The Dark Side of Leadership: How Despotic Leadership Drives Workplace Deviance Through Job Stress, Job Frustration, and Job Autonomy?
This study addresses the gap in existing negative leadership literature by delving into less explored behavioral outcomes and their underlying mechanism. It investigates how despotic leadership affects work deviance through the mediating roles of job stress, frustration, and job autonomy in a high-power-distance cultural context. This study used a cross-sectional method through a structured questionnaire administered in the manufacturing industry. The structural equation modeling (SEM) outcomes show that despotic leadership significantly increases job stress, and frustration, decreases job autonomy, and encourages work deviance. Furthermore, while job stress and frustration positively influence work deviance, job autonomy influences it negatively. Moreover, increased job stress, frustration, and autonomy exhibit critical mediators within the model. This study contributes significantly to the current literature on negative leadership types by expanding previous research on the outcomes of despotic leadership. The study reveals the direct impact on work deviance. Furthermore, it portrays this effect through the mediators grounded by the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) Model, Belongingness Theory, FrustrationAggression Theory, and Strain Theory. This study provides acumen for management to decrease workplace deviance by effectively regulating the leadership style and cultivating employees' psychological well-being as potent strategies in high-control and intimidating environments.
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