We theorized and tested a leader-member perspective beyond the existing studies in paradoxical leadership and employee voice behavior. We proposed that paradoxical leadership influences employees’ voice behavior through psychological safety and self-efficacy. We also theorized that team size influences an extent to which the subordinates internalize their self-efficacy and psychological safety to exhibit proactive behavior. In a longitudinal study conducted on 155 subordinates and 96 supervisors in China, we found that when leaders adopt paradoxical behavior, employees are more likely to engage into promotive voice behavior; however, employees’ prohibitive voice behavior is reduced when their leaders adopt paradoxes in leadership behavior. Additionally, psychological safety mediates the relationship between paradoxical leadership and promotive voice behavior. Further, team size has significant interaction effects with psychological safety on promotive voice behavior.

While prior literature indicated the positive outcomes of successful executive successions for both individuals and organizations, we still know little about the influencing factors and mechanisms of successful executive successions from the individual perspectives of newly hired executives. As prior research of executive succession suggested to consider the contextual change on the entire duration of executive employment, we adopted a qualitative research design to explore important experiences in the process of career development after an executive, who was newly hired from outside the company, joined a new organization with a dynamic perspective. Our goal was to help newly hired executives realize their career development process with key tasks and core competencies in distinct stages, in order to achieve sustainable career development in a new enterprise. There are also implications for enhancing process-oriented career development research and advancing career-development managerial practices.