What if authoritarian to all or to some? A multi-level investigation of within-team differentiation in authoritarian leadership

Abstract

The literature on the bright side of leadership has established that leaders differentiate among their followers. This paper examines a negative leadership style, authoritarian leadership (AL) and, based on group value and engagement models, proposes that AL differentiation softens the negative effects of mean AL on team cohesion, which in turn influences team and individual performance. Based on social comparison and justice theories, we also test the opposite effects of AL differentiation on these outcomes as a competing hypothesis. The results (multi-source cross-level data from 381 employees of 63 teams) support our main hypothesis but not the competing hypothesis. When team leaders exhibited authoritarian behaviors to all members (low differentiation), team cohesion decreased drastically, which reduced individual (in-role, extra-role, but not innovative performance) and team performance. In the high differentiation condition, the negative effects of mean AL via team cohesion on in-role and extra-role performance and team performance were alleviated.