Seeing through Politics-Colored Glasses: The Dark Side of Follower Political Skill

Abstract

A plenty of studies have demonstrated that political skill is beneficial to followers in interpersonal interactions. Based on social influence theory, our research challenges previous wisdom by identifying the potential dark side of follower political skill. We propose that leader-perceived follower political skill can lead to the conjecture of follower manipulation tendency, which further decreases the leader’s motivation to build a relationship with such a follower. Furthermore, we suggest that follower political skill can be observed through by the leader only when the leader has high political skill. To test our hypotheses, we conducted an Implicit Association Test and a field study with a multiple-source, time-lagged design, in which the results supported our hypotheses. Taken together, our research reveals the perils of follower political skill and the importance of examining the characteristics of influence target in the social influence process.