Hide the Spark, Dig Deep in the Dark: How and When Uncertainty Avoidance Employees Get Promoted

Uncertainty avoidance, which refers to individuals’ attempts to avoid uncertainty, is increasingly recognized as an important personal characteristic in today’s increasingly dynamic and uncertain work environment. Research has mainly focused on its influence on rehearsing job components and skills for efficient performance. Little is known about whether and when supervisors will evaluate those with high uncertainty avoidance as more or less promotable. Drawing on trait activation theory, we propose that, relative to low-humility supervisors, high-humility supervisors interact with those with uncertainty avoidance employees who engage in bootlegging as underground creative endeavors and subsequently evaluate these employees as more promotable. Using a four-wave survey of 214 supervisor-subordinate dyads in a company specializing in artificial intelligence, we find that under high leader humility, uncertainty avoidance is positively related to bootlegging, which in turn increases promotability. These findings provide new insights into understanding the impact of uncertainty avoidance and the importance of leader humility in activating this trait.