The Taming of Machiavellians: Differentiated Transformational Leadership Effects on Machiavellians’ Organizational Commitment and Citizenship Behavior

Abstract

This study seeks effective ways for managing employees with a high Machiavellian personality in organizations by identifying how to enhance their pro-organizational attitudes (organizational commitment) and behaviors [organizational citizenship behavior (OCB)] through transformational leadership (TFL). Drawing upon the dual-focused model of TFL, we suggest that exerting TFL upon employees high in Machiavellianism involves ethical dilemmas in that individual-focused and group-focused TFL have contrasting effects on leading pro-organizational attitudes/behaviors among these pro-individual employees. Analysis of data from 184 employees working in South Korea shows that Machiavellianism negatively relates to affective commitment, OCB toward the organization (OCB-O), and OCB toward individuals (OCB-I), but positively to continuance commitment. More importantly, the results reveal that group-focused TFL can effectively manage employees high in Machiavellianism by mitigating the negative relations between Machiavellianism and affective commitment and between Machiavellianism and OCB-O. However, individual-focused TFL strengthens these negative relations as well as the negative relation between Machiavellianism and OCB-I. This study thus shows that to lead employees high in Machiavellianism in a pro-organizational direction, group-focused TFL rather than individual-focused TFL needs to be employed.