Based on Social Cognitive Theory (SCT), this study explores the impacts of humble leadership on leaders and the underlying mechanism. We conducted an experiment (Study 1) and a field survey (Study 2) to test our hypotheses. The results show that humble leadership positively influences leaders' self-cognition (i.e., reducing self-depletion) and work perception (i.e., enhancing work meaningfulness), which in turn increases leader work engagement and subjective well-being. Furthermore, for teams with higher cognitive diversity, the effects of humble leadership on reducing leaders’ self-depletion and enhancing work meaningfulness are more pronounced.
