Recognizing the dynamic nature of affect, we consider observed leader affect and its variability as important social signals that jointly impact employees’ daily affective reactions and work engagement. Integrating the emotion as social information model and adaptation-level theory, we hypothesized that the impact of daily observed leader affect on employees’ affect and subsequent work engagement is moderated by observed leader affect variability. To test the model, an experience sampling method (ESM) involving two surveys per day over 10 days was employed with a sample of 75 employees. Results indicated that observed leader affect variability weakened the positive relationship between observed leader positive affect and employee work engagement via employee positive affect. Also, observed leader negative affect was negatively related to employee work engagement via employee negative affect, but this indirect effect was not moderated by observed leader affect variability. Our results highlight the critical role of observed leader affect variability in understanding leaders’ affective influence on employee affect and engagement.

认识到情感的动态性质，我们将观察到的领导情感及其可变性视为重要的社会信号，共同影响员工的日常情感反应和工作投入。将情绪作为社会信息模型和适应水平理论相结合，我们假设日常观察到的领导影响对员工影响和后续工作投入的影响受观察到的领导影响可变性的调节。为了测试该模型，我们采用了一种经验抽样方法 (ESM)，该方法涉及 75 名员工的样本，在 10 天内每天进行两次调查。结果表明，观察到的领导情绪变异性通过员工积极影响削弱了观察到的领导积极影响与员工工作投入之间的正相关关系。还，观察到的领导负面影响通过员工负面影响与员工的工作投入呈负相关，但这种间接影响并未受到观察到的领导影响变异性的调节。我们的结果强调了观察到的领导者影响变异在理解领导者对员工影响和敬业度的情感影响方面的关键作用。