The rapid expansion of social media has enabled the shift from traditional face-to-face socializing to online interactions, and it has now become an important communication platform in the workplace. However, previous research on how leaders present themselves on social media and its impact on followers is still quite limited. Drawing on behavioral integrity theory, our study investigates the inconsistencies between a leader’s self-promotion on social media and in real work settings, which are likely to elicit perceptions of hypocrisy among subordinates, thereby weakening leader effectiveness. Results from a multi-time survey suggest that leader self-promotion on social media and leader self-promotion in work have an interacting effect on leader effectiveness via perceived leader hypocrisy. Our research not only contributes to the theoretical understanding of self-promotion on social media but also innovatively explores the impact of leaders' online and offline behavioral integrity. Study implications and limitations and future research directions are discussed.
