Tell me who you are, I'll tell you how you lead: Beyond the Full-Range Leadership Model, the role of corporate psychopathy on employee attitudes

Abstract

The role of corporate psychopathic traits in supervisors on employee attitudes has yet to be studied. The goal of the present study is to test the impact of corporate psychopathy in leaders on their employee's attitudes and its impact above and beyond the influence of leadership styles associated with the Full-Range Leadership Model (Transformational, Transactional and Laissez-Faire leadership). A total of 74 supervisors and 423 subordinates participated in this study. Employees completed self-report measures of job satisfaction, turnover intentions, work motivation and job neglect. They also rated their immediate supervisor on the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire and the B-Scan 360 (a corporate psychopathy measure). Hierarchical linear regressions indicated that the B-Scan 360 total score was the best predictor of employee's job satisfaction, turnover intentions, work motivation and job neglect (beyond the influence of the Full Range leadership Model). These results indicate that, for our sample, the B-Scan 360 is a stronger predictor of employee attitudes than the three leadership styles comprising the Full-Range Leadership Model. These results represent a stepping stone for future research trying to unravel the factors associated with dark leadership and its impact on employee attitudes.