Leader–follower congruence in humility and follower voice: the mediating role of affective attachment

Humility is regarded as a valuable virtue in modern organizations. Building on the person–supervisor fit theory and the similarity-attraction approach, this study investigated the effect of leader–follower congruence in humility on follower voice through follower affective attachment. We examined our hypotheses using dyadic data from questionnaire surveys of 553 leader–follower pairings in Chinese companies. The results indicate that leader–follower congruence in humility enhances follower affective attachment, which eventually promotes follower voice. In addition, followers in congruent leader−follower dyads with high humility perceived higher levels of affective attachment than those in congruent leader−follower dyads with low humility. We discussed the theoretical implications for literature on humility, voice, and person–supervisor fit.