affect (Russell, 2003). Madrid et al. (2013) studied
weekly innovative behavior as a consequence of positive mood and found that highly
activated positive mood fostered innovative behavior, whereas lowly activated positive
mood was unrelated to innovative behavior. In terms of broaden-and-build
theory, cheerful employees who have fun and enjoy what they do have a broader
thought-action repertoire (Fredrickson, 2001). They think about upcoming problems
more flexibly and likely generate new ideas (Baas et al., 2008). They are motivated to
solve the problems and to take the risks of generating, communicating, and
implementing innovative ideas ( Janssen et al., 2004).
Furthermore, humorous leadership contributes to positive leader-follower relationships
(Cooper, 2008). By using humor, leaders voluntarily share information about themselves
and give followers a chance to “know them on a deeper level” (Cooper, 2008, p. 1103). This
helps overcome hierarchical differences and triggers perceived leader-follower similarity.
These relational processes also contribute to psychological safety. Hence, followers feel Humorous
free to develop, communicate, and implement their ideas without any fear of negative leadership and
consequences (Carmeli et al., 2010). Overall, humorous leadership is a relational invitation
and serves as a cue for a safe environment for innovative behavior.
innovative
These affective and relational processes are also important for motivating followers behavior
to implement their ideas. Implementing ideas can be risky because flaws of ideas might
become obvious ( Janssen et al., 2004). Psychological safety created by humorous 881
leadership signals that such mistakes do not have negative consequences (Carmeli
et al., 2010). Humorous leaders may make funny comments about upcoming mistakes,
and the followers face idea implementation with a more lighthearted and playful view
(Martin, 2007). Additionally, employees with positive affect are less concerned with
potential risks of implementing ideas because they shift their attention from risks and
focus on opportunities (Gorman et al., 2012).
The unique contribution of humorous leadership to innovative behavior is its
triggering of a complex mental state of flexible thinking, activation, positive affect,
playfulness, and psychological safety. Although these states are also triggered by other
forms of leadership such as transformational leadership or LMX, the combination of
these states adds meaningfully to the prediction of innovative behavior.
Transformational leaders communicate attractive visions, point at the importance of
teamwork, inspire followers to create new ideas, and foster followers’ individual
development (Bass, 1985). None of these elements is explicitly intended to amuse
followers, to provide cognitive incongruity, or to establish psychological safety. Although
transformational leadership fosters highly activated positive affect (Erez et al., 2008),
these states are different to those triggered by humorous leadership. Transformational
leadership is related to being excited, energetic, or enthusiastic, whereas it is not related
to joy, fun, or cheerfulness. Although transformational leadership may be accompanied
by humorous leadership, it does not necessarily include the use of humor. Therefore,
humorous leadership contributes to innovative behavior beyond transformational
leadership. Similarly, humorous leadership is different from LMX. LMX describes the
quality of the leader-follower relationship in terms of trust, respect, and mutual obligation
(Graen and Uhl-Bien, 1995). Although humorous leadership may contribute to LMX
(Cooper, 2008; Pundt and Herrmann, 2015), neither dimension of LMX is explicitly related
to amusing followers or to providing cognitive incongruity. Hence, humorous leadership
refers to a unique part of the leadership-innovation relationship beyond transformational
leadership and LMX:
H1. Humorous leadership is positively related to the employees’ innovative behavior
beyond transformational leadership and LMX.

3. Creative requirement as a moderator

Creative requirement is defined as “the perception that one is expected, or needs,
to generate work-related ideas” (Unsworth et al., 2005, p. 542). It describes the necessity of
being innovative within a work role and accumulates all situational cues suggesting the
importance of being innovative (Unsworth and Clegg, 2010). Creative requirement does
not refer to “objective” task characteristics. It rather reflects the employees’ subjective
redefinition of their task (Hackman, 1969). It promotes innovative behavior and mediates
the effects of innovation-fostering conditions (Unsworth et al., 2005).
Creative requirement is expected to enhance the relationship between humorous
leadership and innovative behavior. While humorous leadership encourages creative
JMP thinking and makes employees feel safe, creative requirement adds the necessity of
30,8 innovative behavior. However, creative requirement may also be stressful because
generating ideas requires hard work, which is risky and could fail (Hon, 2013). Flexible
thinking, activated positive affect, and psychological safety triggered by humorous
leadership provide a lighthearted and playful view of creative requirements. Thus,
humorous leadership particularly contributes to accomplishing tasks that require
882 innovation. Holmes’ (2007) qualitative study provided initial evidence for this assumption
in that she found humor to foster idea generation in team meetings that required
creativity and innovative problem solving. In sum, humorous leadership is particularly
useful in fostering innovative behavior when the employees’ tasks require creativity.
As discussed above, humorous leadership is expected to uniquely contribute to
innovative behavior beyond LMX and transformational leadership. If this was true,
the interaction between humorous leadership and creative requirement also contributes
to innovative behavior beyond LMX and transformational leadership and their
interactions with creative requirement:
H2. Creative requirement moderates the relationship between humorous leadership
and innovative behavior beyond LMX and transformational leadership in a way
that this relationship is stronger when creative requirement is high.

4. Innovation climate as a moderator

As an individual perception of organizational norms, values, and practices ( James et al.,
2008), innovation climate describes the degree to which employees feel encouraged and
supported to develop new ideas and innovative approaches at work (Patterson et al.,
2005). In organizations with high levels of innovation climate, employees feel their ideas
to be highly appreciated. They believe that innovation is important in the organization
and this is a necessary condition for a relationship between humorous leadership and
innovative behavior.
Similarly to creative requirement, perceived innovation climate triggers the
employees’ perception that they are expected to be innovative. However, innovation
climate refers to values, norms, and practices of the organization, whereas creative
requirement is a job characteristic. In other words: innovation climate describes the
perception that innovative behavior is appreciated and valued in the organization,
whereas creative requirement refers to the perception that innovative behavior is
necessary in the job. Hence, both moderators may seem similar, but they refer to
distinct reasons why innovation is important.
Perceived innovation climate is expected to enhance the relationship between
humorous leadership and innovative behavior because it gives way to the
mental state triggered by humorous leadership. In organizations valuing innovation,
it is easier for humorous leaders to foster innovative behavior, whereas in
organizations not valuing innovation, humorous leadership is unrelated to innovative
behavior. As for creative requirement, the interaction between humorous
leadership and innovation climate is expected to contribute to innovative
behavior beyond LMX and transformational leadership and their interactions with
innovation climate:
H3. Perceived innovation climate moderates the relationship between humorous
leadership and innovative behavior beyond LMX and transformational
leadership in a way that this relationship is stronger when innovation climate
is high.
5. Method Humorous
5.1 Sample and procedure leadership and
Questionnaires were spread among 200 employees from various organizations in
Germany. Overall, 150 completed questionnaires were returned. Respondents’ age
innovative
ranged from 18 to 63 years (M ¼ 37 years, SD ¼ 12 years). Employees (47 percent behavior
female) worked in their organization for 9 years on average (SD ¼ 8.3 years), 78 percent
of the respondents had a full-time position, 29 percent had a leadership position. 883
Around 25 percent were clerical workers, 16 percent worked in management
professions, 12 percent in service professions, and 9 percent in social and healthcare
professions (other professions: 38 percent).
Employees had weekly contact with their immediate leader for 17 hours on average
(SD ¼ 16.41). The majority of leaders were male (70 percent). Organization size was
distributed as follows: up to 10 employees (16 percent), between 11 and 50 employees
(25 percent), between 51 and 250 employees (19 percent), between 251 and 500 employees
(7 percent), more than 500 employees (33 percent). Organizations mainly operated in
public administration (18.0 percent), manufacturing (12.7 percent), business activities (e.g.
tax consultancy, IT-services, etc., 12.7 percent), or financial intermediation (10.0 percent).

5.2 Measures
Humorous leadership was measured using the five-item scale by Avolio et al. (1999).
A sample item is “The leader makes us laugh at ourselves when we are too serious.”
Respondents gave frequency ratings on a scale from 1 ¼ “never or very seldom” to
5 ¼ “very often.” Cronbach’s α was 0.87.
Transformational leadership was measured by the German four-item intellectual-
stimulation subscale by Felfe (2006). A sample item is “My immediate leader
encourages me to take different perspectives when looking at problems.” Respondents
gave frequency ratings on a scale from 1 ¼ “never or very seldom” to 5 ¼ “very often.”
Cronbach’s α was 0.80.
LMX was measured by the German version of the seven-item scale originally
developed by Graen and Uhl-Bien (1995) and validated by Schyns (2002). A sample item
is “How well does your leader recognize your potential?” (1 ¼ “not at all” to 5 ¼ “fully”).
Respondents gave ratings on item-specific scales. Cronbach’s α was 0.90.
Innovative behavior was measured using eight items of the originally 11-item-scale
by Martins et al. (2008). The remaining three items were excluded when examining the
measurement model (see below). Sample items are “I have a lot of ideas that could be
useful for this organization,” “I make suggestions about how to improve the processes
in the organization,” or “I actively take part in the implementation of ideas that make
the organization more effective.” Respondents gave agreement ratings on a scale from
1 ¼ “do not agree at all” to 5 ¼ “fully agree.” Cronbach’s α was 0.92.
Creative requirement was measured by five items of the scale by Unsworth et al.
(2005). A sample item for this scale is “My job requires me to have ideas about changing
ways of organizing work.” Respondents gave agreement ratings on a scale from
1 ¼ “do not agree at all” to 5 ¼ “fully agree.” Cronbach’s α was 0.81.
Perceived innovation climate was measured by four items of the originally six-item
innovation-and-flexibility subscale of the Organizational Climate Measure (Patterson
et al., 2005). The remaining two items were excluded when examining the measurement
model (see below). A sample item is “People in this organization are always searching
for new ways of looking at problems.” Respondents gave agreement ratings on a scale
from 1 ¼ “do not agree at all” to 5 ¼ “fully agree.” Cronbach’s α was 0.81.
JMP 5.3 Control variables
30,8 As previous research has found age and tenure (Ng and Feldman, 2013), gender of the
leader or the follower (Decker and Rotundo, 2001), and having a leadership position (Fuller
et al., 2006) to be either related to humor or to innovative behavior, these variables were
considered as potential control variables. Moreover, contact frequency was considered
because leaders have more opportunities to use humorous leadership when they are in
884 frequent contact with their followers (Kacmar et al., 2003). I decided upon including
controls after inspecting their correlations to humorous leadership because this is a
necessary condition for finding alternative explanations (Spector and Brannick, 2011).

5.4 Common method bias (CMB)

Although studies using self-report measures should not generally be suspected to
suffer from CMB (Conway and Lance, 2010), it could potentially inflate the correlations
and needs to be addressed. However, several findings made me confident that CMB is
not a severe problem in this study. In their meta-analysis, Ng and Feldman (2012)
did not generally find higher correlations between self-report measures of creativity
and predictors such as positive affect, LMX, or supportive leadership. Moreover,
Siemsen et al. (2010) pointed out that moderator effects are less likely influenced by
CMB. On the contrary, CMB would rather attenuate moderator effects because common
method variance lowers the reliability of measures. Thus, finding moderator effects in
cross-sectional, single-source studies is less likely than in other studies.
Nevertheless, I designed the questionnaire using psychological and methodological
separation to minimize CMB (Conway and Lance, 2010). I separated the items for
different constructs, formulated distinct instructions that emphasized the respective
rating target (e.g., leader, task), and used distinct anchors for the scales. Additionally,
I used statistical remedies before testing the hypotheses: I used Harman’s single factor
test, conducted an exploratory factor analysis, and forced a one-factor solution. The
analysis revealed one factor that explained 30.42 percent of the variables’ variance.
As this is below the 50 percent-criterion (Podsakoff and Organ, 1986), CMB does not
threaten the validity of the study’s measures. Then, I conducted confirmatory
factor analyses to examine the measurement model and discriminatory validity of the
measures. In this analysis, all items were included as manifest variables reflecting the
latent variable they were intended to measure. Thus, the intended six-factor structure
included three separate leadership factors (humorous leadership, transformational
leadership, LMX) and one respective factor for innovative behavior, creative
requirement, and innovation climate.
The analysis of the six-factor measurement model with the original scales revealed
an acceptable fit in regard to most of the fit indices ( χ2 (df) ¼ 1,203.67 (650), p o 0.05,
χ2/df ¼ 1.85, RMSEA ¼ 0.08, SRMR ¼ 0.09, CFI ¼ 0.84, TLI ¼ 0.83). As CFI and TLI
were rather low, I inspected the suggested modification indices. Although no major
modifications were indicated (MI ⩽ 25), error correlations were suggested between two
items of the innovative behavior scale (“I speak up frankly about problems in the
organization” and “I speak up frankly about my ideas on new projects or changes in
work processes”) and two items of the innovation-climate scale (“New ideas are readily
accepted here” and “Assistance in developing new ideas is readily available“).
Furthermore, one item of the innovative behavior scale had a cross-loading on the
innovation-climate factor (“I detect issues that need to be improved urgently”). In order
to avoid error correlations and cross-loadings, I excluded these items from the
measurement model.
In the revised model, the six latent variables were allowed to correlate, but neither error Humorous
correlations nor cross-loadings were allowed. The analysis revealed an acceptable fit for leadership and
the six-factor model ( χ2 (df) ¼ 799.95 (480), po0.05, χ2/df ¼ 1.67, RMSEA ¼ 0.07,
SRMR ¼ 0.07, CFI ¼ 0.89, TLI ¼ 0.88). I compared this model with several alternative
innovative
models (see Table I) such as a four-factor model with one common leadership factor behavior
instead of three separate ones, a two-factor model with a leadership factor and a second
innovation-factor representing innovative behavior, creative requirement, innovation 885
climate, and a one-factor model with all variables loading on one factor. The six-factor
model had a better fit than the best fitting alternative model (Δχ2 (df) ¼ 296.25 (41),
po0.05). Thus, the scales represent sufficiently distinct constructs. Moreover, the
one-factor model revealed an unacceptable fit ( χ2 (df) ¼ 2,074.70 (527), po0.05,
χ2/df ¼ 3.94, RMSEA ¼ 0.14, SRMR ¼ 0.14, CFI ¼ 0.47, TLI ¼ 0.43). Overall, these
remedies provide a convincing argument that CMB is not a severe problem of this study.

6. Results
Table II shows descriptive statistics and intercorrelations between all study variables.
Humorous leadership was significantly correlated with contact frequency (r ¼ 0.18,
po0.05), having a leadership position (r ¼ 0.18, po0.05), and organizational tenure
(r ¼ −0.16, po0.05), but was unrelated to age, employee gender, and leader gender.
Hence, I only included tenure, contact frequency, and having a leadership position as
controls in the following analyses. Humorous leadership was also significantly correlated
with innovative behavior (r ¼ 0.17, po0.05). This provides initial support for H1.
For testing the hypotheses, moderated hierarchical regression analyses were
conducted (see Table III). In the first step, tenure, contact frequency, and having a

Model χ2 df χ2/df RMSEA SRMR CFI TLI Δχ2 (Δdf)a

Model 1: six separate factors for

each study construct (intended
measurement model) 799.95** 480 1.67 0.07 0.07 0.89 0.88
Model 2: five factors, F1: creative
requirement and innovation
climate; other factors as the
study constructs 1,119.69** 517 2.17 0.09 0.11 0.79 0.77 319.74 (37)**
Model 3: four factors, F1: three
leadership constructs; other
factors as the study constructs 1,096.20** 521 2.10 0.09 0.08 0.80 0.79 296.25 (41)**
Model 4: three factors, F1: creative
requirement and innovation
climate; F2: leadership;
F3: innovative behavior 1,365.08** 524 2.61 0.10 0.12 0.71 0.69 565.13 (44)**
Model 5: two factors, F1:
leadership constructs, F2:
innovation-related constructs 1,475.28** 526 2.80 0.11 0.11 0.67 0.65 675.33 (46)**
Model 6: one factor, all study Table I.
constructs incorporated into Confirmatory factor
one factor 2,074.70** 527 3.94 0.14 0.14 0.47 0.43 1,274.75 (47)** analyses of the
Notes: RMSEA, Root mean square error of approximation; SRMR, Standardized root mean square measurement model
residual; CFI, Comparative fit index; TLI, Tucker-Lewis-index. aComparison to Model 1 – the intended and alternative
measurement model with six factors. **p o0.01 models
 30,8
JMP

886

Table II.

in this study
and intercorrelations
Descriptive statistics

of the variables used

M SD α 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

1. Age 37.05 12.39 – –

2. Gender of the employeea – – – 0.01 –
3. Gender of the leadera – – – −0.04 0.20* –
4. Contact frequencyb 16.89 16.41 – −0.03 0.12 0.06 –
5. Having a leadership positionc – – – 0.13 0.18* 0.03 −0.06 –
6. Organizational tenure 9.06 8.34 – 0.71** −0.11 −0.06 −0.05 0.07 –
7. Leader-member exchange 3.54 0.81 0.90 0.10 0.07 0.02 0.15 0.20* 0.08 –
8. Transformational leadership 3.32 0.78 0.80 −0.04 −0.04 −0.05 −0.01 −0.05 −0.01 0.69** –
9. Humorous leadership 2.59 0.99 0.87 −0.12 −0.01 0.01 0.18* 0.18** −0.16* 0.56** 0.52** –
10. Creative requirement 3.20 0.92 0.81 0.29** 0.01 −0.00 0.18* 0.22** 0.26** 0.29** 0.26** 0.13 –
11. Innovation climate 3.32 0.88 0.81 0.04 0.12 −0.08 0.12 0.04 −0.08 0.41** 0.45** 0.22** 0.19* –
12. Innovative behavior 3.31 0.80 0.92 0.32** 0.13 −0.02 0.12 0.20* 0.27** 0.39** 0.27** 0.17* 0.49** 0.24**
Notes: aGender and gender of the leader: 1 ¼ “female”, 2 ¼ “male”; bContact frequency in hours per week; cHaving a leader position: 1 ¼ “no”, 2 ¼ “yes”.
*p o0.05; **p o0.01
 Innovative behavior
Humorous
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 leadership and
0.32**
innovative
Organizational tenure 0.24** 0.21**
Contact frequency 0.14 0.03 0.01 behavior
Having a leadership positiona 0.19* 0.06 0.05
Humorous leadership −0.04 −0.06
Leader-member exchange (LMX) 0.27** 0.28** 887
Transformational leadership (TFL) 0.01 0.03
Creative requirement 0.27** 0.31**
Innovation climate 0.12 0.11
Humor × creative requirement 0.20*
Humor × innovation climate 0.09
LMX × creative requirement −0.18
LMX × innovation climate 0.01
TFL × creative requirement 0.10 Table III.
TFL × innovation climate −0.02 Moderated
R2 0.16** 0.36** 0.41** hierarchical
ΔR2 0.16** 0.20** 0.05 regression analyses
F 8.15 8.87 6.00 for innovative
Notes: aHaving a leadership position: 1 ¼ “no”, 2 ¼ “yes”. *p o0.05; **p o0.01 behavior

leadership position were included, with tenure and having a leadership position
significantly predicting innovative behavior (Model 1, R2 ¼ 0.16). In the second step, all
the main predictors were included. In this step, LMX ( β ¼ 0.27; p o 0.01) and creative
requirement ( β ¼ 0.27; p o 0.01) were significantly related to innovative behavior
(Model 2, R2 ¼ 0.36). Humorous leadership was not uniquely related to innovative
behavior ( β ¼ −0.04; p ¼ 0.65). Thus, H1 was not supported.
In the third step, all interaction terms were included (Model 3, R2 ¼ 0.41). While the
interaction between humorous leadership and creative requirement was significant
( β ¼ 0.20; p o 0.05), the interaction between humorous leadership and innovation
climate did not significantly predict innovative behavior ( β ¼ 0.09; p ¼ 0.44). Moreover,
the interactions between LMX and creative requirement ( β ¼ −0.18; p ¼ 0.13) or
innovation climate ( β ¼ 0.01; p ¼ 0.95) were not significantly related to innovative
behavior, and neither were the interactions between transformational leadership and
creative requirement ( β ¼ 0.10; p ¼ 0.43) or innovation climate ( β ¼ −0.02; p ¼ 0.89).
Following Dawson’s (2014) recommendations, I plotted the interaction and tested the
simple slopes to examine: first, if the interaction pattern was as predicted; and second, if
the simple slopes were significant. Figure 2 shows the interaction diagram for creative
requirement. There is a positive significant relationship between humorous leadership
and innovative behavior for high creative requirement (b ¼ 0.22, t ¼ 2.91, p o 0.01),
whereas it is not significant for low creative requirement (b ¼ −0.09, t ¼ −1.16,
p W 0.05). Overall, the results support H2, but not H3.

7. Discussion
7.1 Theoretical implications
This study addressed the relationship between humorous leadership and innovative
behavior and found a positive relationship that was moderated by creative requirement.
This finding has several theoretical implications. First, humorous leadership seems to
play a role in fostering innovative behavior. As previous studies have shown, employees
JMP 5.0
30,8
4.5

Innovative behavior
4.0

888 3.5

3.0

2.5

Figure 2.
Plot for the Low High
interaction between humorous humorous
humorous leadership leadership leadership
and creative
requirement Creative requirement low
Creative requirement high

who have a sense of humor are more innovative (Lang and Lee, 2010). This study extends
these findings in that humor of the leader as part of the social context also plays a role for
innovative behavior.
Second, humorous leadership is not a sufficient condition for innovative behavior.
Its relationship to innovative behavior rather depends on the employees’ tasks: humorous
leadership is only positively related to innovative behavior when the employees’ jobs
require creativity. Generalizing this finding, the effects of humorous leadership may be
bound to conditions (e.g., job characteristics) that need to be specified in the course of further
theoretical development, similar to other innovation-relevant leadership concepts (e.g.,
Volmer et al., 2012). Such development is urgently needed as Mesmer-Magnus et al.’s (2012)
meta-analysis has shown unexplained variability in the effects of humorous leadership.
Third, humorous leadership uniquely contributes to innovative behavior beyond
other innovation-relevant leadership constructs such as transformational leadership or
LMX – at least when combined with creative requirement. The interaction between
humorous leadership and creative requirement was even observed, when including
LMX, transformational leadership, and the respective interactions. Theoretically,
humorous leadership seems to add something to the canon of innovation-relevant
leadership constructs in that it triggers an innovative mental state via cognitive
(Veatch, 1998), affective (Robert and Wilbanks, 2012), and relational processes (Cooper,
2008), and these may be particularly important when the employees’ tasks require
creativity. Creativity and humor are often regarded as playful endeavors (Martin, 2007),
and humorous leadership may foster a mental state of playfulness and psychological
safety that fits creative requirements of the task.
The results do not show a moderation effect of innovation climate. Although
both creative requirement and innovation climate seem to stand for the importance of
innovative behavior, the processes may be different. While creative requirement is a task
characteristic that triggers the necessity of innovative behavior, innovation climate is an
organizational feature that suggests values or norms for innovative behavior. In direct
comparison, the necessity of innovative behavior triggered by creative requirement may
be more important than norms and values suggested by innovation climate.
7.2 Limitations and future research Humorous
The most obvious limitation of this study is its design: data were collected in a leadership and
cross-sectional study based on employee ratings. Such a design does not allow for
causal inferences, and correlations might be inflated by CMB (Conway and Lance,
innovative
2010). However, methodological and statistical remedies rule out this explanation to behavior
some degree.
Measuring innovative behavior via self-report may also be seen as a limitation. 889
However, several arguments support using such a measure: First, employees have
more valid information about their subtle innovative efforts than any other rater
( Janssen, 2000). Second, self-reports of discretionary behavior such as innovative
behavior can be better distinguished from in-role performance (Van Dyne and LePine,
1998). Third, studies on organizational silence show that employees often decide to not
communicate the ideas they have what makes some elements of innovative behavior
unobservable (Morrison and Milliken, 2000). Therefore, self-reports give valid
information about innovative behavior. Nevertheless, future studies should aim for
using a supervisor or peer ratings of innovative behavior, objective data on the number
of suggestions made, or observational data on the number of issues raised during team
meetings. Furthermore, multi-level studies treating innovation climate as a perception
shared within an organization would allow for controlling between-organization effects
on innovative behavior.
The rather small sample size could have reduced the power for testing moderator
effects (Dawson, 2014). This might explain why the hypothesized moderator effect of
innovation climate was not found. However, at least the moderator effect of creative
requirement was stable even though the power is rather small. Future research
should obtain larger samples to make sure that the missing support for the
interaction with innovation climate has theoretical reasons and is not just due to
small samples.
This study focussed on the use of positive humor in leadership. Future studies
should consider several forms of humor and use a more comprehensive measure of
humorous leadership. The distinction between positive and negative humor styles
common in personality psychology (Martin et al., 2003) may be applied to humorous
leadership. These humor styles might be differentially related to innovative behavior or
other outcomes.

7.3 Practical implications

The most obvious practical implication is that leaders could use humor to foster
innovative behavior, particularly when the employees’ tasks require creativity and
innovation. However, the positive effects of humorous leadership should not be
overestimated because these effects are rather small and bound to conditions beyond
the scope of humor. Hence, leaders also need to emphasize the necessity of
innovative behavior. However, humor may be a useful extension of approaches to
innovation-fostering leadership development. Such approaches may combine
techniques for emphasizing the necessity of innovation with humorous leadership.
More generally, one may think of formal humor training for leaders. However,
such training might also have potential downsides such as fostering inauthentic
humor. On the one hand, inauthentic humor increases organizational cynicism (Dean
et al., 1998) as the employees suspect their leaders to have a hidden agenda when they
pretend to be humorous. On the other hand, inauthentic humor requires surface
acting, the negative consequences of which (e.g., burnout, psychosomatic complaints)
JMP have been well-documented (Hülsheger and Schewe, 2011). Thus, formal humor
30,8 training cannot be a universal approach for leadership development. However,
including elements of self-reflection upon using humor might increase the leaders’
awareness of its impact on followers (Franke and Felfe, 2011). In role plays, leaders
may experience different forms of humor from the followers’ perspective. Hence, such
elements may be useful in leadership development and enable leaders to use their
890 humor more appropriately.

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About the author

Dr Alexander Pundt is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in the Work and Organizational
Psychology at the University of Mannheim, Germany. He received his PhD from the
University of Rostock in 2010. His fields of research interest are leadership (transformational
leadership, leader-member exchange, abusive supervision), humor in the workplace,
innovative work behavior, and organizational climate. Dr Alexander Pundt can be contacted
at: alexander.pundt@uni-mannheim.de

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