How humble leadership fosters employee helping behavior: the roles of empathy and mindfulness

Purpose This study examines how humble leadership predicts employee helping behavior via employee empathy, and how employee mindfulness enhances this indirect relationship. Design/methodology/approach We tested hypotheses using data from a scenario-based experiment (Study 1) and a multi-source field survey (Study 2). Findings Study 1 revealed that humble leadership has an indirect effect on employee helping behavior through employee empathy. Study 2 not only replicated these findings but also demonstrated that employee mindfulness moderates this indirect relationship. Practical implications To foster helping behaviors, organizations should implement human resource practices that promote humble leadership and cultivate employee empathy. Leaders should display humble behavior towards employees, particularly those with higher levels of mindfulness. Originality/value This study contributes to the literature on humble leadership and helping behavior by showing that employee empathy, an other-oriented response, mediates this relationship, and that employee mindfulness strengthens this indirect effect. Additionally, it advances motivated empathy theory by illustrating how the interaction between the empathy-eliciting situation and the empathizer shapes empathic responses.