Autocratic leadership

How it affects employees in the workplace

Autocratic leadership style
Autocratic leadership style

• is often seen as negative for team morale and performance

• Bass & Bass (2008) autocratic leadership style is described commonly as the

centralization of power in a single dominant leader

• Anderson and brown (2010) describe power centralization may activate team

members' feelings of being undervalued and wronged

Autocratic leadership style

• However……

• Hoogh notes that an accepted autocratic leader fosters team psychological safety

• places where team members challenge autocratic leadership experience a lack of

psychological safety
Autocratic leadership style

• The idea is further supported by the research conducted by Hoogh in a study of 60 retail outlets

(225 employees and their managers) in the financial services industry which concluded that

acceptance of a leader was positively related to team psychological safety even when the leader

followed an autocratic style of management. The study also concluded that autocratic leadership

was often not well met in retail outlets where team power struggles were high. This lead to a

negative team performance.

Autocratic leadership style

• Magee & Galinsky suggest that functional models of social hierarchy suggest a clear acceptance of

authority

• fulfills the human need for hierarchal differentiation in social interaction

• Teidens and Fragale further take this hypothesis and argue that it provides psychologically

reassuring environment
Autocratic leadership style

• Halevy also reinforces this theory in his research where he argues that such a reassuring

environment stemming out of autocratic leadership provides with clarity of roles and facilitation

in coordination and cooperation

• autocratic leadership may under certain conditions have the potential to benefit rather than to

hinder team climate and performance through creating a psychologically appealing hierarchical

order within the team

Autocratic leadership style

• Hoogh also notes the link between the personality traits of team members in responding to

autocratic leadership

• individuals with neurotic traits respond adversely to not just autocratic but also charismatic

leadership and can cause a team burn out

• Clark, & Harkness describe neurotic individuals as those who tend to experience negative

emotions and moods

Autocratic leadership style

• . His research shows that neuroticism is positively related to negative emotional reactions such as strain and

burnout irrespective of which leadership style was followed

• Neuroticism and low internal work locus of control moderated the relationship between leader behavior and

burnout

• While situations where charisma was found in leaders was associated with lower burnout, it can be

concluded that negative team performance was not attributed to the leadership style but rather the

individual traits of employees