A Trust-Focused Model of Leaders’ Fairness Enactment

Abstract

In this article, we present a trust-focused model for understanding leader’s fairness enactment. The model suggests that leaders are motivated to act fairly to gain subordinates’ trust, to show trust in their subordinates, to show that they are worth the subordinates’ trust in them, and because they are willing to be vulnerable to the actions of cooperative subordinates. The mediating role of the leader’s trust in the relationship between a subordinate’s cooperation and the leader’s fairness is also tested.