The influence of Leaders' Moral Courage and followers’ perceptions of Humble Leadership on Group-Level Behavior: A Moderated-Mediation Model

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Business Department, Faculty of Commerce, Sohag University, Sohag, Egypt

2 Business Department, Faculty of commerce, Sohag University, Sohag, Egypt

10.21608/msamsj.2025.364356.1090

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the impact of “leaders' moral courage” and the “cynicism climate” on followers' perceptions of “humble leadership” and their subsequent influence on group-level behaviors, particularly "group cooperation," "group sanctioning," and "group social undermining." A crosssectional survey was conducted to collect data from 607 academic staff across 153 teams at upper Egypt public universities. A moderated-mediation model was developed to design the hypothesized framework, which was analyzed using the SPSS v.23, AMOS v.23, and Mplus v.7.3.
Results reveal a positive correlation between leaders’ moral courage and perceived humble leadership, moderated by the cynicism climate. Perceived humble leadership is positively correlated with group cooperation and negatively linked to both group sanctioning and group social undermining. This study integrates basic principles of “signaling theory” and “attribution theory” to bridge existing research gap. It provides novel insights into how followers’ perceptions of humble leadership influence group behaviors, emphasizing the roles of leader moral courage and cynicism climate in shaping these perceptions. 
This study helps leaders in public universities better understand how academic staff perceives humble leadership and provides insights into the mechanisms shaping these perceptions to better manage their behaviors.

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