Narcissistic & Machiavellian leadership and their effect on employee
motivation and employee stress: including the role of leader-member
exchange.
Maria Katarina Lardot (10008888) University of Amsterdam
Master thesis MSc Business Administration Leadership and Management Track
Academic year: 2014-2015 Supervisor: Deanne den Hartog Second reader: Annebel de Hoogh Amsterdam, August 2015
Statement of originality
This document is written by Student [Katarina Lardot] who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document.
I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it. The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.
Abstract
This study focuses on narcissistic and Machiavellian leaders and investigates whether there is a direct link between these leaders and their follower’s motivation to perform well and their perceived levels of stress. The moderating and mediating variable is leader-member exchange (LMX) since it is expected that the quality and intensity of the relationship that the follower has with his/her direct leader will have an impact on the outcome. Results showed that Machiavellian leadership and leader-member exchange have a direct impact on employee motivation. However, results failed to show any relationships between narcissistic leadership and LMX to employee stress levels. Neither did LMX mediate or moderate any relationship. Implications of the outcomes are reviewed.
Keywords: narcissistic leadership – Machiavellian leadership – leader-member exchange – stress – motivation
Index 1. Introduction 4 2. Literature review 8 2.1 Narcissistic leadership 8 2.2 Machiavellian leadership 12 2.3 Employee motivation 14 2.4 Employee stress 18 2.5 Leader-member exchange 23 2.6 Research model 32 3. Method 35
3.1 Description of the sample 35
3.2 Description of the measurements 37
3.3 Description of the statistical procedure 38
4. Results 40 4.1 Correlation analysis 40 4.2 Direct effects 40 4.3 Moderation 41 4.4 Mediation 46 5. Discussion 48
5.1 Theoretical and practical implications 48
5.2 Limitations 55
5.3 Future research 56
6. References 57
1. Introduction
As with many things in life, next to positive aspects, there is often a dark side and leadership is no different. Transformational, charismatic, and visionary leadership undoubtedly can achieve great things and as Bass (1990) states: transformational leaders can be the defining factor of whether a company becomes successful or a failure. These leaders widen and uplift their followers’ interests, they make their followers aware of the mission and the goals of the group, they are inspirational and intellectually stimulating, and they make their followers look beyond their own self interests to achieve the best for the group.
However, leadership can also have a serious downside. Hogan & Hogan (2001) list personality disorders among managers and some examples are paranoia, narcissism, antisocial behavior, mischievous behavior, and borderline. These can obviously have severe
consequences for the not only the firm, but also the relationships between managers and employees and the work atmosphere, which can ultimately affect motivation to perform well and stress levels among employees and managers, which in turn affect organizational
performance.
Paulhus & Williams (2002) investigated the dark triad of personality, which consists of narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. Facets of narcissism are entitlement, superiority, dominance and grandiosity. Machiavellian’s are said to have a manipulative character. Central to psychopathy are thrill seeking, a high level of impulsivity, and a low score on anxiety and compassion. Managers scoring high on these elements have the potential to seriously damage organizations which points out the importance of this subject. Up to this point, the dark triad holds a very important, and rather undiscovered place in organizational research (O’Boyle, Jr, et al. 2012). O’Boyle, Jr., et al (2012) found in their study that the dark triad of personality explains a moderate amount of variance in counterproductive work behavior, yet not in job performance. The dark triad in itself has been a topic of research in
quite a few studies, but linking this triad of dark personality traits to leaders in organizations is relatively new.
To date, little is known about what the effect is of leaders scoring high on dark traits on the motivation of their employees to perform well, as well as on their stress levels. The current study will start investigating this unresolved issue. The article by Maccoby (2004) makes clear that organizations are colluding with narcissists to a greater extent because they have found out that there is no alternative for these kinds of leaders in the current age of innovation. This points out the importance and urgency of this topic because leaders have so much power in organizations. Leaders with a dark personality like narcissism or
Machiavellianism could act in their own interest instead of in the organization’s interest, or set employees and managers up against each other. It seems logical to expect that employees will be less motivated to work hard for their boss when they experience these dark traits and feel that they are not treated in an appropriate manner, or feel that their boss is behaving unsuitably. Anticipated is also that employees will experience rising levels of stress due to this, since they might not know how to cope with these issues.
Motivation and stress among employees is important to investigate since companies need their employees to be on their best. Unmotivated and stressed employees will do companies no good, so this must be avoided whenever possible. There is empirical evidence that a driven and motivated workforce leads to improved organizational effectiveness and outcomes (Nohria et al., 2008). Managing employee stress has also become an important component of organizational life due to the fact that these problems are a considerable cost for organizations, not only financially but also by way of losing possibly appreciated employees (Hendrix et al., 1995). This points out to the importance of this study.
The present study will however investigate only two dark traits of the dark triad being narcissism and Machiavellianism among leaders because on the last dark trait, psychopathy,
far less research is done. This means that there is less information to build upon partly
because the other two are likely to be more frequent as they have both posed negative features and with psychopathy this is less the case.
Additionally, in any organization, the bond that employees form with one another is of great importance because it has the power to have an impact on many aspects. A good bond between leaders and followers could for example results in excellent team work, trusting one another, feeling motivated to work harder, reduce stress levels by being supportive, whereas bad relationships could cause stress, demotivation, anxiety, withholding of information and more. Graen & Cashman (1975) define leader-member exchange (LMX) as an interpersonal relationship that emerges between leader and follower with the formal organization on the background. The relationship that the leader and the follower have in an organization influences how the follower sees the leader and vice versa. When this relationship is good, (even when followers acknowledge and witness some of the dark traits in their leader), it is expected that the follower is more motivated to work hard and will experience less stress and vice versa. It is thus expected that LMX will act as a moderator that changes the initial relationship of leadership on motivation and stress to become stronger or weaker. In this case the primary effect will become stronger, when the bond is of a low quality as experienced by the employee. LMX will presumably also act as a mediator. Leaders that are narcissistic by nature or have a tendency to manipulate others (Machiavellianism) will seemingly not have the best relationship with their employees because the employees can sense and see this on a regular basis, which makes them careful in getting attached to their leaders emotionally. This causes them to have a weaker LMX, which in turn will affect employee motivation
negatively, and employee stress positively.
The current study will thus investigate the following research question: To what extent does the leader scoring high on narcissism and Machiavellianism have a direct impact on the
followers’ motivation to work hard and their stress level? The sub question here is: Does leader-member exchange moderate and mediate this impact? The current paper will used the words leader and supervisor intertwined.
In pursuance of a thorough conclusion, the rest of this paper will be structured as follows. Firstly, a literature review will discuss the relevant concepts, what we know so far, and how these topics relate to each other. Hereafter, the method will be discussed including the participants, the data collection and the analyses. The results part will deliberate on the outcomes of the gathered data. Lastly, conclusions and implications will be discussed, as well as the most striking limitations of the current research. The paper will end with a few
2. Literature Review
This section will review the most recent and relevant findings from the ongoing literature. Firstly, the most appropriate and suitable concepts that present the theoretical foundation will be discussed. These are narcissistic leaders, Machiavellian leadership, employee motivation, employee stress and leader-member exchange respectively. Subsequently, these concepts will be linked together to form the hypotheses. Lastly, this section will provide a conceptual model that graphically represents the established hypotheses.
2.1 Narcissistic leadership
Narcissism is a personality trait that a lot of influential leaders possess. This personality trait has been commonly reviewed as a personality disorder (American Psychiatric Association, 1994). Examples of famous narcissistic leaders are Jack Welch, former chairman and CEO of General Electric, and George Soros, chairman of Soros Fund Management. Keywords to narcissism are arrogance, entitlement, selfishness, bitterness, and delicate self-confidence (Rosenthal & Pittinsky, 2006). The authors explain how narcissistic leaders engage in these self-centered behaviors typically for a need for dominance, recognition and appreciation, instead of an understanding for the organization and its employees. Narcissistic leaders have a flamboyant leadership style and belief system, and next to the seemingly negative attributes narcissistic leaders are also charismatic and have the ability to see the bigger picture and the greater vision that is needed in powerful leaders.
Narcissists find a motivation in being admired by others and receiving confirmation that they are superior (Judge et al., 2006). Besides being more likely to undertake aggressive practices, narcissists are also shown to be positively related to counterproductive or deviant
work behavior. This is the case because narcissists are coercive (Baumeister et al., 2002) and may be stimulated to take away from others (Morf & Rhodewalt, 2001).
Maccoby (2004) notes that narcissistic leaders tend to be an inspiration to people and often have an outlook of what is about to come. Narcissistic leaders take a lot of uncertain chances, but also have the ability to change the minds of the masses to be aligned to theirs. Key elements of narcissists are that they are independent, not regularly aroused, pioneers in their industry (they are eager to learn all that there is to learn about the organization and its work), admiration is more important to them than being loved, when being successful they have a tendency to set themselves apart from the rest, and they are constantly alert of competitors and can even get paranoid in extremely stressful instances. When narcissists observe that they are being endangered or intimidated, this can provoke them to feel anger. On the other hand, when they accomplish goals, this can encourage their feelings of glory. Maccoby continues and lists several weaknesses that narcissistic leaders show which are: they find it hard to receive criticism, they are generally weak listeners, they fall short in feeling empathy for others, they have a tendency to dictate meetings, they have an issue in dealing with their own feelings, difficulty in learning from other people, they have a problem to teach others and instead tend to brainwash others, they dislike being a mentor and lastly they feel a deep urge to be in battle constantly. These bad aspects can lead narcissists trying to reach unattainable goals because when they are not able to convert their followers to their beliefs, the danger is that they fall short in restraining anchors and understanding themselves which leads them to become unrealistic dreamers.
When people think about narcissists, they generally think about them in a negative manner. However, narcissists can be extremely beneficial – even needed. The article of Maccoby (2004) explains how erotic personalities typically are inadequate leaders due to their constant need of confirmation. Obsessive personalities are more suitable to be leaders, but
they are best in the operational manager role since they are always on the lookout (cautious) and good critics. But narcissists resemble the collective representation of great leaders best for two reasons. The first is the fact that they have fascinating and intriguing visions about the future, and the second is their strength in appealing to supporters. This points out how important the issue of leaders and their personality and style is nowadays.
Resick et al. (2009) studied the bright and dark side of CEO personality and summed up the following aspects of narcissistic leaders. Firstly, their qualities frequently are a part of why they are promoted within their company and move to higher (leadership) ranks.
Nevertheless, these leaders can spend a lot of their energy and time improving their public image instead of establishing supporters or reaching goals that are in line with organizational goals or customer based goals. Secondly, their cocky and theatrical personality can draw away from top management’s capability to create useful relationships for the long term, build commitment to his or her perception of where the firm should stand, or to establish a positive organizational environment. It is also improbable that narcissistic leaders encourage equitable exchanges with other employees and rather feel and show that they are entitled to the work and fidelity of their supporters. And thirdly, due to their habits of bragging and being
egocentric, it is improbable that they will openly stimulate supporters to question how things are done. Rather, it is more probable that they will indulge in ways that will make supporters insecure and dependent.
Ouimet (2010) conducted a study in organizations and summarized that the following variables provide a positive association with narcissistic leadership: a poisonous work
environment (no empathy and coldness towards co-workers and personnel); exposing disturbance to others (such as intimidation, bullying, and emotional damage); insufficient management ratings (ratings given by the supervisor about achievements and principles); unstable and dangerous decisions; tendency towards employee crime; no such atmosphere
necessary to obtain lasting performance; flawed management (having a hard time to learn from responses); and destruction of follower’s confidence and deterioration of organizational efficiency and effectiveness.
Grijalva et al. (2015) studied narcissism and leadership and their study summarizes that narcissism has a positive relationship with supervisor reports of transformational leadership, as well as with charismatic leadership through the aspect that represents the willingness of narcissistic leaders to take chances and to stimulate and energize the crowd. However, narcissism was negatively associated with narcissistic leadership through the aspect of socialization, representing that the leader acts in altruistic ways. The authors also note that narcissistic leadership is negatively associated with the amount of information that a group exchanges with one another, and with contingent reward leadership which means that these leaders were less inclined to endorse fair exchange relationships.
Lee & Ashton (2005) studied the dark triad of personality consisting of psychopathy, Machiavellianism and narcissism. Their study showed that psychopathy and
Machiavellianism correlated with each other fairly strongly (r = 0.66) while narcissism did not reach this level of correlation with either one of the two. The next thing they found out about narcissism is that it was correlated with extraversion to a large extent. People that are extroverts are characterized as people who are social, like to talk, and are assertive (McCabe & Fleeson, 2012). This indicates that narcissists are most probably chatty, social and self-assured people. The final thing the authors found out about narcissism in their study is that narcissism was strongly interacting with the greed avoidance and modesty facets, yet comparatively lower with the sincerity and fairness facets. This would mean that narcissists are relatively not very concerned about acting in a fair and sincere way, while they do have the tendency to be unconcerned about owning luxury items and having a large social status and behaving modestly. It thus seems obvious that narcissists are more concerned with low
humility (entitlement) instead of low truthfulness (exploitation) (Lee & Ashton, 2005). Now that a clear image of narcissism and narcissistic leadership is established, the next passage will discuss Machiavellian leadership.
2.2 Machiavellian leadership
As with narcissistic leadership, it is important for organizations to be aware of Machiavellian leaders since they have the power to seriously damage the organization, the work atmosphere, and individual well-being. Machiavellianism has its origins in Italy in the sixteenth century from a political figure called Niccolo Machiavelli (Dahling et al., 2014). Examples of famous Machiavellian leaders are Joseph Stalin, former leader of the Soviet Union and Mao Zedong, a powerful Chinese communist. Wai & Tiliopoulus (2012) explore the dark triad of
personality consisting of Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy and describe how Machiavellianism is a term that encompasses characteristics such as deception, turning the blame on someone else, being emotionally bitter, and manipulating others in their own advantage. The authors go on and state that strong Machiavellians are good at spotting and taking advantage of shortcomings of others, while at the same time covering their own. They are unaffected by emotional engagement with others and are unconcerned regarding their ideas, attitudes, or behaviors. Machiavellian leaders have a skeptical view of the world and feel that it is in their interest to exploit, rather than being exploited themselves. This stems from the fact that they have a shortage of emotional connection with others and they are said to have little empathy and understanding for others.
Dahling et al. (2014) explore Machiavellianism coupled with unethical behavior and well-being in organizational life. Research has demonstrated that Machiavellians are very prone to steal from others, even when they have an established relation with the other person. Harell & Hartnagel (1976) conducted a study and found that Machiavellians took without
permission from both supervisors whom they had a good and a doubtful connection with. Next to stealing, Machiavellians also lie and deceit, they have proven to be more persuasive liars, undertake sabotaging acts, and cheat (Dahling et al., 2014). The well being of
Machiavellians can be harmed and brought to danger through these dishonest behaviors as well as the targets of their behavior, the broader work crowd and the whole company. Leaders high on Machiavellian traits experience work stances and viewpoints fairly differently from their corresponding leaders scoring low on these traits. That is, high Machiavellian oriented leaders felt higher job pressure and lower job fulfillment. Whether burdened, unhappy, non-job-involved managers who are not clear about what their role should be in the organization and do no rarely take part in making decisions become
Machiavellian or managerial Machiavellianism leads to such stances and viewpoints remains undetermined in the study at hand.
Lee & Ashton (2005) note that Machiavellianism specifies individual variation in callousness, deviousness, and dishonesty, and has been broadly investigated in social psychological cases. The outcome of their study indicates that Machiavellianism is highly related to primary psychopathy. The study of Hollon (1983) was focused on
Machiavellianism and the perspectives and viewpoints of managers at work. Their study discovered that Machiavellianism among managers was correlated in a negative way with job involvement, perceived participation in decision-making and job satisfaction while being positively correlated to job connected pressures and anticipated role vagueness. Noser et al. (2014) compared Machiavellian characteristics to psychopaths and narcissists and found that Machiavellian people turn out to be far less impulsive than the other two, while also being more receptive to frustration.
The main thing that Machiavellianism and narcissism have in common is a tendency to interpersonally manipulate (McHosky, 1995). Now that the concepts of narcissism and
Machiavellianism are clear, the next passage will discuss employee motivation and how narcissistic and Machiavellian leadership in organizations affects this.
2.3 Employee motivation
It is of vital importance to any organization that employees are motivated to perform at their best, even more so in challenging times, and so motivating employees is one of the toughest challenges, not only for leaders but also for the employees themselves. Motivated employees are needed so that organizations stay alive (Lindner, 1998). Unraveling what it exactly is that motivates employees has undeniably been a wide topic of interest in the literature, and of all the tasks of managers, motivating employees could be the most complicated because
employee’s motivation switches regularly (Lindner, 1998). Younger employees thus are motivated for different things than somewhat older employees.
Generally, employee’s motivation can be uncovered through answering the question: ‘What do people want from their job?’ (Lu, 1999). There is empirical evidence that a driven and motivated workforce leads to improved organizational effectiveness and outcomes (Nohria et al., 2008). The authors describe four forces that regulate motivation. These are the drive to acquire, the drive to defend, the drive to foster relationships, and the drive to
understand. The drive to acquire means that we are all compelled to obtain limited goods that boost our feeling of well being. The drive to bond is the desire to be a part of a larger
collective. When this is achieved, positive feelings like devotion and appreciation are felt, and when not, negative feelings such as feeling lonely. In the organizational setting, the drive to bond justifies the huge increase in motivation that employees feel because they are pleased to belong to their firm. When the firm betrays them, however, this causes a ditch in their self-esteem. The drive to understand is about the fact that people want to make sense of what is happening around them and that they get embittered when thing do not make sense. In the organizational setting, the drive to understand is about making a purposeful contribution.
Employees get motivated when their job is challenging and has the ability to let them learn and grow. When a job becomes boring and remains the same all the time and does not lead anywhere, this severely demotivates employees. When employees have a talent, but feel captured, they often go away in the search of a new challenge in another company. Finally, the drive to defend is about fighting for our possessions and ourselves. This gives us a feeling of being safe and feeling self-assured. They also mention four organizational levers of
motivation being the organizational atmosphere, the system for compensation, the
composition of jobs, and performance management and processes of resource distribution. In their research (Nohria et al., 2008) the employees acknowledge the fact that their direct supervisor does not have direct control over all the factors that have an impact on their motivation but they do discriminate on the factors that their supervisor can have an influence on. The supervisors that support and promote a highly motivating local atmosphere, even where the organization altogether does not, were viewed in a good light. On the contrary, there are also those supervisors within a highly motivated organization as a whole that generate a harmful local atmosphere. The employees expected that their supervisors did their best possible to focus on all four aspects that concern their motivation. Offermann &
Hellmann (1996) established that supervisor support was correlated to larger subordinate satisfaction and intention to stay working there, besides buffer the consequences of job strains on depression as well as job discontent.
One of the important responsibilities of effective leadership is to provide feedback on the employees’ work, i.e., letting them know how their work is appraised (Sparr & Sonnentag, 2008). This leadership practice of giving feedback, as well as treating employees justly has been shown to impact employees’ work, their self-perceptions as well as their well-being. The authors have stated that feedback is broadly recognized to be principal not only to employee work and happiness, but also to their motivation.
The current study thus expects that employees will be less motivated to perform well when their supervisor shows narcissistic behaviors. Narcissistic leaders, as presented above, can show severe signs of arrogance, selfishness, need for dominance, weak listeners, dictating meetings and bad teaching. When employees feel taken advantage of they can get the feeling that they will not be acknowledged enough for all the work that they have done if the leader will take the credit. When the leader and the employee work closely together, it is common that they are in regular contact with each other to discuss business related issues, or even private issues. However, when the leader is not really listening to the employee this can frustrate the employee and feel like they are not worth their leader’s time, which may cause their motivation to drop. When acting like this, the leader violated the employee’s drive to foster relationships. Also, when the leader is dictating in meetings this can give employees the feeling that the leader will only find him or herself important and better, not listening to what others have to say, even though this might be really meaningful. These self-centered
behaviors that narcissistic leaders portray can give employees the feeling that no matter what they do or say, it is never good enough for my leader so why should I even bother trying? Arrogance, bitterness and a need for recognition by leaders can trigger annoyance and dislike from employees, which can make them less motivated because they simply do not like their boss and do not want to try hard for them and will never go the extra mile.
The link between supervisor support and satisfaction and intention to stay at a
company is also important. Narcissistic leaders can behave very selfishly and in this way give bad, or even no, support to their employees which causes the employees to be less satisfied within their organization and lower commitment and intension to stay. This in turn, can negatively affect their motivation. The link between feedback and fair treatment towards employees and their well being, happiness and motivation can also be decisive. Narcissistic leaders will probably be bad at giving feedback since they are proven to be weak listeners
lacking empathy and having difficulty to teach instead of to brainwash. Whether they will treat their employees fairly is also questionable since they are self-centered and usually not very concerned with acting fairly. This will again cause a drop in employee’s motivation to perform and work hard. This results in the following hypothesis:
H1a: Narcissistic leadership has a negative effect on employee motivation
The present study expects that employees will also be less motivated in their daily work when their supervisor shows Machiavellian behaviours. Machiavellian leaders, as noted above, can be described as dishonest, deceptive, emotionally bitter, manipulative, lacking empathy, prone to steal, lie, deceit and exploit. When there is a problem in an organization and the supervisor turns the blame on his employee or another colleague, as Machiavellian supervisors are prone to do, this doesn’t do any good to the employee’s motivation. When being lied to, and
possibly even stolen from, it seems obvious that the employee is not motivated to work hard and try to please their supervisor. Machiavellian leader tend to take advantage of the
shortcomings of others and exploit them, which will not put them in a good daylight and their employees, when this happens to them, will resent their leader for doing this to them. Stated above is also the fact that Machiavellians have little empathy and understanding, and are unaffected by emotional engagement with others. This could cause employees to feel that they are not liked or appreciated by their supervisor, which has a negative influence on their
motivation.
Machiavellianism is positively correlated to job connected pressures and role vagueness. This could indicate that Machiavellian leaders are unclear to their employees about what exactly is expected from them while putting a lot of pressure on them. The
has a good chance of little empathy and understanding. This causes employee motivation to drop since the employee cannot fulfil his or her drive to understand and comprehend the situation and what is being asked of him or her. This leads to the following hypothesis:
H1b: Machiavellian leadership has a negative effect on employee motivation
2.4 Employee stress
Managing employee stress has become an important component of organizational life due to the fact that these problems are a considerable cost for organizations, not only financially but also by way of losing possibly appreciated employees (Hendrix et al., 1995). Studying job stress is important because it can have severe consequences not only to employees as
individuals but also to the entire firm (Lu, 1999). Ivancevich & Matteson (1980) determined that around 1970 the predicted cost of job stress was around $75 to $90 billion nationally each year. Burnout is an individual response to stress that arises from the job (Thomas, 2005). The author continues to list the fact that burnout is related to unfavorable consequences such as employee absence, intentions to leave the firm and real turnover, lower productivity,
depression, health issues, less job satisfaction, diminishing results, and lower commitment to the organization. Thus, when having a burnout, people display less vitality, less ambition, pessimistic attitudes towards their work or themselves, and removal of social situations. Parker & Decotiis (1983) did research in the determinants of job stress and this term is used to define the feeling that someone goes through when he or she is forced to diverge from regular or self desired functioning at work through unfavorable circumstances, pressures, or demands associated with possible essential work related results. Additionally, this feeling is coupled with awkwardness and undesirability. The authors also indicate that job stress is
believed to be a first-degree consequence of the firm and the job and that it feels
uncomfortable for the employee. This is different from the second-degree consequences that may consist of fluctuating levels of work, engagement to the organization, motivation and fulfillment.
There are several reasons why employees could experience role stress. Thomas (2005) points out that role stress could come about when employees observe role vagueness, role conflict, or a mixture of the two, while fulfilling the role practices that they are expected to. Accordingly, role stress generally takes place when there is inconsistency in what the employee believes its role is and what they are really bringing about in their activities. The study of Noser et al. (2014) indicates that personality has proven to play an essential part in the negative consequences related to stress. Even though previous studies have evidently shown that certain people tend to feel stress sooner and react to stressful situations in a more negative way, why this is the case however is still rather ambiguous. A viable reason that has gotten extensive empirical thought is the emphasis of personality characteristics. The finding of this study was fairly unexpected. Individuals that displayed large degrees of narcissism did not seem any more or less prone to stress than individuals that displayed low degrees of narcissism. This seems unexpected because feelings of privilege and being impulsive, aspects that usually indicate narcissists, would make these individuals seem particularly exposed to reacting emotional when stressful situations arise.
The model that Parker & Decotiis (1983) employ states that the stressors of job stress are: relationships, organizational components, the job in itself, the position in the firm, career advancement, and engagements and duties on the outside of the firm. The results of the study were sometimes unexpected though. An example of this is that variables such as focus on results, justice, making decisions, and receiving feedback did not prove to be predicting elements of stress. One of the conclusions of the article is the fact that the outcomes signal
that many attempts are aimed at teaching employees to figure out and deal with job stress and that this may not be the way to go. Rather, it may be that leaders and supervisors are in a more appropriate place to determine where the stress is coming from and, when needed, balance or eliminate them.
What Lu (1999) states is that there is growing support for the fact that social support both within the work environment (help from supervisors and coworkers) and out of the work environment (help from family and friends) can buffer the significance of job stress. The finding of the paper is conforming to others in the field through confirming that the help from supervisors and family were more useful than the help from friends or coworkers. The study of Offermann & Hellmann (1996) concluded that employees and supervisors both considered feedback from the leader to have a negative impact on job related stress.
Noser et al. (2014) found in their study that neuroticism has a powerful association with negative affect as well as with stress. Contrary to this, conscientiousness, agreeableness and extraversion were found to be correlated with lower stress levels as well as stress causing fewer disruptions in people’s lives. The authors also incorporated the dark triad of
personality. What was found was that psychopathy moderated the connection between affective experiences and recognized stress, and narcissism, contradicting expectations, did not moderate this association.
Offermann & Hellmann (1996) say that the focus of attention on the stressed employee can lead to those in the right position to produce and alter employee stress to undervalue how important their own actions in lightening stress for the rest. When looking at organizations, the ones in the right positions are supervisors. Supervisors, as witnesses of their employees, can make crucial attribution mistakes in attributing stress reactions to the
employees themselves instead of to the organizational climate in which the employee works. Moreover, the workings of self-serving biases to encourage positive self-images may prohibit
supervisors from recognizing the repercussions of their actions in making, keeping or coming short in taking action against the stress that their employees are feeling. Particularly,
supervisors that have a controlling, non-participative style, who are unsuccessful to express organizational objectives and duties, and who make use of inappropriate tensions are
predicted to have work groups that feel more stress and pressure. The consequences are huge since it has been found that stressed out work groups perform lower and are less committed to their jobs. Harris & Kacmar (2006) mention that supervisors can propose ways to increase positive assurance and lessen anticipated threats in the work environment to their
subordinates. These authors also mention that in this field, it was proved that supportive connections in the workplace, particularly with one’s supervisor, have served this goal. However, supervisors and subordinates did not always agree on which elements where correlated with stress (Offermann & Hellmann, 1996). Supervisors notably underrated the connections of supervisor delegation and subordinate’s participation to lessen subordinate records of stress. Even though the outcomes of the study show persistent proof of the fact that how the supervisor behaves does correlate to the amount of stress perceived by their
subordinates, for some actions, the supervisor does not see a link between how they behave and the stress that their employees feel while the employees do see the link. Supervisor’s who display high controlling behaviors may not correlate these actions to larger employee stress because in their minds they ‘free’ the employees of the duty by indicating details and deadlines, and keeping an eye on them while pointing out to them what should be done. But the study ironically showed that such ‘freeing’ does not reduce stress but in fact may expand it. From the employee’s point of view, the opposite is true, assignment of responsibility and participation are correlated with less stress, while supervisor control was correlated with extra stress.
supervisor engages in narcissistic behaviors. When employees see that their supervisor engages in selfish, self-centered, bitter behaviors chances are high that employees will not trust their supervisors anymore and they may even feel as if they are taken advantage of in a negative manner. These issues can cause employees severe stress levels. As noted above, one of the main job stressors is relationships. Due to the negative behaviors that narcissistic leaders most probably will show, obtaining positive relationships with each other is not all too likely. When the relationship between the leader and the employee is struggling, this can cause the employee’s stress level to rise and the employee can be worried not only about if the relationship will ever get better, but also what this means for his or her position in the company. If the leader does not like the employee, he or she can damage the reputation and position of the employee since the leader has more power than the employee. Thinking about the fact that the relationship might never get better, meaning that the work atmosphere will stay negative for a really long time is also harmful and causes more stress for the employee. A buffer against job stress is help from supervisors as discussed above. However, narcissistic leaders are said to be selfish and arrogant, and have a hard time teaching rather than brainwashing. This makes it unlikely that they will try and help their employees, and without help from their leaders employees can feel as if they are in it alone, which causes their stress levels to rise. The same goes for giving feedback. How the supervisor behaves has a great influence on employees and the fact that leaders that are controlling, non-participative, unsuccessful to make clear what the organizational goals and responsibilities are, and cause inappropriate tensions have work groups that are more stressed out is also not a good sign for narcissistic leaders since all these aspects point to them. This leads to the following
hypothesis:
The present paper also expects that Machiavellian leadership causes employee stress levels to rise. The fact that Machiavellians are prone to steal, lie, deceit, and be dishonest are all signs that employees and these leaders have a hard time to establish a good relationship. When employees have witnessed their leader engaging in these behaviours, they at forehand have a negative image of them and will have a difficulty to trust in them. Machiavellians are also unaffected by emotional engagement with others, so to establish a relationship with them seems difficult. Seeing that it is hard to trust someone, this will cause stress levels to rise because the employee will keep wondering if what his or her leader says is true and what the motives of the leader are. Chances are that he is manipulating and turning stuff around in his own benefit.
Another cause of job stress is role vagueness. Since Machiavellianism is positively correlated to role vagueness, it thus seems logical to assume that when a leader is not clear to the employee about what is expected of him or her, that the employee experiences this as stressful. Machiavellians are good at manipulating and exploiting others, and this will always leave the employee wondering what the intention of the leader is. Whether the leader does something because it is good for the organization, or for him or herself. Finally,
Machiavellianism is also positively related to job connected pressures which means that stressful situations are likely because of the tensions that the leader passes on to the employee and the environment. This leads to the following hypothesis.
H2b: Machiavellian leadership has a positive effect on perceived employee stress
2.5 Leader-Member Exchange
The examination by Gerstner & Day (1997) demonstrates that studies in LMX have been quite worthwhile, as LMX has been a meaningful correlate of such variables as higher
employee achievements, happier employees, improved employee career prospects and less turnover intentions. LMX stands for Leader-Member Exchange, and the main idea of the theory is that effective leadership processes happen when leaders and followers can establish a sophisticated relationship with each other and hereby get hold of several benefits (Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1991).
Graen & Uhl-Bien (1995) point out that, essentially, LMX has three dimensions: trust, obligation, and respect. Schriesheim et al. (1999) point out the four stages that LMX theory has gone through. The first stage started with the fact that leaders grew into differentiated connections with their subordinates. Stage two concentrated on these various connections, but focused on the work unit instead of on the subordinate of the leader. The third stage changed the attention from the leader’s differentiated connections with their subordinates to the way they work with one another on a one-on-one basis where they establish a partnership with every one the employees. The fourth and final stage extends this breadth from a pair to bigger collectives, investigating how dyadic connections are arranged outside the limits of the organizational structure as well as within. There are many interpretations, dimensions, and ways to measure and not yet specified layers of LMX that some may consider being part of the ‘richness’ of the concept.
Engle & Lord (1997) and Liden et al. (1993) made clear that there is a distinction between in-group member and out-group members, and explained how the in-group member receive more time, consideration and resources from their leaders. They conclude with the fact that being part of the in-group is linked with better achievements, higher commitment to the organization and the leader and the subordinate like each other better. LMX relationships that have proven to be of a high quality have shown that leaders present and help their employees with useful resources that they can use in their jobs (Sparr & Sonnentag, 2008). Sparr & Sonnentag (2008) investigated LMX and found that when employees
recognized that the feedback that they got from their supervisor was fair, they experiences a high satisfaction in their job and felt more in control, while at the same time where further away from getting depressed and intending to leave. These connections were mediated by how good or bad the quality of the leader-member exchange was. LMX and job anxiety did not correlate with each other in their study.
Thomas (2005) studied hindering burnout and the impact that LMX and mentoring have on socialization, job stress, and burnout. The author explains how a high LMX supervisor shows that he cares about his subordinate in a social way through giving time, communication and consideration that shows both interpersonal involvement and career directed counselling. Thus, subordinates that get this kind of attention should encounter more organizational socialization, less role stress and consequently less chance of burning out. Besides the aforementioned positive outcomes of a high quality LMX, subordinates also get more organizational and occupational information, more guidance towards their jobs, higher objective work appraisals, and show more know-how.
LMX is also supposed to be correlated with role stress (Thomas, 2005). Supervisors are in the best spot to inform their subordinates in the right role management by accurately specifying what is expected of their subordinates and what roles they need to fulfil. Therefore, those subordinates that state being having a high LMX are likely to enjoy better role
awareness and usually have role awareness and beliefs that are very much alike to those that their supervisors have. Accordingly, LMX should exhibit a positive impact on socialization, and a negative impact on role stress. Past research in the area of LMX has recorded a lot of positive results for subordinates that have a good quality relationship with their supervisor such as more happiness in the job, better work assessment, and also a decreased stress level (Harris & Kacmar, 2006).
way is very significant to the relationship that the subordinate has with his or her supervisor. Despite the fact that the emphasis of giving feedback can be salient to the supervisor, often, they feel that giving feedback is undesirable and gives them an unpleasant feeling,
particularly when the feedback is not positive. So, it is of great relevance for supervisors to search for means to make the process of giving feedback more interpersonally fair so that their subordinates are more likely to take the feedback and to make their relationship better. When an employee has the feeling that he or she has been handled in a fair way by their supervisor, then he or she will recognize the assessment as an advantage. In line with social exchange theory, this advantage that the employee gets will be repaid to the supervisor. Thus, it is feasible that the employee will work with and reinstate into the bond that they have with one another.
Isaac et al. (2001) studied leadership and motivation and talked about how leaders have little or no direct control over whether their employees feel motivated intrinsically but that they can increase the chance that they will feel motivated by five aspects. The first is by spending time with the employee and boosting, instead of sabotaging, their feelings of self-assurance. The second is through expanding employees’ knowledge and competencies through experiences, coaching and education. The third is to create rational, useful and reachable goals. The fourth is to establish an environment where respect comes form both parties. And lastly, showing gratitude when the employee meets or tops what was expected of them.
Harris & Kacmar (2006) investigated whether there is a curvilinear relationship between LMX and stress. These authors too mention that when there is a high quality LMX relationship between supervisor and subordinate, there are certain positive aspects for the employee including assistance, benefits, and better communication. However, in exchange for these positive aspects, it is anticipated that the subordinates operate and complete
responsibilities that go deeper than their job definition. It seems reasonable that a high quality relationship between supervisor and subordinate would leave the subordinate with less stress due to the fact that a lot of the role stressors, like unpredictability and vagueness, are basically removed by their supervisor through regular information and assistance. It is thus no surprise that the literature available supports this positive result. The authors aforementioned expect a curvilinear relationship between LMX and stress considering that as the quality of the
relationship rises, the subordinates will probably have larger expectation, responsibilities, and roles to meet that go further than their job definition. The authors concluded with the fact that there is indeed a curvilinear relationship between LMX and stress and that in some cases, the higher the quality of the relationship, it becomes too much of a good thing.
The current study expects that leader-member exchange moderates the impact that narcissistic leadership has on employee motivation. This means that when the relationship between leader and employee is of a low quality, and the employee experiences this as negative, the initial direct effect of narcissistic leadership on motivation will be stronger so that motivation will drop even more. On the other hand, when the relationship that the employee and the leader have is experienced as positive, the effect of narcissistic leadership on motivation will be reduced meaning that motivation will rise (as opposed to the initial effect). A good relationship can cause the employee to see through the bad facets of his or her leader and take many things less personally through recognizing that it is not an attack
towards the employee but that this is just the way the leader is.
H3a: Leader-member exchange moderates the relationship between narcissistic leadership and employee motivation such that the relationship is stronger when the employee
The current study expects that leader-member exchange moderates the impact that
Machiavellian leadership has on employee motivation. This means that when there is a low quality leader-member exchange, and the employee experiences this as negative, the direct effect that Machiavellian leadership has on employee motivation will be stronger so that motivation will drop even more. However, when leader-member exchange is of high quality, and is experienced as positive, the impact will be reduced. When the bond that employee and leader have is positive, the employee might be able to take the behaviour of the leader for granted, even if it is just for a small amount. When there is a mutual liking, bad behaviour from the leader can be turned a blind eye by the employee. This leads to the following hypothesis:
H3b: Leader-member exchange moderates the relationship between Machiavellian leadership and employee motivation such that the relationship is stronger when the employee
experiences leader-member exchange as negative
The present study expects that leader-member exchange will also be a moderator for the relationship between narcissistic and Machiavellian leadership on employee stress. When the quality of the leader-member exchange is positive, the primary effect on stress will be
stronger so that the stress level of the employee will be less high. The same reasons as above are also expected here, so, a good relationship will cause the employee to not judge their leader as much as they would otherwise because they have developed a mutual bond and understanding with each other. The same goes vice versa. This leads to the following hypotheses:
H4a: Leader-member exchange moderates the relationship between narcissistic leadership and perceived employee stress such that the relationship is stronger when the employee experiences leader-member exchange as negative
H4b: Leader-member exchange moderates the relationship between Machiavellian leadership and perceived employee stress such that the relationship is stronger when the employee experiences leader-member exchange as negative
Concerning mediation, the relationship that narcissistic leaders have with their employees is presumably lower as a result of the fact that they have a narcissistic personality, which in turn negatively affects motivation. The three important facets of leader-member exchange are trust, obligation and respect. When a leader is narcissistic, it is unlikely that employees will trust or respect them because they are weak listeners, show little empathy, admiration is more important to them than being loved, they are bitter and arrogant, and have a strong need for dominance, recognition and appreciation. These aspects are usually caught on as negative aspects; so it is hard to bond with those kinds of people because all they really care about is themselves. An aspect that could increase motivation is when the leader spends time with the employee and makes their self-confidence bigger rather than smaller. Narcissist love being admired themselves and chances are low that they will enhance their employees confidence seeing as they act self-centred on a regular basis.
A high quality relationship between leader and employee arises when the leader gives time and consideration to the employee and communicates relatively often. Narcissistic leaders, having their own interests in mind, will presumably not take time out of their own agenda’s to spend this time with the employee. When communication is rather often, role vagueness disappears and role awareness rises, which means that the employee will have a
clearer view of what is expected of him or her. However, narcissistic leaders are not very good at communicating and showing empathy, which means that this will most likely not be the case. A shortage of direct communication between supervisors and employees has steadily shown a negative relationship with motivation (Webb, 2007). Lee (2005) found that leader-member exchange partially mediates the relationship between leadership and commitment to the organization. When an employee is more committed, chances are high that they are also more motivated because they feel a certain dedication to the organization and vice versa. This leads to the following hypothesis:
H5a: Leader-member exchange mediates the relationship between narcissistic leadership and employee motivation, so that narcissistic leadership leads to a lower quality leader-member exchange, which in turn has a negative relationship with employee motivation.
The current study expects that leader-member exchange mediates the relationship between Machiavellian leadership and employee motivation in such a way that due to their
Machiavellian personality, leaders presumably will have a lower quality relationship with employees, which in turn negatively affects employee motivation. Seeing the fact that Machiavellians are susceptible to lying, cheating, and deceiving, trust and respect are most likely not earned from the employee. Having a bad reputation within a company can cause a severely bad image and recovering from this can take leaders a really long time.
Machiavellians are also known for being dishonest and prone to turning the blame on someone else. Thus, when a leader is dishonest or faulty turns the blame to one their
employees, this will not go unnoticed in the company and employees will probably not want to be associated with this kind of behaviour. Also, chances are small that employees would
want a relationship with their leader if they have little empathy and understanding because chances are high that they will be treated coldly. Machiavellians are prone to manipulating others, so creating a climate in which respect is mutual will most probably not happen. Neither will a Machiavellian leader easily show appreciation when their employee does something well.
As said above, Machiavellianism is correlated positively with job related pressures and with role vagueness. Having a boss that is unclear about what expectations are, and is also putting the pressure on, will be seen as negative and this will do no good to employee’s motivation. Two of the drivers of motivation are the drive to foster relationships and the drive to understand. Having a Machiavellian leader will make these things very difficult by being vague, unclear and emotionally bitter resulting in a negative relationship between employee and leader. Machiavellians are said to take advantage of the shortcoming of others and be unaffected by emotional engagement with others. When employees are taken advantage of or they feel that their leader is being oblivious to their attempts at a good relationship, this will only lead to them being more distant from each other. The current study thus expects that because of their personality, Machiavellian leaders and employees will not engage in good quality relationship with each other, which causes employee motivation to drop even more. Lee (2005) found that leader-member exchange partially mediates the relationship between leadership and commitment to the organization. When an employee is more committed, chances are high that they are also more motivated because they feel a certain dedication to the organization and vice versa. This leads to the following hypothesis:
H5b: Leader-member exchange mediates the relationship between Machiavellian leadership and employee motivation so that Machiavellian leadership leads to a lower quality leader-member exchange, which in turn has a negative relationship with employee motivation.
The current study expects that narcissistic and Machiavellian leadership will also mediate the relationship between narcissistic and Machiavellian leadership with employee stress in such a way that due to their personalities, narcissistic and Machiavellian leaders will have a low quality relationship with their employee causing employee stress levels to rise and vice versa. One of the main job stressors is relationships. Machiavellians and narcissists have proven to be relatively bad at making and maintaining relationships, and not caring about them. This indicates that they are not likely to help their employees or give them the feedback that employees wish or require. Help and feedback from supervisors are also correlated to employee’s stress levels. What was also proven is that work groups experience more stress when their leaders are controlling, non-participative, and unsuccessful to express
organizational objectives and duties. These aspects all point out to narcissistic and
Machiavellian leaders. Anticipated lack of control and panic and tension related to the need to please and make the leader happy are expected to cause employee stress. This leads to the following hypotheses:
H6a: Leader-member exchange mediates the relationship between narcissistic leadership and perceived employee stress so that narcissistic leadership leads to a lower quality leader-member exchange, which in turn has a positive relationship with employee stress.
H6b: Leader-member exchange mediates the relationship between Machiavellian leadership and perceived employee stress so that Machiavellian leadership leads to a lower quality leader-member exchange, which in turn has a positive relationship with employee stress.
2.6 Research model
figures (Figure 1, 2, 3, & 4) graphically represents the conceptual model that will be tested.
Figure 1 Research model
Figure 3 Research model
3. Method
This section reports the details on how the study was conducted and is the beginning of the empirical section of this research. A description of the sample will be outlined first, after which the measurement of the variables will be made clear. Subsequently the statistical procedure will be described and the reliabilities will be reviewed. The full questionnaires (in Dutch) for both the leader and the employee can be found in the appendix.
3.1 Description of the sample
The sample used consists of employees in the Netherlands working fulltime or part-time within their current firm. The respondents were selected through a mix of heterogeneous and convenience sampling. Heterogeneous sampling is appropriate since this takes into account a broad range of outlooks and helps to establish shared themes that are common throughout the entire sample. Convenience sampling on the other hand is appropriate since it is fast, readily available and cost effective. Together with 2 researchers from the Amsterdam Business School and 4 other students the data was collected as a cross-sectional study. A total of 578 questionnaires were sent, 289 to supervisors, and 289 to the corresponding employees. After deleting dyads that did not fill in the questionnaire completely 376 full responses were left. However, 18 of these were only employee responses and 8 of these only leader responses which makes the couples incomplete, These dyads were also removed. After having removed all the incomplete questionnaires, a total emerged of 162 couples (324 full responses). A completion rate of 81% was reached for employees, and 74,4% for leaders.
From the 162 leaders, 100 were men and 62 were female, and from the 162
employees, 78 were men and 84 were female. The leader participants ranged from 20 to 62 years old, and the employee participants ranged from 18 to 64 years old. A majority of 55,5%
of the employees finished an educational programme at the university of applied sciences (MBO = 18%, HBO = 37,3%). And a majority of 49,6% of the leaders finished an educational programme at the university of applied sciences (MBO = 11,9%, HBO = 37,7%). A degree from the research university was achieved by 36% of the employees and 43,4% of leaders. Of the employees 5,6% did not continue to study after high school, and of the leaders this is 5%. From the leader dyads it became clear that 34% of the leaders have been working at their current company for 0-5 years, 16% for 6-10 years, and 50% for more than 10 years. Looking at the employees, 65,2% has been working at the current company for 0-5 years, 14,3% for 6-10 years and 20,5% for more than 6-10 years. 62,8% of the leaders has been the leader of the corresponding employee for 0-5 years, 18,6% for 6-10 years, and 18,6% for more than 10 years. The leaders reported that 68,6% has daily contact with the corresponding employee, 28,9% has weekly contact, and 2,5% has monthly contact. A total of 40,1% of the employee is working on a part-time basis and the remaining 59,9% is working on a full-time basis.
The current study uses the survey design making use of two separate questionnaires, one for the supervisor and one for the employee working for them. The
companies/respondents were approached through email, by phone, or in person. The questionnaire for the leader was a bit shorter than for the employees, which meant that the leaders needed around 20 minutes to fill it in while the employees needed around 30/35 minutes each. The respondents were given a specific code so that they could be linked to each other and this is done in a completely confidential way, as they are able to read in the opening section of the questionnaire. Furthermore, it is stated that there are no true or false answers and that the first answer that comes to mind is usually the best answer. Respondents include friends and family members, but also employees from companies that were willing to participate. The respondents come from a variety of sectors including hospitality,
available on the computer or as a paper version, whichever the respondent felt more
comfortable to use. The age, education level and gender of the respondents vary a great deal, but typically the supervisors were a little older than the employees.
3.2 Description of the measurements Leader Survey
Machiavellianism
This was measured by the Mach-IV scale from Christie & Geis (1970). McHoskey et al. (1998) mentions that this scale has acquired acceptable psychometric characteristics and that it is the most broadly used measure of Machiavellianism. This measure was originally a 20 item scale but current study uses the short version that consists of the 8 questions with the highest factor loadings. Examples are: ‘The best way to handle people is to tell them what they want to hear’ and ‘Anyone who completely trusts anyone else is asking for trouble’. All items were indicative for Machiavellianism. The measurement made use of a 7 point Likert-scale ranging from 1 to 7, strongly disagree to strongly agree respectively.
Narcissism:
This was measured by the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) from Raskin & Terry (1988) and contains 20 items. Examples are: ‘ I know that I am good because everybody keeps telling me so’ and ‘I am a born leader’. All items were indicative for a narcissistic personality. The measurement made use of a 7 point Likert-scale ranging from 1 to 7, strongly disagree to strongly agree respectively.
Employee Survey
Motivation
This was measured by Hackman & Lawler (1971) and consists of 6 items. Examples are: ‘I feel bad when I do my job poorly’ and ‘I am personally responsible for what I do’. All items
were indicative of motivation. The measurement made use of a 7 point Likert-scale ranging from 1 to 7, strongly disagree to strongly agree respectively.
Stress
This was measured by Motowidlo et al. (1986) and includes 4 items. An examples is: ‘My work is very stressful’. The variable ‘stress’ concerned 2 items that were counter-indicative and so these have been recoded so that compliance with the item serves as a high instead of a low level of the construct. An example of this is the following question: ‘I rarely feel stresses as a consequence of my work’. All items were indicative for stress. The measurement made use of a 7 point Likert-scale ranging from 1 to 7, strongly disagree to strongly agree
respectively.
Leader-Member Exchange (LMX)
This was measured by Liden & Maslyn (1998) and has 11 items. Examples are: ‘My supervisor is the kind of person one would like to have as a friend’ and ‘I do work for my supervisor that goes beyond what is specified in my job description’. All items were
indicative for leader-member exchange. The measurement made use of a 7 point Likert-scale ranging from 1 to 7, strongly disagree to strongly agree respectively.
3.3 Description of the statistical procedure
Collection of the data started on March 16th 2015 and five weeks later on April 20th the
questionnaire went offline. The data collection made use of Qualtrics, an online questionnaire, and copied the data to the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) afterwards. All of the items used in the questionnaire were derived from English studies and because all the respondents spoke Dutch the items had been translated. Questionnaires are appropriate because a big amount of information can be gathered from many respondents in a relatively short time frame. In addition to this, questionnaires are cost effective and the outcomes can
easily be quantified which makes the data analysis easier, quicker, and more reliable. On top of this, quantified data can be used to contrast and to compare to other research. Another strength of this research is the fact that data is collected from a decent amount of people, which will make the research more reliable and generalizable. However, questionnaires might not capture emotion or feelings well and it is possible that respondents will give socially responsible answers instead of truthful ones. Validity might also be low. Another limitation is that the respondents are not completely random since it is mostly friends, family and
acquaintances of the researchers.
After recoding two ‘stress’ items, scale reliabilities and descriptive statistics were calculated. Reliability of the measurements was computed using Cronbach’s Alpha, which is a coefficient of dependability. To test the mediation and moderation that is hypothesized regression analyses were used. Hierarchical regression was used to investigate the direct links between the variables. The dependent variables in this case are stress and motivation.
Table 1: Means, Standard Deviations, Correlations
Variables M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1. Gender 1,39 0,49 2. Age 38,16 9,48 -0,01 3. Motivation 5,86 0,56 -0,11 0,19* (.68) 4. Stress 3,97 1,19 0,04 0,11 0,19* (.79) 5. LMX 5,53 0,82 -0,09 0,04 0,34** -0,01 (.89) 6. Mach. 2,67 0,98 -0,13 -0,30** -0,19* -0,14 -0,1 (.81) 7. Narcissism 0,02 0,79 -0,17* -0,13 -0,09 0,07 -0,1 0,19* (.89)
** correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed) * correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed)
4. Results
4.1 Correlation analysis
Cronbach’s alphas can be found in table 1 between brackets. Stress, LMX, Machiavellianism and Narcissism all have an Alpha > 0,70. Motivation initially had an Alpha of 0,567 but after removing item number 3, the Alpha raised to 0,678, which is acceptable.
Table 1 also displays scale means and standard deviations of each item. In addition to this, correlations are also clear from table 1. At first glance can be seen that LMX and
motivation correlated with each other most significantly (r = .34, P < .01). Stress and Machiavellianism also significantly correlated with motivation both with the same amount, just in opposite directions, while Machiavellianism significantly correlated just as much with narcissism too. The table also shows that LMX and Machiavellianism are negatively related to stress, of which Machiavellianism has a stronger effect, and Narcissism is positively related to stress but rather low (0.07). Another thing that can be read from the table is that
Machiavellianism and narcissism have a negative relationship with motivation, of which the effect of Machiavellianism was stronger, while LMX and stress have a positive relationship with motivation, of which LMX has the strongest effect.
4.2 Direct effects
Hypothesis 1a predicted that narcissistic leadership has a negative effect on employee motivation. The analysis shows that the effect is indeed negative (r = -0,07), however, the results were not significant. This means that hypothesis 1a is rejected. Hypothesis 1b predicted that Machiavellian leadership has a negative effect on employee motivation. The analysis shows that the effect is negative (r = -0,19) and that the results were significant. The results thus support hypothesis 1b. Hypothesis 2a proposed that narcissistic leadership has a
