The Benefits of Supervisors Being Younger Than Subordinates: Directional Age Difference, Leader Empowerment Behavior, and Employee Creativity

ABSTRACT In recent decades, the accelerating global aging population and the emergence of a large number of talented young subordinates in the workplace, who have risen to leadership positions, are leading to a significant transformation in the traditional model of older supervisors managing younger subordinates. Although knowledge about how such phenomenon positively impacts the interaction between supervisors and subordinates and subordinates' behavior is limited. This research delves into the increasingly common phenomenon of supervisors being younger than their subordinates, and further explores the impact of this phenomenon on both the supervisors and subordinates. Drawing on the reasoned action theory, we propose that supervisor‐subordinate directional age difference is positively related to employee creativity via leader empowerment behavior. In addition, employee power distance moderates the relationship between leader empowerment behavior and employee creativity. We conducted an experimental study ( N = 264) and two questionnaire surveys ( N = 226, N = 285) to test our hypothesis. Our research enriches the positive impact of supervisor‐subordinate directional age differences from the perspective of leader behavior, providing practical insights for young supervisors to effectively manage older subordinates.