© 2017 Journal of ISOSS 93

Journal of ISOSS

2017 Vol. 3(1), 93-112

THE DARK SIDE OF LEADERSHIP: THE DESPOTIC LEADERSHIP

IMPACT ON EMPLOYEES PERFORMANCE

Qurat-ul-Ain

University of Lahore, Lahore, Pakistan

Email: qurat_ull_ain@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT

The study aims to shed light on the dark side of leadership. The dark side of

leadership can take many forms and among them the widely study variable is despotic

leadership. This research focus on role of despotic leadership in employee‟s performance

by examining how and when department leader despotic behavior may flow down to

organizational level and decreases team member performance.

DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH

In the current research we propose social learning theory by proposing significant

social contacts and respond in a certain manner. In social learning theory employees are

inclined to observe their leader behavior and then decide how they can behave

accordingly. Analysis of multi-source data shows that team leader despotic behavior

mediates the negative relationship between department leader despotic behavior and team

member performance. Team leader and team member LMX determine the extent to

which team leader LMX account for an effect of department leader LMX on team

member performance.

FINDINGS

Our findings contribute to the leadership, performance and leader member exchange

literatures in many ways. First, this research enhances the understanding on the role of

negative side of leadership and its impact on employee‟s performance that have left

unaddressed in the past research. Second, the research investigate the trickle down impact

of department leader despotic behavior on team leader despotic behavior and in turn team

member performance. Our research supports Social learning theory in which socially

learned nature of despotic leadership is explored. Finally our test of the overall moderated

mediation model provides solid evidence that the extent to which team leader LMX

mediates the relationship between department leader LMX and team member

performance depends on team leader own and followers LMX.

ORIGINALITY/VALUE

Our research brings significant value for practice. We have shown that the despotic

leadership by top level management renders middle level managers to display despotic

behavior and decreases team member performance.

The Dark Side of Leadership: The Despotic Leadership Impact… 94

KEYWORDS

Despotic leadership, Leader member exchange, Performance.

INTRODUCTION

Ethical leadership is thought to be important because of the impact leaders put on

their organization and employee performance (Aronson 2011). A lot of research has been

done to identify how ethical leadership put its impact on employee performances in the

past years. Now the new era of research is moving to the negative sides of leadership and

among them one is despotic leadership. So the focus of this research is to analyze and

identify the despotic leadership impact on employee‟s performance. According to Hoogh

2008 the despotic leadership is harmful for the employee‟s optimism about their future so

the employees are likely to dissatisfy with the work and feel insecure about their future

and this in turn put impact on employee‟s performance and productivity. So the study

tests the link between despotic leadership and employee performance by using leader

member exchange as mediator between despotic leadership and employee‟s performance.

In line with the growing interest in the dark side of leadership many terminology have

been proposed and the widely studied among them is despotic leadership. The despotic

leadership is defined as the behavior that is based on authoritarian behavior and that

serves the self interest of the leader. The despotic leader is self- aggrandizing and

exploitative of others (Aronson 2001).

Despotic leaders are domineering, controlling, and vengeful (e.g., Bass, 1990; House

& Howell, 1992; Howell & Avolio, 1992; McClelland, 1975). Our goal is to contribute to

the research by examining the impact of despotic leaders on team member performance

by using the team leader despotic behavior as mediator between them. Very few studies

are known to test the relationship between despotic leader and employee performance

over an extended period of time. Hoogh in 2008 conducted a study to test the relationship

between despotic leader and employee performance and according to Hoogh the despotic

leader has little concern for others and want to serve for his own rights and thus he

propose that despotic leadership will be negatively related to team performance, but the

results of his study conform that the despotic leadership is not always negatively related

to performance but it depends on situational factors. So this study take one of that

situational factor and that is department leader despotic behavior and we want to test that

whether the department leader despotic behavior results in reduction of team members

performances or not? The effective leadership put positive impact on organizational

performance and on the financial performance (Sila, Ebrahimpour, 2005). On the other

hand negative leadership put impact on employee motivation and creativity and the

department leader negative leadership also put impact on team leader negative behavior

and in turn on performance. So the performance of organization has direct linked with the

leadership behavior.

In the current research we propose a moderating role of team leader LMX between

department leader despotic behavior and team leader despotic behavior and we use team

member LMX as moderator between team leader despotic behavior and team member

performance. The one to one reciprocal exchange relationship between leaders and

followers is best explained by the leader member exchange (LMX) theory. Leaders

Qurat-ul-Ain 95

convey role expectations to their followers and provide reward in return to their followers

who satisfy the conditions. In the same way followers hold role expectations to their

leaders and want to fulfill the standards to get those rewards, so it‟s a reciprocal process

between leaders and followers (Graen, 1976; Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995).

In the current research we propose social learning theory by proposing significant

social contacts and respond in a certain manner (Bandura, 1986). In social learning theory

employees are inclined to observe their leader behavior and then decide how they can

behave accordingly (Mayer et al. 2009; Tucker, Turner, Barling, & McEvoy, 2010).

Consistent support has been found from various studies to conform the modeling of

behavior of leaders to their followers have been found not only from the laboratory

studies but from the field studies as well (Mayer, Kuenzi, Greenbaum, Bardes, &

Salvador, 2009).

LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESIS

Because of the continuous competitiveness in the globalized world the performances

of the employees and team members is become crucial. A lot of research in the globalized

world has been done to show how positive leaders put their impact on employee‟s

performances and creativity, but the recent issues are to explore and discuss the impact of

dark side of leadership that has been ignored from various years (Glaso, Einarsen,

Mathiesen, & Skogstad, 2010; Schilling, 2009). The focus of this research is to analyze

one variable of that dark side i-e despotic behavior and what impact this negative

leadership put on team member performance. Despotic leadership is the most prominent

example of negative leadership style but instead of its strong negative influence there is

very little research done on the relationship between despotic leader and employee

performance. The department leader despotic behavior is expected to have a negative

relationship with team member performance. The despotic behavior of the leader put

effect on the team members and decreases their effectiveness and the extent to which the

despotic behavior effect team member performance depends on the situational factors

(De Hoogh & Den Hartog, 2008). In this article the team leader despotic behavior act as a

mediator between department leader despotic behavior and team member performance.

Two types of perspectives are very important in today world of leadership, the first is the

behavior of leader towards the subordinates, employees and team members and second is

the relationship based on how exchange relationship between leaders and followers grow,

flourish and sustain in an environment of organizations. This phenomenon is explained

by leader member exchange theory (LMX). LMX is based on the notion of reciprocity

and exchange relationship. Leaders convey their role as a model to their followers and the

followers are conveyed as a role expectation to their leaders. This is an exchange

relationship between leader and followers in which each party bring different types of

resources for exchange. These types of negotiations occur over the time depending upon

the maturity of LMX, and the leader develop different types of relationship with their

followers over time (Graen, 1976; Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995).So Leader-member

exchange (LMX) has also been viewed as the exchange relationship that takes place

between an employee and the supervisor (Wang, S. Law et al., 1995).The second factor

of our study is team member performance, because of the rapidly changing economy and

globalization the performance is the most crucial factor of any organization and without it

The Dark Side of Leadership: The Despotic Leadership Impact… 96

no organization can survive in the competing world of competition, but that factor is

affected by the despotic behavior of the leaders in organizations. The despotic behavior

put strong negative impact on employee‟s performance and thus reduces it. The despotic

behavior of the leader is defined as that kind of behavior in which the leader want to get

supremacy and dominance over others. Such leaders are Bossy and arrogant. Our goal is

to contribute to the research by observing the impact of department leader despotic

behavior on the team leader despotic behavior and finally on team member performance.

Team leader LMX is used as moderator between department leader despotic behavior and

team leader despotic behavior and team member LMX is used as moderator between

team leader despotic behaviors and team member performance.

The Effect of Despotic Leadership on Employee’s Performances in Teams:

The team leader plays a central role in determining group performance. For example,

the research commissioned by Project Management Institute (PMI) reported that the

project leadership style is a key success factor to project team performance (Turner &

Muller, 2005). Effective leadership is important for any type of organization. When the

company leader lacks the skills for direction, coaching and training the organizational

culture and morale will suffer. Although extant literature has not examined the effect of

despotic leadership on performance, a limited but growing body of despotic supervision

research has demonstrated that exposure to despotic leadership results in subordinates‟

unwillingness to “go the extra mile” to perform behaviors that benefit their organizations

(e.g., Zellars et al., 2002), which may involve advancing creative ideas and solutions that

improve organization performance.

The despotic behavior of the team leader towards their subordinates is autocratic, they

are centralize leaders and they treat others unfairly (Aronson, 2001; De Hoogh & Den

Hartog, 2008). The despotic behavior of the leaders reduces their motivational influence

and performance. The despotic leadership decreases the performance of an employees

and morale. Task performance is the most direct influence associated with the

accomplishment of organizational goals and is directly related with organizational

performance. Employee creativity is linked with the greater creative environment and

with high employee performance (Amabile, 1998). According to De Hoogh &Den

Hartog, 2008 the extent to which the despotic leadership negatively influence employees

outcomes depends on the situational factors. The weekend motivational influence of the

despotic leader put effect on the employees and decreases their performance, as despotic

leaders lack integrity and morality, followers under these leaders are likely to question

norms about effective behaviors, which results in lower job performance, citizenship

behaviors toward both the organization and others, and compromised creativity. (Naseer

et al. 2015). Tepper (2007) pointed out that an important future research direction is to

scrutinize how subordinates may respond differently to supervisory abuse depending on

the attributed motives for supervisors „abusive behaviors. Whenever leaders behave

despotic there are two main reasons for that, sometimes the despotic behavior of the

leaders is to enhance the performance of the subordinates but sometimes the despotic

behavior purpose is to harm the subordinates. Therefore the first purpose of our research

is to examine that whether team leader despotic behavior reduces employees‟

performance or not.

Qurat-ul-Ain 97

HYPOTHESIS 1:

Team leader despotic behavior is negatively related to team member performance.

Trickle-down effect of despotic leadership in the Organizational Hierarchy:

A lot of research on despotic behavior of the team members shows that it flows down

in the hierarchical level. The department leader is the role model for the lower level staff

and thus they follow their behavior in an organization at certain manner (Bandura, 1986).

Meyer, 2009 contend that the employees not only follow the positive but also the

negative behavior of their leaders. The negative behavior of department leader put effect

on team members and made their behavior despotic. The department leader is the role

model for the others various staff so the negative behavior of department leaders at higher

hierarchal level decreases the motivation and makes the behavior of the team members as

despotic (Bass, 1990; Bass, Waldman, Avolio, & Webb, 1987). The trickle-down effect

from the previous literature shows that the despotic behavior flows from upper to lower

level as the lower level employees make the department leaders as their role models, and

most of the behaviors are learned through an influence of an example (Bandura 1973).

The department leader has a direct contact with the team leaders who then

communicate with the team members so it follows in hierarchy, if the department leader

made their behavior as despotic and de motivate the team leaders, the team leaders follow

the same behavior to the team members and in turn decreases the performance of an

organization. Therefore the second purpose is to examine how team leader despotic

behavior mediates the cross level relationship between department leader despotic

behavior and team member performance.

HYPOTHESIS 2:

Team leader despotic behavior mediates the cross level relationship between

department leader despotic behavior and team member performance.

The possible effect of team member LMX on the link between department leader

despotic behavior and team leader despotic behavior:

Leader member exchange asserts that leaders establish distinct association with others

through a system of exchange. This paper draws attention on LMX and used it as a

moderator factor. The high quality LMX is associated with those individuals who have a

high exchange relationship with their followers and low quality LMX is associated with

low exchange relationship with subordinates (Dansereau et al., 1975). The high quality

LMX can enhance the detrimental effect of despotic leader on employee‟s performances.

We have focus our research on social learning theory (Bandura, 1977, 1986, 1991),

and according to it the negative relationship between despotic leader and employees

performance is strengthen when there is high quality LMX. This theory says that

employees learn their behavior from their leaders, and when the behavior of the leader is

despotic the employees adopt that behavior as they assume their leaders as their role

models.

Overall we assert that team leaders who are involved in high quality LMX shows

strong relationship with their leaders and thus impersonate them. A despotic leader will

thus start following the same behavior with in the organization and thus the performance

The Dark Side of Leadership: The Despotic Leadership Impact… 98

of employees decreases (Naseer et al., 2015).Therefore another purpose of our study is to

examine how team leader LMX will moderate the negative relationship between

department leader despotic behavior and team leader despotic behavior such that negative

relationship will be stronger when team member LMX is higher.

HYPOTHESIS 3:

Team leader LMX will moderate the negative relationship between department leader

despotic behavior and team leader despotic behavior such that negative relationship

will be stronger when team member LMX is higher.

The possible effect of team leader LMX on the link between team leader despotic

behavior and team member performance:

The social learning theory says that high quality LMX put negative impact on

despotic leaders and reduces their performance. The members of an organization consider

team leader as their role models and if the team leaders are despotic and members follow

the same behavior, thus result in poor job performance. The team leader LMX acts as

moderator between team leader despotic behavior and team member performances. The

evidence has shown that autocratic leaders decrease the stability of an environment and in

turn the effectiveness by making their employees unhappy (Van Vugt, Jepson, Hart, &

De Cremer, 2004). The team leader despotic behavior results in lowering employee‟s

performances and creativity. The high LMX of team members moderate the relationship

between team leader despotic behavior and team member performance. The high quality

LMX will increase the negative relationship between team leader despotic behavior and

team member performance. Therefore the following hypothesis is proposed,

The team member LMX will moderate the negative relationship between team

leader‟s despotic behavior and team member performance such that the negative

relationship is stronger when team leader LMX is higher.

HYPOTHESIS 4:

The team member LMX will moderate the negative relationship between team leader

despotic behavior and team member performance such that negative relationship is

stronger when team leader LMX is higher.

An Integrative Moderation Model:

Thus far, we have developed theoretical underpinning for the mediating effect of team

leader despotic behavior as well as for the possible effect of causal motives subordinates

to supervisor for despotic behavior at different organizational levels. That is team leader

despotic behavior mediates the relationship between department leader despotic behavior

and team member performance. Team member LMX moderates the negative relationship

between team leader despotic behavior and team member performance.

Specifically subordinate LMX may moderate the indirect effect of department leader

despotic behavior on team member performance through team leader despotic behavior.

Likewise team members causal LMX, Owing to their moderating influence on the link

between team leader despotic behavior and team member performance may also hold the

potential for changing the indirect effect of department leader despotic behavior on team

Qurat-ul-Ain 99

member performance through team leader despotic behavior. Taking these predictions we

propose a moderated mediation hypothesis,

HYPOTHESIS 5:

Team leader LMX moderate the indirect negative effect of department leader despotic

behavior on team member performance via team leader despotic behavior: The

indirect negative effect is stronger when team leaders interpret the department

leader’s despotic behavior as driven by higher (vs. Lower) level of leader member

exchange relationship.

HYPOTHESIS 6:

Team member LMX moderate the indirect negative effect of department leader

despotic behavior on team member performance via team leader despotic behavior:

The indirect negative effect is weaker when team members interpret team leader

despotic behavior as driven by higher (vs. lower) level of leader member exchange

relationship.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK:

Fig 1: Theoretical Model

METHODS

No prior research has looked at LMX for perpetrator intentions when studying the

role of LMX in despotic leadership. Therefore, following Hinkin scale development

procedure we adapt an inductive approach to develop a measure of subordinate LMX

behind despotic leadership. First, to gather items we administered a questionnaire survey

of 130 M.Phill students of Bahauddin Zakriya University in Pakistan. At the beginning of

the questionnaire students are provided with the definition of despotic leadership

(Aronson, 2001) and then they were asked to answer the questions from their work

experience. About 100 questionnaires were returned from the students providing about

200 statements.

Second, few leadership researchers who were outside our research team and not

aware of our research purpose, were independently asked to evaluate all those 200

statements separately in to one category. They sorted the statement in to one category and

their sorting show high consistency. Then to increase the variance in the statement of

Department leader

despotic behavior Team leader

despotic behavior

Team member

performance

Team Leader

LMX

Team Member

LMX

The Dark Side of Leadership: The Despotic Leadership Impact… 100

leadership researcher‟s ratings and thus allow us to select the manageable number of

representative items and thus allow us to select the manageable number of representative

items from the 200 statements we asked the four outside researchers to rate the agreement

or disagreement on the 15 statements under each category on this scale: 1. not

representative at all; 6: neutral; 11: fully representative. Their explanations were quiet

consistent with the Aronson (2001) category of causal motive for despotic leadership:

LMX.

Third, after refining the statements to improve their accuracy we explore their factor

structure by surveying 300 employees in a bank in Multan, Pakistan. The employees were

requested to explain the extent to which each of the 15 items represent causal motive for

the leader despotic leadership (1= not representative at all, 6= neutral, 11= fully

representative). We received 230 responses. Using exploratory factor analysis we

eliminated the items with low loading, and high cross loading. A factor structure with 4

items of LMX explains 75 percent of total variance. The four items of LMX shows factor

loading more than .77.

To provide further evidence supporting our develop measures; we then performed a

series of Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) using LISREL 8.8. An excellent fit was

found for the factor. The above scale development procedures and empirical results

support our conceptualization of subordinate-attributed causal motives for despotic

leadership as involving one distinct component: Leader member exchange (LMX).

DATA COLLECTION FOR HYPOTHESIS TESTING

To test our hypothesis we collected multi-source data from large automobiles parts

manufacturing company. The company has maintained an organizational structure with

teams responsible for manufacturing similar automobiles parts nested in the same

department. With in each team members manufacture same parts and provide assistance

to one another. Team leader was the in charge of monitoring and evaluating its members

of the team and then respond to department leader. The department leaders provide direct

assistance to team members and provide them with their feedback. The team leader

provides the guidance regarding how to improve the quality of the work and increase the

efficiency of the parts time by time. To enhance the response from the company side we

provide the full guidance to the Human resource department and Organizational heads.

Receiving a positive response from the surveyed company we are able to conduct three

phase data collection with the intent of assessing the causal relationship specialized in our

model.

In the phase 1, questionnaire was send to 120 team leaders under 20 departments

through company internal mail system. On the questionnaire we asked the team leaders to

evaluate the department leader despotic behavior as well as their LMX relationship. We

received 100 responses, thus obtaining a response rate of 90 percent at the team level and

80 percent at the department level. After 15 days we engaged in phase 2 data collection.

Questionnaire was administered to 500 team members supervised by 100 team leaders

who responded to our phase 1 data collection. On the questionnaire we request team

members to evaluate team leader despotic behavior as well as their LMX to which they

evaluate their despotic leadership. Of the team members 350 respond to our

Qurat-ul-Ain 101

questionnaire. In phase 3 we administered questionnaire to 100 team leaders to collect

their evaluation of 350 responding team member‟s performance again through company

mail system. The evaluation rate was 450. In sum our final sample composes of 462 team

members from 20 departments.

MEASURES

Despotic leadership was rated on a 7 point Likert Scale. All the measures were rated

either 1: Strongly disagree, 4: neither agree nor disagree, 7: strongly agree.

Department leader and team leader despotic leadership:

Using the 12 item scale developed by Tepper (2000) with little modifications as per

our requirement, we asked the team leaders to evaluate the despotic behavior of their

department leaders and asked team members to assess the despotic behavior of their team

leaders (α = .93, team leader despotic behavior; α = .90, department leader despotic

behavior).

Team leader and team members LMX:

The five item scale developed for this study was used to measure team leader and

team member LMX behind their leaders despotic behaviors (α =.70 for team leader LMX

and α=.75 for team member LMX).

Team Member Performance:

In according with the prior performance studies team member performance was

assessed by team leaders via a 15-item scale developed by Naseer (2011), (α = .80).

CONTROL VARIABLES

Following prior LMX, performance, leadership and despotic behavior we included

control variables at three levels. At the individual level 1, we controlled for team member

age, education, length of relationship with team leader and team member task

performance. At the team leader 2 we controlled the team size and department leader

relationship length. At the department level 3 we controlled for number of teams and

number of employees with in a department. Task performance is an important indicator in

his or her job according to Amabile (1983). In addition subordinates age, gender,

education and task performance was significantly related with supervisors liking for them

(Tsui & O‟Reilly, 1989). Leader subordinates relationship length, team size, number of

teams and department size may affect the quality of the social exchanges between leaders

and followers (Cogliser & Schriesheim, 2000; Erdogan & Liden, 2002; Maslyn & Uhl-

Bien, 2001) and thus the extent to which an employee is exposed to despotic behaviors of

team and department leaders, we controlled for these variables as well.

The Dark Side of Leadership: The Despotic Leadership Impact… 102

ANALYTICAL STRATEGY

We first conduct the confirmatory factor analysis to conform the discriminately

validity and then to confirm the varience at individual ,department and team level we

calculated hirerechical linear model with HLM 6.05 to test our hypothesis. HLM3 model

could estimate the individual level effect as well as separate effect of department level

and team level predictors. We used the group mean centering technique to test the effect

of team leader despotic behavior and team leader LMX on team member performance in

hypothesis 5 as well as cross level interactive effect of department leader despotic

behavior and team member LMX on team leader despotic behavior in hypothesis 6.

Individual-Level Descriptive Statistics, Reliabilities, and Correlations among

Measures, and Data

RESULTS

The reliablities, correlation and descriptive statistics are shown in Table 1. The

reliablities are above .75 and the correlations are according to our expectations.

Mean and Mediating Effect of Team Leader Despotic Behavior:

Hypothesis 1 proposes a negative relationship between team leader despotic behavior

(level 1) and team member performance (level 1). As shown by the results in Table 2,

team leader despotic behavior was negatively related with team member performance

.50, p .05 . Thus hypothesis 1 is supported. Hypothesis 2 suggests that team

leader despotic behavior (level 1) mediates the cross level relationship between

department leader despotic behavior (level 2) and team member performance

(level 1). We used the PRODCLIN program (Lockwood & Williams 2007) to conduct the

coefficient test and the results support our hypothesis with 93% confidence interval.

Therefore hypothesis 2 is supported.

The Contingent Effect of team Leader LMX:

With respect to Hypothesis 3, the interactive effect of department leader despotic

behavior and team leader LMX on team leader despotic behavior was also significant

(γ = .10 , p < .05). Figure and test shows that with high team leader LMX, department

leader despotic behavior was more positively related with the team leader despotic

behavior (γ = .25, P < .05) than with the low team leader LMX (1 s.d below the mean,

γ = .15, p <.05). Thus hypothesis 3 is supported.

The Contingent Effect of team Member LMX:

The results of hypothesis 4 in Table 2 indicate that interaction between team leader

despotic behavior and team member LMX was positively related to team member

performance (γ =.10, p < .05). Slope test reveals that when team member LMX were

higher (1 s.d above the mean), team leader despotic behavior was less negatively related

with team member performance (γ = .35 p <.01) than were team member LMX motive

were low (1 s.d below the mean; γ = -.65, p < .01). Hence hypothesis 4 receives support.

Qurat-ul-Ain 103

Table 1

Individual-Level Descriptive Statistics, Reliabilities and Correlations

among Measures and Data Sources and Collection Schedulea

The Dark Side of Leadership: The Despotic Leadership Impact… 104

Table 2

HLM Results: The Main and Interactive effects of Despotic Leadership and LMX on Team Member Performance

Qurat-ul-Ain 105

An Integrative Moderated Model:

To test the hypothesis 5 and 6, we use moderated path analysis approach to estimate

the effect at high and low level of the moderating variable.

Hypothesis 5 predicts that team leader LMX moderates the indirect negative effect of

department leader despotic behavior on team member performance through team leader

despotic behavior.

The results suggest that indirect effect of department leader despotic behavior on team

member performance via team leader despotic behavior was significantly moderated by

team leader LMX (γ = .08, P< .05). Specifically the results show that the indirect effect

was stronger with high team LMX (γ = .15, P <.05) than with low team leader LMX

(γ = .06, P < .05). It is also shown that team leader LMX moderates the indirect effect of

department leader despotic behavior on team member performance via team leader

despotic behavior owing to its moderating effect on the relationship between department

leader despotic behavior and team leader despotic behavior (γ = -.15, p < .05).

Figure 2: The Interactive Effect of Department Leader Despotic

Behavior and Team leader LMX on Team Leader Despotic Behavior

The Dark Side of Leadership: The Despotic Leadership Impact… 106

Figure 3: The Interactive Effect of Team Leader Despotic

Behavior and Team Member-LMX on Team Member Performance

Figure 4: The Moderating Effect of Team Leader-LMX on the Indirect

Relationship of Department Leader Despotic Behavior with Team

Member Performance through Team Leader Despotic Behavior

Team leader despotic behavior did not moderate the relationship between team leader

despotic behavior and team member creativity. Thus Hypothesis 5 is supported.

The results also supported our hypothesis 6 which states that the indirect negative

effect of department leader despotic behavior on team member performance via team

leader despotic behavior was moderated by team member LMX (γ = .09, P < .01).

Specifically the indirect negative effect was stronger in the presence of low team member

LMX (γ = -.15, P < .01) than in the presence of high team member LMX (γ = -.10,

P < .01).

Qurat-ul-Ain 107

Figure 5: The Moderating Effect of Team Member-LMX on the Indirect

Relationship of Department Leader Despotic behavior with Team

Member-Performance through Team Leader Despotic Behavior

SUPPLEMENTARY ANALYSIS

In this research, we examine how follower‟s attributes of leader despotic behavior

may moderate the trickledown process of despotic leadership and ultimately its impact on

employee‟s performances. One might argue that for employees who did not experience

any despotic behavior it would be irrelevant to take their attributes for despotic behavior.

In our sample the mean of the department leader despotic behavior was 2.35 and the

mean of the team leader despotic behavior was 2.19. So on average all of our sample

people experience some level of despotic leadership.

DISCUSSION

This research examines how and when despotic behavior may cascade down to harm

employee‟s performance. In support of our analysis we found that department leader

despotic behavior exerts a negative indirect effect on team member performance through

team leader despotic behavior and this effect was moderated by team leader and team

member LMX. Team leader LMX augmented the positive influence of department leader

despotic behavior on team leader despotic behavior. The negative relationship between

team leader despotic behavior and team member performance was attenuated by team

member LMX. The findings of this study generate some new theoretical and managerial

implications.

Theoretical Implications:

Our findings contribute to the leadership, performance and LMX in three different

ways. First this research enhances the understanding on the role of negative aspects of

leadership on employee‟s performances. Past research has been on the role of positive

leadership impacts on employee‟s performance identifying the positive behaviors like

transformational leadership (Shin & Zhou, 2003). Consequently the influence on

performance of negative leader‟s behavior such as despotic leadership has been left

The Dark Side of Leadership: The Despotic Leadership Impact… 108

unexplored. We addressed this gap by providing empirical evidence of the negative

impact of despotic leadership on employee‟s performance.

Second, the recent years have witnessed a growing interest on the negative aspects of

leadership such as abusive supervision (Liou, 2012) and despotic leadership (Hoogh,

2008), the antecedents of despotic leadership are little studied. In this article by fulfill that

gap by studying the trickle down impact of department leader on team leader despotic

behavior and in turn team member performance. Team leader despotic behavior was

found to account for the negative influence of department leader despotic behavior on

team member performance. This finding supports Social learning theory. Lastly, in

support of the leader member exchange theory, our test of the moderated model provides

solid evidence that the extent to which team leader despotic behavior moderates the

relationship between department leader despotic behavior and team member performance

depends on team leader own and followers LMX. We employed a moderated path

analysis method to overcome the previous gaps.

Practical Implications:

Our results provide significant implications for practice. We have shown that the

despotic behavior by the top level managers renders middle level managers to display

despotic behavior and destroy employee performance. Thus the despotic behavior by top

level managers should be avoided. The training programs should be conducted to prevent

the occurrence of despotic behavior.

Another implication is the leader member exchange relationship. If in organization

the LMX is higher than the middle level managers are more likely to follow the top level

managers and decrease the employee‟s performance, thus in order to increase employees

performance, organizational leaders should exercise transformational leadership which

has found to be positively related with employees performance.

Limitations and Directions for Future Research:

As with any other study, our study has limitations and directions for future as well.

First, we did not empirically test the psychological mechanism between team leader

despotic behavior and team member performance. In this study we draw empirical

evidence from previous performance research (Naseer, Chishti, and Rehman 2011) to

theorize that team leader despotic behavior will undermine team member motivation and

ultimately performance. Accordingly, a valuable extension is to empirically test if

subordinate intrinsic motivation may serve as a mediating process that link despotic

leadership to subordinate performance.

Second, given the focus of our research on subordinate‟s reaction to despotic

leadership, we explored subordinate LMX only. Therefore a valuable extension of our

research is to investigate how leaders and subordinates LMX for leader despotic behavior

may simultaneously affect the way subordinates respond to despotic leadership and the

extent to which leaders engage in further abuse. We speculate that when leaders interpret

their despotic behavior as driven by LMX they will abuse their subordinates more.

Qurat-ul-Ain 109

Third and last interesting avenue for future research is to explore how individual

differences such as degree of negative affectivity may affect an employee experience

with despotic leadership and performance. Negative affectivity may found to be

negatively associated with performance. Prior research has shown that individual

differences such as affectivity and personality affect job performance (for meta-analytical

reviews, see Barrick and Mount [1991] Hurtz and Donovan [2000], and Kaplan, Bradley,

Luchman, and Haynes [2009]). Accordingly, we argue that to the extent negative

affectivity manifest their influences in job performance as well as encounters of despotic

leadership, controlling for job performance would at least to some extent account for the

effects of negative affectivity and other individual differences variables. Nonetheless, we

acknowledge it would be ideal to measure individual differences variables directly in

future research.

REFERENCES

1. Amabile, T.M. (1983). The social psychology of creativity. New York: Springer-

Verlag.

2. Amabile, T.M. (1996). Creativity in context. Boulder, CO: West view.

3. Amabile, T.M., Hadley. N. and Kramer, S.J. (2002). Creativity under the gun.

Harvard Business Review, 80(8), 52-61.

4. Aronson, E. (2001). Integrating leadership styles and ethical perspectives. Canadian

Journal of Administrative Sciences, 18, 244-256.

5. Ashforth, B. (1994). Petty tyranny in organizations. Human Relations, 47, 755-778.

6. Ashton, M.C. and Lee, K. (2005). Honesty-humility, the big five, and the five-factor

model. Journal of Personality, 73, 1321-1354.

7. Avolio, B.J., Gardner. L., Walumba, F.O., Luthans, F. and May, D.R. (2004).

Unlocking the mask: A look at the process by which authentic leader‟s impact

follower attitudes and behaviors. The Leadership Quarterly, 15, 810-823.

8. Avolio, B.J. and Locke, E.A. (2005). Should leaders be selfish or altruistic? In J.B.

Ciulla (Ed.), Letters on leader motivation, 2nd ed. Ethics: The heart of leadership.

Westport, CT: Praeger.

9. Barenbaum, N.B. (1987). Power Motivation, Responsibility, and Conflict among

Divorcing Parents. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Boston University.

10. Bass, B.M. (1990). Bass and Stogdill's handbook of leadership: Theory, research

and managerial applications, 3 Ed. New York: Free Press.

11. Bass, B.M. and Steidlmeier, P. (1999). Ethics, character and authentic

transformational leadership behavior. The Leadership Quarterly, 10, 181-218.

12. Becker, B.E. and Huselid, M.A. (1998). High performance work systems and firm

performance: A synthesis of research and managerial implications. Research in

Personnel and Human Resources Journal, 16, 53-101.

13. Berry, W.D. (1993). Understanding regression assumptions. Newbury Park, CA:

Sage.

14. Beu, D.S. and Buckley, M.R. (2004). This is war: How the politically astute achieve

crimes of obedience through the use of moral disengagement. The Leadership

Quarterly, 15, 551-568.

The Dark Side of Leadership: The Despotic Leadership Impact… 110

15. Bies, R.J. (2000). Interactional (in) justice: The sacred and the profane. In J.

Greenberg & R. Cropanzano (Eds.), Advances in organizational behavior:

Forthcoming Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

16. Bandura, A. (1973). Aggression: A social learning analysis. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:

Prentice-Hall.

17. Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. New York: General Learning. Bandura,

A. 1986. Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory.

Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

18. Baron, R.M. and Kenny, D.A. (1986). The moderator-mediator variable distinction

in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic and statistical considerations.

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 1173-1182.

19. Barrick, M.R. and Mount, M.K. (1991). The Big Five personality dimensions and job

performance: A meta-analysis. Personnel Psychology, 44, 1-26.

20. Bass, B.M. (1990). From transactional to transformational leadership: Learning to

share the vision. Organizational Dynamics, 18(3), 19-31.

21. Bass, B.M., Waldman, D.A., Avolio, B.J. and Webb, M. (1987). Transformational

leadership and the dominoes effect. Group and Organization Studies, 12, 73-87.

22. Campbell, C.R. and Swift, C.O. (2006). Attributional comparisons across biases and

leader-member exchange status. Journal of Managerial Issues, 18, 393-408.

23. Carmeli, A., Shalom, R. and Weisberg, J. (2007). Considerations in organizational

career advancement: What really matters? Personnel Review, 36, 190-205.

24. Deci, E.L., Connell, J.P. and Ryan, R.M. (1989). Self-determination in a work

organization. Journal of Applied Psychology, 74, 580-590.

25. Eastman, K.K. (1994). In the eyes of the beholder: An attributional approach to

ingratiation and organizational citizenship behavior. Academy of Management

Journal, 37, 1379-1391.

26. Edwards, J.R. and Lambert, L.S. (2007). Methods for integrating moderation and

mediation: A general analytical framework using moderated path analysis.

Psychological Methods, 12, 1-22.

27. Elias, R. (1986). The politics of victimization. New York: Oxford Press.

28. Feldman, M.S. and Khademian, A.M. (2003). Empowerment and cascading vitality.

In K.S. Cameron J.E. Dutton & R.E. Quinn (Eds.), Positive Organizational

Scholarship: Foundations of a new discipline San Francisco, CA: Berret-Koehler.

29. Gardner, W.L., Avolio, B.J., Luthans, F., May, D.R. and Walumbwa, F. (2005).

“Can you see the real me?” A self-based model of authentic leader and follower

development. The Leadership Quarterly, 16, 343-372.

30. George, J.M. (2008). Creativity in organizations. In J.P. Walsh & A.P. Brief (Eds.),

Academy of Management Annals, and vol. 1, 439-477. London: Routledge/ Taylor &

Francis.

31. Goldstein, J. (1986). Aggression and crimes of violence. New York: Oxford

University Press.

32. Grant, A.M., and Berry, J. (2011). The necessity of others is the mother of invention:

Intrinsic and prosocial motivations, perspective-taking, and creativity. Academy of

Management Journal, 54, 73-96.

Qurat-ul-Ain 111

33. Green, S.G. and Mitchell, T.R. (1979). Attributional processes of leaders in leader-

member interactions. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 23,

429-458.

34. Hanges, P.J. and Dickson, M.W. (2004). The development and validation of the

GLOBE culture and leadership scales. In R.J. House P.J. Hanges M. Javidan P.W

Dorfman, & V. Gupta (Eds.), Culture, Leadership, and Organizations: The GLOBE

Study of 62 Societies, Vol. 1. (pp. 205-218) Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

35. Hinkin, T.R. 1995. A review of scale development practices in the study of

organizations. Journal of Management, 21, 967-988.

36. Hinkin, T.R. (1998). A brief tutorial on the development of measures for use in

survey questionnaires. Organizational Research Methods, 1, 104 -121.

37. Howell, J.M. (1988). Two faces of charisma: Socialized and personalized leadership

in organizations. In J. Conger & R. Kanungo (Eds.), Charismatic leadership: The

illusive factor in organizational effectiveness (pp. 213-236). San Francisco: Jossey-

Bass.

38. Hofmann, D.A. and Gavin, M.B. 1998. Centering decisions in hierarchical linear

models: Implications for research in organizations. Journal of Management, 23,

723-744.

39. Howell, J.M. and Avolio, B.J. (1992). The ethics of charismatic leadership:

Submission or liberation? Academy of Management Executive, 6, 43-54.

40. Hu, L. and Bentler, P.M. (1999). Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance

structure analysis: Conventional criteria versus new alternatives. Structural Equation

Modeling, 6, 1-55.

41. Hurtz, G.M. and Donovan, J.J. (2000). Personality and job performance: The big five

revisited. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85, 869-879.

42. Lian, H., Ferris, D.L. and Brown, D.J. (2012). Does power distance exacerbate or

mitigate the effects of abusive supervision? It depends on the outcome. Journal of

Applied Psychology, 97, 107-123.

43. Liao, H., Liu, D. and Loi, R. (2010). Looking at both sides of the social exchange

coin: A social cognitive perspective on the joint effects of relationship quality and

differentiation on creativity. Academy of Management Journal, 53, 1090-1109.

44. Mayer, D., Kuenzi, M., Greenbaum, R., Bardes, M. and Salvador, R. (2009). How

low does ethical leadership flow? Test of a trickle-down model. Organizational

Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 108, 1-13.

45. Mikula, G. (2003). Testing an attribution-of-blame model of judgments of injustice.

European Journal of Social Psychology, 33, 793-811.

46. Miller, N., Pederson, W.C., Earleywine, M. and Pollock, V.E. (2003). A theoretical

model of triggered displaced aggression. Personality and Social Psychology Review,

7, 75-97.

47. Mullen, E. (2007). The reciprocal relationship between affect and perceptions of

fairness. In K. Törnblom & R. Vermunt (Eds.), Distributive and Procedural Justice:

Research and Social Applications: 15-37. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.

48. Offermann, L.R. and Malamut, A.B. (2002). When leaders harass: The impact of

target perceptions of organizational leadership and climate on harassment reporting

and outcomes. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, 885-893.

The Dark Side of Leadership: The Despotic Leadership Impact… 112

49. Oldham, G.R. and Cummings, A. (1996). Employee creativity: Personal and

contextual factors at work. Academy of Management Journal, 39, 607-634.

50. Peterson, C. (2000). The future of optimism. American Psychologist, 55, 44-56.

51. Podsakoff, P.M., MacKenzie, S.B., Lee, J.Y. and Podsakoff, N.P. (2003). Common

method biases in behavioral research: A critical review of the literature and

recommended remedies. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88, 879-903.

52. Schmitt, D.P. and Winter, D.G. (1998). Measuring the motives of Soviet leadership

and Soviet society: Congruence reflected or congruence created? The Leadership

Quarterly, 9, 293-308.

53. Schneider, B. (1987). The people make the place. Personnel Psychology, 40,

437-454.

54. Schneider, B., Smith, D.B., Taylor, S. and Fleenor, J. (1998). Personality and

organizations: A test of the homogeneity of personality hypothesis. Journal of

Applied Psychology, 83, 462-470.

55. Seligman, M.E.P. (1998). Learned optimism. New York: Pocket Books.

56. Shrout, P.E. and Fleiss, J.L. (1979). Intra class correlations: Uses in assessing rater

reliability. Psychological Bulletin, 86, 420-428.

57. Spangler, W.D. and House, R.J. (1991). Presidential effectiveness and the leadership

motive profile. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60, 439-455.

58. Sparrowe, R.T. (2005). Authentic leadership and the narrative self. The Leadership

Quarterly, 16, 419-439.

59. Spreitzer, G.M. (1995). Psychological empowerment in the workplace: Dimensions,

measurement, and validation. Academy of Management Journal, 38, 1442-1465.

60. Tepper, B.J. (2000). Consequences of abusive supervision. Academy of Management

Journal, 43, 178-190.

61. Tepper, B.J. 2007. Abusive supervision in work organizations: Review, synthesis

and research agenda. Journal of Management, 33, 261-289.

62. Tepper, B.J., Carr, J., Breaux, D.M., Geider, S., Hu, C. and Hua, W. (2009). Abusive

supervision, intentions to quit, and employees‟ workplace deviance. Organizational

Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 109, 156-167.

63. Tepper, B.J., Duffy, M.K., Henle, C.A. and Lambert, L.S. (2006). Procedural

injustice, victim precipitation, and abusive supervision. Personnel Psychology, 59,

101-123.

64. Tepper, B.J., Duffy, M.K., Hoobler, J.M. and Ensley, M.D. (2004). Moderators of

the relationships between co-workers‟ organizational citizenship behavior and fellow

employees‟ attitudes. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89, 455-465.

65. Tepper, B.J., Moss, S.E. and Duffy, M.K. (2011). Predictors of abusive supervision:

Supervisor perceptions of deep-level dissimilarity, relationship conflict and

subordinate performance. Academy of Management Journal, 54, 279-294.

66. Zhou, J. (2003). When the presence of creative coworkers is related to creativity:

Role of supervisor close monitoring, developmental feedback, and creative

personality. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88, 413-422.