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The virtue of a controlling leadership style: Authoritarian leadership, work stressors, and leader power distance orientation

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This article has been updated

Abstract

We developed and tested a theoretical model showing that authoritarian leadership has both positive and negative influences on employees’ work performance. We posited that authoritarian leadership may shape both challenge stressors and hindrance stressors, which compel and undermine in-role and extra-role performance, respectively. We found consistent results across two studies. In Study 1, our results from two samples in different cultures showed that authoritarian leadership was positively related to objective performance (Sample 1: n = 402 Chinese chain restaurant managers) and extra-role performance (Sample 2: n = 369 U.K. police officers) via challenge stressors. Authoritarian leadership was negatively related to objective performance and extra-role performance via hindrance stressors. In Study 2 (n = 195 Chinese power industry employees), we replicated the findings of Study 1. Further, we found that authoritarian leadership behaviors among leaders who scored low on power distance orientation were not negatively related to in-role and extra-role performance via hindrance stressors.

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Availability of data and material

The raw data from Study 1a and Study 2 are available and will be submitted to the reviewers when they request it. The raw data from Study 1b are not available because participants are police officers and we signed a contract with a confidentiality clause specifying that we cannot share the raw data with others.

Code availability

All Mplus input and output codes are available and will be submitted to the reviewers when they request them.

Change history

  • 25 November 2022

    The original version of this paper was updated to reflect the ORCID ID of authors Xu Huang, Jian-min Sun, Yuyan Zheng, and Les Graham.

Notes

  1. We calculated the statistical power of our model in the three samples following Faul et al., (2007). In each case, the statistical power was above the threshold of .80. Specifically, in Sample 1, the results showed a statistical power of .87 for the mediating effects of authoritarian leadership on in-role performance via the two stressors. In Sample 2, the statistical power for the mediating effects on extra-role performance was .99. In Sample 3, the statistical power for the mediating effects on in-role performance was .95 and for extra-role performance, it was .99. The statistical power for the moderating effect of leaders’ power distance orientation on the relationship between authoritarian leadership and hindrance stressors was .99.

  2. We ran several additional analyses using our samples to prove that challenge/hindrance stressor framework works better for authoritarian leadership than for other leadership styles. We aimed to examine (1) whether the challenge/hindrance stressor framework could work for other leadership styles and (2) whether the challenge/hindrance stressor framework could still work for authoritarian leadership after controlling for other leadership styles. Therefore, we examined the effects of transformational, benevolent, and moral leadership on work performance via shaping challenge and hindrance stressors. We also retested our theoretical model after controlling for the effects of transformational leadership (Sample 1), benevolent leadership (Sample 3), and moral leadership (Sample 3).

    The results showed that transformational leadership was not related to challenge stressors (B = -.19, SE = .17, n.s.), but it was negatively related to hindrance stressors (B = -.60, SE = .18, p < .01). Benevolent leadership was not related to challenge stressors (B = -.17, SE = .20, n.s.), but it was negatively related to hindrance stressors (B = -.42, SE = .21, p < .05). Moral leadership was not related to either challenge stressors (B = -.13, SE = .22, n.s.) or hindrance stressors (B = -.15, SE = .21, n.s.). Further, after controlling for benevolent and moral leadership, the indirect effects of authoritarian leadership on in-role performance (B = .08, SE = .04, 95% CI = [.01, .17]) and extra-role performance (B = .06, SE = .03, 95% CI = [.01, .13]) via challenge stressors were significant. Also, after controlling for transformational leadership, the indirect effect of authoritarian leadership on in-role performance via challenge stressors was significant (B = .03, SE = .02, 95% CI = [.001, .06]).

    Overall, we found no empirical evidence that challenge/hindrance stressors function as the underlying mechanisms for the effects of transformational, benevolent, or moral leadership on in-role and extra-role performance. Furthermore, most of our hypotheses held after controlling for other leadership styles. These results indicate that challenge and hindrance stressors may be distinct mechanisms that transmit the effects of authoritarian leadership to performance.

  3. We used employee power distance orientation instead of leaders’ power distance orientation as the moderator in our model. The results showed that the moderating effects of employee power distance orientation are not significant on either the relationship between authoritarian leadership and challenge stressors (B = -.38, SE = .25, n.s.) or the relationship between authoritarian leadership and hindrance stressors (B = -.09, SE = .22, n.s.). Therefore, we cannot find evidence supporting moderating effects of employee power distance orientation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Business, Hong Kong Baptist University, WLB 902, 34 Renfrew Road, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong

    Leni Chen

  2. School of Business, Hong Kong Baptist University, WLB 725, 34 Renfrew Road, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong

    Xu Huang

  3. School of Labor and Human Resources, Renmin University of China, Room 232, QiuShi Building, No.59, Zhongguancun Street, Beijing, China

    Jian-min Sun

  4. Surrey Business School, University of Surrey, Guildford, GU2 7XH, UK

    Yuyan Zheng

  5. Business School, Durham University, Mill Hill Lane, Durham, DH1 3LB, UK

    Les Graham

  6. School of Business, Hong Kong Baptist University, 34 Renfrew Road, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong

    Judy Jiang

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  1. Leni Chen
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  3. Jian-min Sun
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Correspondence to Jian-min Sun.

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Chen, L., Huang, X., Sun, Jm. et al. The virtue of a controlling leadership style: Authoritarian leadership, work stressors, and leader power distance orientation. Asia Pac J Manag (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10490-022-09860-7

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