Hindrance or Challenge: Dynamics of Paradoxical Leadership and Subordinate's Work Motivation

Paradoxical leadership encompasses a ‘consistently inconsistent’ behavioural pattern (Smith, 2014). A little is known about how does fuzzy and dynamic paradoxical leadership affect subordinate’s work motivation. I, herein, postulate for two competing theoretical perspectives, one, grounded in the tenets of uncertainty reduction theory, positing that paradoxical leadership creates hindrance stressors for subordinates, another, grounded in paradox and goal setting theory, positing that paradoxical leadership creates challenge stressors for subordinates. I, then, elaborate on the underlying motivational processes, and the contingency – supervisor’s use of humour. I test the hypotheses, at the episodic level, by conducting a longitudinal eight-wave weekly repeated measures study spanning for two months (N=145, total observations = 1123). Results indicate that paradoxical leadership predicts subsequent challenge stressors, which in turn lead to both autonomous and controlled motivations, enhancing work engagement in subordinates. Paradoxical leadership was not related to hindrance stressors. Supervisor’s use of humour strengthened the positive relationship between paradoxical leadership and subordinate’s challenge stressors. I advance paradox and leadership literature by elaborating on the nuanced intra- individual processes enabled by paradoxical leadership at the episodic level.