Despotic leadership and job outcomes: Moderated by big five personality traits

Abstract

As the dynamics of organizations become more and more diverse, there is a greater need for leaders who influence their followers to achieve organizational goals and improve their performances. Over the period of time, there has been increasing importance and concern in the negative aspects of leadership. In this cross sectional study, I examined the effects of despotic leadership on three job outcomes including employee performance, satisfaction and turnover intention. I also observed the moderating role of big five personality traits on the relationship between despotic leadership and job outcomes. Despotic leadership is known as the dark side of leadership which is based upon authoritarian behavior, personal dominance that serves the self regard of the leader. Quantitative method of research was used, where questionnaires were distributed amongst amongst employees (N=124) and each employee's respective managers (N=124). The questionnaires were distributed amongst various organizations, both public and private. Research was situated in Pakistan. The results and findings of this research specified that there is a significant relationship between despotic leadership and satisfaction and despotic leadership with turnover intentions. However, no such significant relationship exists between despotic leadership and employee performance. Moreover, the big five personality traits did not moderate the relationship of despotic leadership with employee performance, indicating that performance of employees is good despite having a despotic leader; Furthermore, despotic leadership-satisfaction relationship was moderated neurotic-ism and extroversion of the big five personality traits. And the despotic leadership and turnover intention was moderated by extroversion alone.