As modern organizations call for more equality and inclusive organizational climate, the emphasis on status-leveling to downplay organizational hierarchy has drawn widespread attention from scholars. However, the research on status-leveling behavior is still in its early stages and faces limitations in terms of mechanisms, and boundary conditions. Based on the SCM, this paper explores the positive impact of leader status-leveling behavior on formal leadership emergence through employees’ perceived leader warmth, and examines the moderating role of leader gender in the above relationship. Through a multi-wave questionnaire survey (N = 212) and a scenario experiment (N = 200), the results showed that leader status-leveling behavior could promote formal leadership emergency through employee perceived leader warmth rather than competence. In addition, leader gender not only moderated the relationship between leader status-leveling behavior and perceived leader warmth, but also moderated the indirect effect of leader status-leveling behavior on formal leadership emergence via perceived leader warmth. In other words, the status-leveling behavior of male leaders is more effective than that of female leaders in promoting formal leadership emergence. This paper also discusses the theoretical and practical implications.
