The Humbling Effect of Significant Relationships: A Field Experiment Examining the Effect of Significant-Other Activation on Leaders' Expressed Humility.

This article investigates how leader humility—a leadership quality characterized by accurate self-view, appreciation of others’ strengths, and openness to learning—can be contextually stimulated rather than viewed solely as a stable trait. Drawing on the social-cognitive model of transference, the study demonstrates that activating leaders’ mental representations of their significant others (i.e., people with deep emotional influence such as family or close friends) increases leaders’ interpersonal warmth and psychological safety at work, which in turn enhances their expressed humility toward followers. A field experiment with 97 leaders and 194 subordinates in a Chinese company found that this significant-other activation intervention effectively promoted leader humility, especially among leaders with a strong relational identity—those who define themselves through close interpersonal connections. The findings suggest practical organizational strategies for fostering humility through contextual cues and contribute to understanding the psychological mechanisms and boundary conditions underlying humble leadership.