The Impact of leader emotion display frequency on follower performance: Leader surface acting and mean emotion display as boundary conditions Gang Wang a, ⁎, Scott E. Seibert b,1 a Department of Management, The College of Business, Florida State University, 821 Academic Way, P.O. Box 3061110, Tallahassee, FL 32306-1110, USA b Department of Management & Organizations, University of Iowa, 108 John Pappajohn Business Building, Iowa City, IA 52242-1994, USA article info abstract Article history: Received 30 April 2014 Received in revised form 15 May 2015 Accepted 28 May 2015 Available online 16 July 2015 Editor: Janaki Gooty Theory and evidence suggest leader emotion has an important influence on follower performance. However, we lack a theoretical framework to understand when the frequency of leader emotional displays may or may not explain significant variance in follower performance. To advance knowl- edge in this emerging line of research, we integrate Emotion As Social Information (EASI) theory with attribution theory to explore boundary conditions of the relationships of the frequencies of positive and negative leader emotional displays with follower performance. Results based on leaders and followers in three organizations show that leader surface acting acted as a boundary condition, neutralizing the effects of the frequencies of positive and negative leader emotional dis- plays toward an individual follower on that follower's performance. In addition, higher frequency of negative emotional displays shown by the leader to all group members acted as a boundary condition, neutralizing the effect of the frequency of negative leader emotional displays toward an individual follower on that follower's performance. This work advances our understanding of the way the frequency of leader emotional displays may influence follower performance, intro- duces new types of contingency factors to the leader emotion area, and helps extend emotional labor theory to the leadership context. © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Leader emotion Leader emotional labor Job performance EASI Attribution theory Introduction Distinct from the large volume of research on various leadership behaviors or styles, a steadily growing body of research has been focused on the roles that leader affect plays in the leadership process (e.g., Ashkanasy & Tse, 2000; Bono & Ilies, 2006; Connelly, Gaddis, & Helton-Fauth, 2002). Consistent with Gooty, Connelly, Griffth and Gupta (2010) and Gooty, Gavin, and Ashkanasy (2009), we regard leader affect as a broad construct that includes both leader emotion (i.e., an intense, short-term, and specific cog- nitive response to environmental stimuli) and mood (i.e., less intense, long-term, and diffused emotional states). A predominant the- oretical explanation as to why leader affect may influence followers is that followers automatically “pick up” or share their leaders' affect through emotional contagion (Hatfield, Cacioppo, & Rapson, 1994), such that leader positive affect results in positive follower affect, behaviors, and outcomes, whereas leader negative affect leads to negative follower affect, behaviors, and outcomes (Bower, 1981; Clark & Taraban, 1991; Fredrickson, 2001; Porath & Erez, 2007; Rajah, Song, & Arvey, 2011). The Leadership Quarterly 26 (2015) 577–593 ⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 850 644 8214; fax: +1 850 644 7843. E-mail addresses: gwang5@business.fsu.edu (G. Wang), scott-seibert@uiowa.edu (S.E. Seibert). 1 Tel.: +1 319 335 0844; fax: +1 319 335 1956. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2015.05.007 1048-9843/© 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect The Leadership Quarterly journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/leaqua