Affective and motivational consequences of leader self-sacrifice: The moderating effect of autocratic leadership

The present research examined how self-sacrificial leadership predicts followers' emotional and motivational reactions as a function of how autocratic this leader behaves (i.e., pushing his opinions or not). A scenario experiment and a laboratory experiment were conducted to test the prediction that, in addition to main effects for self-sacrifice and autocratic leadership, the positive effect of self-sacrifice is most strongly when the leader does not act in an autocratic manner. The findings of these two studies supported the predictions. Also, the laboratory experiment showed that the interactive effect on motivation to work with the leader was mediated by followers' emotional reactions. The present results are discussed in light of prior research on self-sacrifice and charismatic leadership in general and suggestions are made that future research needs to focus more on the interactions between different leadership behaviors and the psychological processes underlying these effects.