The Dual Inferences for Authoritarian Leaders’ Negative Emotional Labor on Follower OCB and CWB

Abstract

Drawing from the emotions as social information model (Van Kleef, 2009; Van Kleef et al., 2009), we hypothesize that subordinates of authoritarian leaders make two different cognitive inferences of authoritarian leaders’ negative emotional labor: one is that leaders intend to hurt, while the other is that leaders attempt to drive performance. As a result, they perform less organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and more counterproductive work behavior (CWB) if the former inference is made but more OCB and less CWB when the latter is made. Data from 515 leader- subordinate dyads in three Japanese companies provided general support for our central hypothesis. Moreover, we found that leader deep acting was a contingent factor to affect how subordinates attribute authoritarian leaders’ negative emotional labor. When authoritarian leaders were higher in deep acting, the injury initiation mediation path became more salient; meanwhile, the performance promotion mediation path became less salient. We discuss the theoretical and empirical implications of our findings in leadership effectiveness in organizations.