Why and when employees ostracize their leaders: the effect of leader political act and integrity trustworthiness of the leader

Abstract

ABSTRACT Every organizational member can be ostracized, including those at the very top. Yet why and when a leader is ostracized by the employees is unknown. Based on the victim precipitation theory and the model of ethical ideology, we investigated the factors that precipitated a leader into workplace ostracism. We found that leader political acts (a leader’s self-serving behaviour aimed at promoting self-interest by influencing another person’s thinking and behaviours) predicted employees’ ostracism of the leader. We further predicted that employees’ principled versus expedient ideologies, indicated by employee integrity and employee political acts would affect an employee’s evaluation of leader political acts. Based on a daily dairy study (Study 1) and a three-wave time-lagged field survey study (Study 2), we found leader political acts were negatively related to integrity trustworthiness of the leader. This negative relationship was stronger for employees high in integrity and weaker for employees who also engaged in political acts. Both studies supported the moderated mediation model in which the mediational relationship among leader political acts, integrity trustworthiness of the leader, and ostracism of the leader were moderated by 1) employee integrity, and 2) employee political acts.