Understanding despotic leadership through the lens of Islamic work ethics

Abstract

Deleterious leadership is at rising, while its harmful effects have recently gained researchers' attention. Based on social exchange and conservation of resources perspectives, this study aims at investigating the harmful effect of dark side of a leader (i.e., despotic leadership) on job dissatisfaction and organizational deviance considering the moderating effect of Islamic work ethics (IWE). The data were collected from supervisor‐subordinate dyads through a self‐administrated questionnaire‐based survey. A total of 746 useful responses were statistically evaluated through structural equation modeling technique, and it was found that despotic leadership has a strong relationship with job dissatisfaction and organizational deviance. Furthermore, IWE was found to buffer the positive effect of despotic leadership on job dissatisfaction; whereas reverse the positive relationship of despotic leadership with deviance. Anchoring on social exchange and conservation of resource perspectives, our study contributes to the limited literature on harmful effects of despotic leadership on subordinates. We further contributed by identifying when and how these effects can be buffered or reversed. The findings of our study suggest policymakers and organizations the ways through which the damaging effects of despotic leadership can be controlled and minimized.