Compared to more formal, agentic interactions that leaders are expected to use, leader humor is aform of communication that leaders are not obligated to indulge in. Therefore, when it is used, it becomes a source of important information for employees and works as a signal about their social standing and their leader’s attitude towards them. However, leader humor is not always seen as positive and uplifting. At times, it can be perceived as hurtful and attacking. Drawing from image management theory, I develop and test a theory that explains how positive and negative forms of leader humor-leader affiliative humor and leader aggressive humor-work as a critical source of information for employees’ sense of professional image (i.e., their perceptions of how others in the workplace appraise their competence character and expertise). Across two studies, an experimental causal chain study and a time lagged, multi source field study, I show that leader affiliative humor enhances employees’ image, but leader aggressive humor threatens it. Additionally, my results suggest that different image perceptions resulting from leader humor initiate different image management processes and that employees’ gender plays a role in their reactions to threatening information about their image. Through my research, I discuss the implications of employee image for the leader humor literature.