A Compensatory Model of Supportive Leadership: The Interaction Between Perceived Follower Support and Perceived Organizational Support

This study proposes that leaders form a comprehensive perception of the extent to which their followers value the leaders’ contributions and simultaneously attend to the leaders’ well-being. This perception is conceptualized as perceived follower support. Drawing on organizational support theory, this study posits a compensatory relationship between perceived follower support and perceived organizational support in the formation of supportive leadership. In order to test the hypotheses, diverse organizational samples from both the United States and South Korea were utilized. Specifically, in the first empirical study conducted with U.S. municipal employees, perceived follower support was found to have a positive effect on supportive leadership, and this relationship was particularly stronger when leaders perceived lower levels of organizational support. Furthermore, this effect extended to work-group level outcomes, including job performance and job satisfaction. In a second empirical study conducted across various organizations in South Korea, a longitudinal design was applied to replicate these findings, thereby further reinforcing the statistical robustness and generalizability of the first study.