Leader Personality Characteristics and Upward Trust: A Study of Employee-Supervisor Dyads in China

Scholars have researched trust for many decades and almost the entire body of empirical research on how personality traits affect upward trust is based on studies conducted in countries other than China. Taking an inductive approach, we examined the relationship between the leaders big five personality traits and upward trust with 274 respondents in Chinese culture. The empirical results confirm that Extraversion and Neuroticism have negative influence on upward trust, Agreeableness impact is insignificant, Conscientiousness has a positive influence and Openness to experience has a negative impact on affect-based trust. Results suggested that the degree to which the leaders big five personality traits affect upward trust differs from that of the West.