Trust in Altruistic and Extraordinary Leaders: The Moderating Effect of Supervisor-Subordinate Relational Schemas

Relational schema refers to the behavioral expectations in a social relationship. Recent studies indicated that supervisor-subordinate relational schemas play a key role in the supervisor and subordinate relationship development. Altruistic and intellectual stimulation behaviors are key features of altruistic and extraordinary leaders and expected to be positively related with subordinates’ trust in the leader. According to relational schema perspective, supervisor-subordinate relational schemas were proposed to be moderators in the above relationship. Thus, this study investigated the relationship between leaders’ intellectual stimulation and altruistic behaviors and subordinates’ trust in the leader and the moderating effect of expressive, instrumental, and normative supervisor-subordinate relational schemas. Using two employee samples from Taiwan (N = 308) and China (N = 79), the results showed that: 1. leaders’ intellectual stimulation and altruistic behaviors were positively associated with affective and cognitive trusts in leader in both regions; 2. Expressive supervisor-subordinate relational schema was positively associated with affective and cognitive trusts in leader in both regions; 3. Normative supervisor-subordinate relational schema was positively associated with cognitive trust in leader in Taiwan; and 4. Expressive supervisor-subordinate relational schema moderated the relationship between leaders’ altruistic behavior and affective trust in leader in Taiwan. Expressive supervisor-subordinate relational schema promoted the positive relationship between leaders’ altruistic behavior and affective trust in leader. The limitation and future directions were discussed.

Keywords: supervisor-subordinate relational schema, trust in leader, intellectual stimulation, altruistic behavior, and Chinese organizations