Abstract
Identity leadership theory tends to focus on leader behaviour rather than leader rhetoric, for example email communication. This reliance on behavioural indicators may obscure how leaders shape identity discursively. In this study we examine how identity leadership conveyed through emails affects followers' work engagement, trust, and emotions. We randomly assigned 200 participants to a high identity leadership group where they read an email exemplar of the 5R (identity leadership) framework, and 200 participants to a low identity leadership group where they read an email that was unrelated to the 5R framework. Participants in the high identity leadership group reported significantly fewer negative emotions than those in the low identity leadership group. This result suggests that identity leaders can minimise negative emotional experiences through email communication and highlights the need to reconsider the behavioural bias in identity leadership theory.