The bidirectional relationship between destructive leadership and organizational commitment

Abstract

Introduction: This study aimed to determine how destructive leadership and organizational commitment relate to each other across time. Methods: Over 18 months, a self-rated questionnaire was distributed at four timepoints to employees of local government organizations in a municipality in Sweden; 582 employees responded to the questionnaire on at least one occasion. The Destructive Leadership Scale was used to measure destructive leadership, and the Commitment to the Workplace scale was used to measure organizational commitment. A second-order parallel-process latent growth curve model was used to test if initial levels of destructive leadership predict later change in organizational commitment, if initial levels of organizational commitment predict later change in destructive leadership, and if changes in destructive leadership are associated with simultaneous changes in organizational commitment. Results: The results show that the initial levels of destructive leadership negatively predicted change in organizational commitment (β = −0.66, p < 0.001), the initial levels of organizational commitment negatively predicted change in destructive leadership (β = −0.84, p < 0.002), and the rate of change in destructive leadership was strongly and negatively associated with the rate of change in organizational commitment (r = −0.96, p < 0.001). Discussion: The findings indicate that destructive leadership affects the work environment in a negative way by undermining employee’s organizational commitment. At the same time, managers are negatively affected by uncommitted employees, exacerbating destructive leadership behaviors.