The Dark Leadership Scale: A Scaling Study on Employees’ Perceptions

Abstract

Within organizations, leadership is deemed effective through employees’ manners (opinions, beliefs, expectations, and rumors) and behaviours (participation, commitment/ absence, protests etc.) by means of emotional components (experiences, fears, positive/negative). During the management process, the leader benefits from various power of the position and effecting mechanisms to achieve organizational goals. However, it is also possible for the leader to use his/her power and position for different purposes; to change the direction of positive outputs.  For example, employees' perceptions of a leader who takes advantage of his/her personal charismatic power for his/her own interests or for the interests of the organization have been found to vary (Dirik et al., 2016, p. 260). Moreover, the manager can exhibit “dark” manners and behaviors, meaning oppressive and socially unaccepted behaviors (Harms & Spain, 2015; Brandebo & Alvinius, 2018). These dark manners and behaviours can surface not only because of negative character traits of the individual, but also due to uncertainty in the organization or organization structure (Brandebo & Alvinius, 2018), or due to concerns of losing positions (Nassif, 2018). Transformational leaders may look down on the people around them due to exaggerated levels of self-confidence (De Villiers, 2014; Li & Yuan, 2017, p. 60). The may show authoritative tendencies such as use of power to reach success (Khoo et al., 2008; Li & Yuan, 2017, p. 60) or may create a climate of fear (Kocel, 2007). Moreover, the leaders may show the success of subordinates as their own success and may dominate them by using the power of position (Harris & Jones, 2018). These kinds of behaviours can be classified as “dark”, according to the previous studies.

Studying the dark sides of leaders has been attracting scholarly attention lately, alongside considering the importance of how employees perceive leadership behaviors (Harris & Jones, 2018; Landay et al., 2018).

As it is stated above, the leader has the responsibility over followers and has also the power to strengthen or damage the exchange (leader–followers) relationship. In this perspective, Jean Lipman- Bluman has asserted that the leaders can produce harm or harmony essentially through two mechanisms: their destructive/ constructive behaviors and dysfunctional/ functional personal characteristics (Lipman- Bluman, 2011). It is possible this kind of destructive leadership behaviors or personal characteristics can be perceived by subordinates to be harmful to the well-being. In a nutshell, they can perceive they work for a “dark leader”. This paper aims to contribute to the literature emphasizing the negative traits of perceived by followers in the workplace by creating the scale ‘dark leadership’.

The research asks the question “Which behaviors of managers/leaders do employees describe as negative?”, and focuses on the subdimensions of dark leadership, under which these negative behaviors can be evaluated. Accordingly, the relation between employee perceptions of dark leadership and qualitative data, supported with quantitative data, is examined by the “exploratory sequential design” method (Firat et al., 2014, p. 72). One to one interviews, a focus group discussion and document review are used in the data collection stage. Data was examined using “three-stage analysis” (Sigri, 2018, p. 198).

The ‘purposive sampling’ method (Patton, 2002; Teddlie & Yu, 2007) was used with voluntary participants who had been working for at least 5 years in the same workplace for the qualitative research. (Baki & Göcek, 2012, p. 5). The study was conducted on 21 participants working in two different industries in Istanbul. Following individual and focus group interviews, the obtained data was saved in the QDA Miner software for analysis. After reading the participants’ responses carefully, ‘codes’ were determined according to the pre-specified concepts based on the relevant literature, to be used during the examination of data. Identified codes were grouped in terms of content integrity and interrelation. The six sub-dimensions which form the dark leadership were obtained as a result of arranging the themes according to the research questions.

The common statements of the participants were brought together under a single statement in accordance with the content analysis of Krippendorf (2004). Moreover, a ‘directed approach’ was used during the content analysis to conceptually validate and extend a theoretical expression (Hsieh & Shannoon, 2005). First, to avoid misunderstandings and for the reliability of data obtained in the semi-structured interview, each sub-dimension was independently evaluated. The statements given by the employees were compared to the concepts identified in the literature. In the context of content analysis, “cross case synthesis” (Yin, 2009) which handles the statements as separate studies, was used and the statements were compared to increase the reliability and to determine the differences as well as similarities. (Akgün et al., 2017). An item pool consisting of 108 statements was created using the answers provided by the participants, in accordance with the individual and focus group interviews. By using QDA Miner software, the number of these statements was decreased to 76 items.

Subsequently, the quantitative research stage began with 151 voluntary participants online, using the snowball sampling method. The dark leadership scale was found to be sufficient for reliability, criterion validity, construct validity, parallel validity and test-retest reliability. 6 sub-dimensions (35 items) of the dark leadership were named as follows: toxic leadership (9 items), small tyranny (7 items), narcissistic leadership (5 items), destructive leadership (7 items), unethical leadership (4 items) and abusive leadership 3 (items). 

Keywords

• dark leadership,employee perception,scale development

Karanlık Liderlik Ölçeği: Çalışanların Algısı Üzerine Bir Ölçeklendirme Çalışması

Abstract

Bu çalışmanın amacı liderin karanlık yönlerinin çalışan algısı üzerinden belirlenmesidir. Olumsuz liderlik tarzlarının tek tek değil, daha fazlasının tek bir yöneticide bulunabileceği düşüncesinden yola çıkarak karma yöntem kullanılarak araştırma yürütülmüştür. Bu çalışmada karma yöntem desenlerinden keşfedici sıralı desen kullanılmıştır. Nitel analiz kapsamında birebir mülakatlar, odak grup görüşmesi yapılmış, katılımcılardan elde edilen ifadelerin QDA Miner programı ile analizleri yapılmıştır. Madde havuzu oluşturulduktan sonra nicel yöntemde çalışanlar açısından yönetici davranışları altı alt boyutta belirmiş ve bu alt boyutlar üzerinden geçerlilik-güvenilirlik analizleri yapılmıştır. Karanlık liderlik ölçeği güvenilirlik, ölçüt geçerliliği, yapı geçerliliği, paralel geçerlilik ve test-tekrar test güvenilirliği açısından yeterli düzeyde olduğu tespit edilmiştir. Analiz sonuçları, 35 ifade 6 faktörlü bir ölçek yapısını ortaya çıkarmıştır. Çalışan algısı kapsamında karanlık liderlikle ilgili; toksik liderliği (9 ifade), küçük tiranlığı (7 ifade), narsist liderliği (5 ifade), yıkıcı liderliği (7 ifade), etik dışı liderliği (4 ifade) ve istismarcı liderliği (3 ifade) kapsayan bir ölçme aracı elde edilmiştir.

Keywords

• Karanlık Liderlik,Çalışan Algısı,ölçek geliştirme

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