Why Leaders' Daily Affect Fluctuation Inhibits Their Justice Rule Adherence: The Mechanism of Ego‐Depletion and the Moderating Role of Gender

ABSTRACT Justice literature has long documented how the level of leaders' high‐arousal positive and negative affect at a certain point in the day influences their subsequent justice rule adherence. However, this approach overlooks the impact of fluctuations in leaders' affect (the magnitude of dispersion in leaders' affective states) throughout the day. As an essential step toward a more precise and nuanced theory, we adopt a more comprehensive and dynamic approach to examining the impact of leaders' affect. We first differentiate leaders' affect fluctuation within the high‐arousal positive affect/negative affect category (daily positive/negative affect fluctuation) from affect fluctuation across affect categories in arousal (daily arousal fluctuation) and valence (daily valence fluctuation) throughout the day. Drawing on ego‐depletion theory and implicit theories of leadership emotions, we hypothesize that leaders' daily affect fluctuation inhibits their daily justice rule adherence through the mechanism of ego‐depletion. We also argue that these relationships are weaker for female leaders compared to male leaders. Analysis of interval‐based experience sampling data collected from 83 managers suggested that leaders' daily positive affect fluctuation (but not daily negative affect fluctuation), daily arousal fluctuation, and daily valence fluctuation were positively related to their daily ego‐depletion, which, in turn, decreased daily justice rule adherence. Furthermore, the results indicated that the indirect effect of leaders' daily valence fluctuation on daily justice rule adherence was weaker for female leaders compared to male leaders.