Toxic Leadership and Collective Organizational Engagement: Does Employee Voice Mediate the Effect?
Keywords:
Toxic Leadership, Collective Organizational Engagement, Dark Leadership, Voice BehaviorAbstract
Drawing upon the theory of planned behavior, we examine the role of employee voice in abating the impact of toxic leadership on collective organizational engagement. The literature proposes that the phenomenon of toxic leadership exists at every workplace and has negative effects on the organization. Previous studies have examined toxic leadership only as the predictor of negative outcomes only. The current study argues that even though toxic leadership decreases the collective organizational engagement, however, this relationship can be transformed via employee proactive voice behavior. Snowball sampling technique were used to collect data from the Pakistan service sector. A self-reported questionnaire was used to collect data from the said sector, the sample size was 223 employees working in telecommunication, banks, and insurance companies. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) shows that a leader’s toxicity disengages employees at the workplace but apparently they look engaged. Therefore, this study recommends that employee voice behavior should be promoted at the organization to unfold toxic leadership. Therefore firm performance can be enhanced by employing collective organizational engagement. Present study where advances the literature on toxic leadership it also beneficial for the managers as well. As toxic leadership overshadows the effects of positive leadership thus to avoid the negative effects of toxic leadership; top management should promote collective engagement through employee voice behavior to accomplish firm performance. Presently this study attempts to enrich the literature by empirically testing the proposed relationship and also provided future insights on toxic leadership to the researchers.
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