The Role of Daily Affect in Leader-Member Exchange: A Multilevel Investigation in Public Health Administration

Background and purpose: Although the critical role of affect in the leader-member relationship has been widely accepted, few studies investigated the impact of within-person affect variations in daily leader-member exchange (LMX) or addressed potential cross-level and intra-individual moderators of this relationship. This study examines the effects of followers’ positive and negative affect on their daily LMX in public health care organizations. The moderator roles of emotional labor and trait emotional intelligence were also investigated. Methodology: A multilevel research design was conducted where daily measures were nested in individuals. Seventy participants working in a government health organization operating in Istanbul responded to daily surveys for five consecutive workdays (350 day-level responses) and a general survey one week after the daily data collection period (70 person-level responses). Hypotheses were tested using Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM). Results: Both positive affect and negative affect were positively related with LMX (day-level), but negative affect had a negative association with LMX on the inter-personal level (when daily scores were averaged across days). Although trait emotional intelligence showed a positive cross-level effect, none of the proposed moderations was significant. Conclusion: The role of affect in LMX development is critical and has a complex structure. Findings emphasize the importance of multilevel research for understanding the affect-LMX relationship as they demonstrate different pictures in day-level and person-level analysis.