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

Year 2019, Volume: 1 Issue: 1, - , 31.12.2019

Mine M. Afacan Fındıklı Gözde Okan Ünsal Sığrı

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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