Laissez-faire leadership predominantly yields negative effects on employees, though some findings of positive effects exist. Moreover, how employees navigate this passive leadership style on a daily basis remains poorly understood. Grounded in transactional stress theory and the job demands-resources model, we argue that daily job crafting buffers the negative effects of laissez-faire leadership on next-day performance via evening job satisfaction, whereas daily disengagement coping worsens these effects. We collected data twice a day over one working week in an experience sampling study with 127 employees, (i.e., after work and before bedtime; 359 data points). Our findings revealed a positive indirect effect of laissez-faire leadership on next-day performance via evening job satisfaction on days when employees exhibited high levels of job crafting and low levels of disengagement coping. In contrast, a negative indirect effect was observed on days when job crafting was low and disengagement coping was high. This emphasizes the double-edged nature of daily laissez-faire leadership and that its effect within individuals depends on their chosen daily coping strategies. Our findings highlight the value of job crafting and the risks associated with disengagement coping when confronted with daily laissez-faire leadership.
