Perceived Dark Personality of Leaders and Its Impact on the Psychological Capital of the Employees

Abstract

Recent years have seen a growing interest in research exploring positive organisational outcomes alongside dark personality traits in the workplace and their mutual impact. This research studies the impact of the dark personality of a leader on positive psychological capital through the leader-member exchange quality using mediation analysis. A total of 172 questionnaires are collected from employees of various organisations. They rated their leader’s dark personality (Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and Psychopathy), own psychological capital, and the quality of exchanges between them and their leaders. As hypothesised the Leader-Member Exchange mediated the relationship between the supervisor’s dark triad personality traits and employees’ positive psychological capital. This study helps in understanding the effect of leadership on the psychological states of employees and the path via which these effects are propagated. These findings were further discussed in the light of implications to the organisations, directions for future research and limitations.