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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the psychological and motivational processes involved in the relationship between two forms of destructive leadership (tyrannical and laissez-faire) and employee health (burnout, affective commitment and job performance). Drawing on self-determination theory, this paper links tyrannical and laissez-faire leadership to employee health through psychological need frustration and poor-quality (controlled) work motivation.

A total of 399 Canadian nurses took part in this cross-sectional study. Structural equational modelling analyses were conducted.

Results show that tyrannical leadership frustrates nurses’ needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness, whereas laissez-faire leadership frustrates nurses’ need for autonomy only. The frustration of needs for autonomy and competence predicts low-quality (controlled) work motivation, which is consequently associated with impaired health (burnout and lower affective commitment as well as performance).

This study contributes to the scarce knowledge regarding the distinct outcomes of destructive forms of leadership and uncovers the specific psychological and motivational pathways through which these types of leadership influence employees’ health.

Research has overwhelmingly focused on the positive side of leadership in the past. However, research into negative aspects of leadership is picking up pace. This chapter will provide an overview of two prominent aspects of negative leadership, namely, abusive supervision and laissez-faire leadership. Research has shown that both types of leadership have significant negative consequences both for organisations as a whole as well as individual followers. Examples include lower job satisfaction, stress, as well as lowered performances and a higher likelihood of counter-productive work behaviour. Both abusive supervision and laissez-faire researchers acknowledge that these leadership styles take effect through the perception of followers. That is, they consider that the same behaviour can be interpreted differently by different followers and will, hence, lead to different follower-related outcomes. Abusive supervision and laissez-faire are, however, very different in terms of the actual leader behaviours described. While abusive supervision is a style that is actively destructive, laissez-faire is destructive via lack of support for followers' goal achievement. We end the chapter with an outlook for future research, notably an attempt to systematise future research into destructive leadership with respect to the different forms it can take.

Grounded on the conservation of resources (COR) theory, this study examines the relationship between tyrannical leadership and knowledge hiding. Additionally, this study aims to investigate the mediating role of psychological distress and the moderating role of psychological safety.

Data was gathered from 435 employees in the corporate sector in China. The study used the partial least squares structural equation modelling approach to assess the proposed connections and analysed the data collected with the help of SmartPLS 4 software.

In the study, it was found that there is a positive relationship between tyrannical leadership and knowledge hiding, and this association is mediated by psychological distress. Additionally, the results asserted that the positive effect of tyrannical leadership on knowledge hiding through psychological distress is less pronounced when there is a greater degree of psychological safety.

Leaders should avoid being tyrannical and adopt a supportive leadership style. They should be aware of the effects of their behaviour on employee well-being, provide resources to help employees cope with distress and foster a culture of psychological safety. This approach promotes knowledge sharing, innovation and employee well-being within the organisation.

This study contributes to the existing literature by investigating a new factor that influences knowledge hiding: tyrannical leadership. Furthermore, it explains that employees who experience tyrannical leadership are more prone to psychological distress, such as anxiety and fear, and are likelier to engage in knowledge-hiding behaviours. Finally, the study identifies psychological safety as a factor that can mitigate the negative effects of tyrannical leadership on knowledge hiding.

There are several permutations of destructive leadership types. Most involve active leadership actions, but some involve passive actions (or lack of leadership). A review of the literature reveals a relative dearth of root causes of destructive leadership type, but a reasonable sampling of causal factors and predictors of destructive leadership results. The author focuses on three relevant and representative destructive leadership types: Pseudotransformational, Laissez-Faire, and Unethical, and scoured the literature for root causes, causal factors, and predictors related to each. He further compared and contrasted these leadership types to differentiate their similarities and differences and discussed the causal factors and predictors associated with the operationalization of these leadership styles.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which emotional experiences mediate the relationships between employees’ perception of considerate and/or tyrannical leadership behaviors and their work engagement and intention to leave the organization. The notion of symmetric and asymmetric relationships between specific kinds of leadership behavior, emotional reactions, and followers’ attitudinal outcomes is also examined.

Employing a survey design, the variables were assessed in a cross-sectional sample of 312 employees.

The study confirmed the notion of symmetric relationships between specific kinds of leadership behavior, emotional reactions, and followers’ attitudinal outcomes. Contrary to the general notion that “bad is stronger than good,” the results indicated that positive emotions were equal or stronger mediators than the negative ones regarding the two outcomes measured in the present study.

The paper is, to the authors’ knowledge, the first paper which examines simultaneously how constructive and destructive leadership styles, and positive and negative affects, are related to employee attitudes outcomes, and evokes a discussion when bad is stronger than good or vice versa regarding leadership outcomes.

A growing body of research with contributions from different parts of the world documents accounts and analyses of negative behaviors by persons in leadership positions. Researchers today are acknowledging and paying increasing attention to the consequences of leadership that is characterized as being destructive. The chapter outlines organizational outcomes of destructive leadership and aims to emphasize the person–situation interaction in explaining these organizational phenomena. Both the direct outcomes that result from poor decision-making and the indirect effects that emerge as a consequence of the destructive leader's negative impact on the followers are discussed.

Line managers can make or break organizational interventions, yet little is known about what makes them turn in either direction. As leadership does not occur in a vacuum, it has been suggested that the organizational context plays an important role. Building on the intervention and leadership literature, we examine if span of control and employee readiness for change are related to line managers' leadership during an organizational intervention.

Leadership is studied in terms of intervention-specific constructive, as well as passive and active forms of destructive, leadership behaviors. As a sample, we use employees (N = 172) from 37 groups working at a process industry plant. Multilevel analyses over two time points, with both survey and organizational register data were used to analyze the data.

The results revealed that span of control was negatively related to constructive leadership and positively related to passive destructive leadership during the intervention. Employee readiness for change was positively related to constructive leadership, and negatively related to both passive and active destructive leadership.

Our findings suggest that contextual factors need to be assessed and considered if we want line managers to engage in constructive rather than destructive leadership during interventions.

The present study is the first to address line managers' making or breaking of organizational interventions by examining the influence of context on both their destructive and constructive leadership.

The present study aimed to investigate the main effect of competition on workplace bullying (WB) exposure and perpetration as well as its hypothesized moderation through passive avoidant leadership style. Specifically, the authors hypothesized that competition would have a stronger influence on WB when supervisors score higher on passive avoidant leadership style.

Data were collected among employees (N = 1,260) on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk utilizing an online survey. WB exposure and perpetration were cross-sectionally assessed via self-labeling and behavioral experience self-reports.

The results partially corroborated the proposed model. Competition and passive avoidant leadership were predictors of WB exposure and perpetration (as determined by both assessment methods). Furthermore, passive avoidant leadership moderated the relationship between competition and self-labeled WB exposure. Passive avoidant leadership only moderated the relationship between competition and self-labeled WB perpetration but not the competition–WB perpetration link assessed with the behavioral experience method.

This study shows that competition needs to be embedded within a leadership style sensitive to the detection of and taking action against WB phenomena.

While other studies have mainly focused on work stressors as antecedents of WB exposure, this study looks at the motivators and facilitators of WB occurrence. Furthermore, not only WB exposure but also WB perpetration is considered here, with the latter being an underresearched topic. Moreover, the authors used two assessment methods in order to test the generalizability of the authors’ findings.

To provide evidence-based recommendations on the types of leader behaviors organizations should target for a better return on leader training investment the authors draw on the destructive and constructive leadership behavior model and the bad is stronger than good proposition to examine the following question: Compared to constructive leader behavior, does destructive leader behavior have a greater effect on follower outcomes or is something more nuanced occurring?

The authors used Qualtrics online panels to collect data (N = 211 and N = 342) from full-time office-based participants. They used multivariate latent regression and dominance weights analyses to examine the relative strength of destructive versus constructive leader behaviors on followers' satisfaction with leader, and task performance.

Across both samples, leader hypocrisy and leader social undermining had relatively stronger effects on follower satisfaction with leader. Leader knowledge hiding had a relatively strong effect on follower task performance. Leader ethical conduct had the strongest association with follower satisfaction with leader in both samples. Hence, the authors' results were aligned with the bad is stronger than good proposition.

The authors' show that white-collar organizations can benefit from improved follower attitudes and performance by reducing leader hypocrisy and social undermining (destructive behavior) while simultaneously promoting leader ethical conduct (constructive behavior).

This study aims to investigate individual-related consequences of workplace bullying among the health-care section. Specifically, this study examined the mediating role of burnout between workplace bullying and nurses’ well-being. Moreover, passive avoidant leadership is examined as a conditional variable between workplace bullying and burnout.

This study collected data from 314 nurses working in various hospitals through a questionnaire-based survey using Google Form in two waves.

Structural equation modeling confirmed the negative effect of workplace bullying on nurses’ well-being, whereas burnout mediates this relationship. In addition, passive avoidant leadership was identified as a conditional variable that strengthens the positive association between workplace bullying and burnout.

Although data for the study were collected in two waves, still cross-sectional design limits causality.

This study suggests management to focus on developing and implementing counter-bullying rules to avoid the adverse consequences of workplace bullying (e.g. capital loss, recruitment costs, burnout, well-being, etc.). In addition, leaders/supervisors must be trained to fulfill their responsibilities to reduce negative consequences.

Studies on workplace bullying in high-power distance cultures are scant. Therefore, drawing upon conservation of resource theory, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that has investigated the moderating role of passive avoidant leadership on the association between workplace bullying and burnout.