POWER MISUSE: HOW TOP-MANAGERS CAN REDUCE THE LEVEL OF PERFORMANCE OF THEIR ORGANIZATIONS WITHOUT KNOWING IT

Abstract

Significant attention has been devoted to the important role that top managers play in raising their companies to high levels. However, there is another side to the story that also needs attention. This side negatively affects top managers and their companies, leading to a decline in organizational performance. In this article, we investigate relationships between misuse of power by top managers and the deterioration of subordinates’ performance and, as a result, reduced productivity of the entire organization. These relationships are generally explained by dissatisfaction of subordinates. We researched other causes of employees’ performance declines to get a fuller understanding of the mechanism of relationships between top management power misuse and organizational decline. We suggest that it is not only employee dissatisfaction, but also the whole spectrum of factors that include deterioration of subordinates’ physiological, mental, and psychological states that lead to their performance declines and, consequently, to the declines of the entire organizational performance.