After shocks: Humble leadership improves employee adjustment following shock events

Shock events are highly disruptive, threatening employees' performance and increasing the risk that they quit. Yet, little research has focused on how leaders can help employees adjust in the wake of shock events. We draw on the socialization literature to build theory about how leaders can help employees successfully adjust and adapt following shock events. We propose that humble leaders-because they are open to learning from and seeing value in employees' shock-related experiences-will be more likely to use adjustment behavior that reduces employee turnover and promotes employee performance. Focusing on the COVID-19 pandemic as a nearly universal shock event, we find evidence for our hypothesized effects across two multisource field studies (N = 2,392). Specifically, we find that humble leadership is positively related to affirming employees' shock-related experiences and giving employees autonomy over how they approach work following shock, ultimately reducing turnover and enhancing employee performance. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).