Sport Management Studies

Effect of Toxic Leadership Style on Organizational Cynicism and Job Alienation of Staff in the Sports and Youth Ministry of Iran with a Mediating Role of Machiavellianism

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

Kamran Eidi Pour 1
Bahram Yosefy 2
Shirin Zardoshtian 3
Hossein Eydi 3

1 Ph.D. Student of Sport Management, Razi University

2 Associate Professor of Sport Management, Razi University

3 Assistant Professor of Sport Management, Razi University

https://doi.org/10.22089/smrj.2018.5378.2060
Abstract
The purpose of this research was to investigate the effect of toxic leadership style on organizational cynicism and job alienation among the staff in the Sports and Youth Ministry of Iran with a mediating role of Machiavellianism. The methodology was descriptive and applied research. The population of the study consisted of all members of the official staff in the Sports and Youth Ministry (335 people). The sample was 180 individuals who were randomly selected using Morgan's table. The instruments used for the research were four standard questionnaires: Schmidt toxic leadership (2008), Ruth Klaus Machiavellian questionnaire (2009), Kalagan organizational cynicism questionnaire (2009) and Bani and Rissel job alienation questionnaire (2007). The content validity of the questionnaires was confirmed by six faculty members from Razi University. The reliability of the questionnaires was 89.8, 0.87, 0.88 and 0.84, respectively. The Pearson correlation coefficient and path analysis model were used to analyze the data in SPSS and Amos software. The results showed that toxic leadership has a positive effect on organizational cynicism and job alienation, with 0.53 and 0.50 impact factors, respectively. It can be argued that Machiavellianism played a mediating role with a 0.32 and 0.34 impact factor for toxic leadership on organizational cynicism and job alienation, respectively. The results suggest that managers should minimize poisonous behavior as much as possible in their leadership style, because the existence and continuation of such negative behavior ultimately distracts the attention from the organization and its human resources and provides conditions for pessimism and alienation of employees of the organization.

Keywords

Leadership Toxic
Machiavellianism
Organizational Cynicism
Job Alienation
Sports and Youth Ministry
Subjects
  1. Arabacı, I. (2010). The effects of depersonalization and organizational cynicism levels on the job satisfaction of educational inspectors. African Journal of Business Management, 4(13), 2803-7.
  2. Bell, M. A. (2017). The dysfunction junction: The impact of toxic leadership on follower effectiveness (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Regent University, Virginia Beach, Virginia, United States.
  3. Banai, M., & Reisel, W. D. (2007). The influence of supportive leadership and job characteristics on work alienation: A six-country investigation. Journal of World Business, 42, 463-476.
  4. Belschak, F. D., Den Hartog, D. N., & Kalshoven, K. (2015). Leading Machiavellians: How to translate Machiavellians’ selfishness into pro-organizational behavior. Journal of Management, (41), 1934-56.
  5. Barnes, L. L. (2010). The effect of organizational cynicism on community colleges: Exploring concepts from positive psychology (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Illinois. Urbana.
  6. Blumen, J. (2005). The allure of toxic leaders: Why we follow destructive bosses and corrupt politicians and how we can survive them. New York: Oxford University.  
  7. Chiaburu, D. S., Peng, A. C., Oh, I-S., Bank, G. C., & Lomeli, L. C. (2013). Antecedents and consequences of employee organizational cynicism: A meta-analysis. Journal of Vocational Behavior, (83), 181-97.
  8. Campbell, W. K., Hoffman, B. J., Campbell, S. M., & Marchisio, G. (2011). Narcissism in organizational contexts. Human Resource Management Review, 21(4), 268–84.
  9. Chen, S. Y. (2010). Relations of Machiavellianism with emotional blackmail orientation of salespeople. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, (5), 294-8.
  10. Cole, M. S., Bruch, H., & Vogel, B. (2006). Emotion as mediators of the relations between perceived supervisor support and psychological hardiness on employee cynicism. Journal of Organizational Behavior, (27), 463-84.
  11. Dobbs, J. (2014). The relationship between percieved toxic leadership styles, leader effectiveness, and orgnaizational cynicism (Unpublishd master's thesis). University of San Diego, City of San Diego.
  12. Eidipur, K., Zardestani., S., Abbasi, H., & Farzi. H. (2013). The relationship between servant leadership style and individual creativity of employees of sports and youth departments of Lorestan province. Contemporary Research in Sports Management, 3(6), 29-37 (Persian(.
  13. Einarsen, S., Skogstad, A., & Asland, M. S. (2010). The nature prevalence, and outcomes of destructiv Leadership: A behavioral and conglomerate approach. In B. Schyns and T. Hansbrough (Eds.), When leadership gocs wrong: Destructive leadership, mistakes, and ethical failure. National library of Australia. City of melborn. (145-71).
  14. Hitchcock, M. J. (2015). The relationship between toxic leadership, organizational citizenship, and turnover behaviors among San Diego nonprofit paid staff (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of San Diego, City of San Diego.
  15. Heppell, T. (2011). Toxic leadership: Appling the Lipman-Blumen model to political leadership. Representation, (3), 241-9.
  16. Ince, M., & Turan, S. (2011). Organizational cynicism as a factor that affects the organizational change in the process of globalization and an application in Karaman’s public institutions. Journal of Economics, Finance and Administrative Sciences, (37), 104-21.
  17. James, M. S. L. (2005). Antecedents and consequences of cynicism in organizations: An examination of the potential positive and negative effects on school systems (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). The Florida State University, College of Business, City of Florida.
  18. Kalagan, G., & Aksu, B. (2010). Organizational cynicism of the research assistants: A case of Akdeniz University. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences, (2), 4820-5.
  19. Kessler, S. R., Bandelli, A. C., Spector, P. E., & Borman, W. C. (2010). Re-examining Machiavelli: A three-dimensional model of Machiavellianism in the workplace. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, (40), 1868-96.
  20. Littrell, R. F. (2007). Influences on employee preferences for empowerment practices by the ideal manager in China. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, (31), 87-110.
  21. Mary, K., Vitale, C., & Weaver, S. (2008). All in the hall or sage on the stage: Learning in leadership development programme. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 29(6), 504-21.
  22. Nygren, K. G., & Gidlund, K. L. (2012). The pastoral power of technology: Rethinking alienation in digital culture. Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society, (10), 509-17.
  23. O'Reilly, C. A., Doerr, B., Caldwell, D. F., & Chatman, J. A. (2014). Narcissistic CEOs and executive compensation. The Leadership Quarterly, 25(2), 218-31.
  24. Özler, E., Derya, A., & Giderler, C. (2011). A research to determine the relationship between organizational cynicicm and burnout levels of employees in health sector. Business and Management Review, 1(4), 26-38.
  25. Panagiotis, G., Eugenia, P., & Theodora, K. (2015). The detrimental effect of Machiavellian leadership on employees’ emotional exhaustion: Organizational cynicism as a mediator. Europe's Journal of Psychology, 11(4),974- 988.
  26. Pelletier, K. L. (2010). Leader toxicity: An empirical investigation of toxic behavior and rhetoric. Leadership, 6(4), 373-89.
  27. Pincus, A. L., Ansell, E. B., Pimentel, C. A., Cain, N. M., Wright, A. G. C., & Levy, K. N. (2009). Initial construction and validation of the pathological narcissism inventory. Psychological Assessment, 21(3), 365-79.
  28. Padilla, A., Hogan, R., & Kaiser, R. (2007). The toxic triangle: Destructive leaders, susceptible followers and conducive environments. The Leadership Quarterly, (3), 176-94.
  29. Roter, A. B. (2011). The lived experiences of registered nurses exposed to toxic leadership behaviors (Unpublished master's thesis). Capella University, City of Capella.
  30. Ruth; Alas (2009). "Manufacturing strategies and choices in cultural contexts Machiavellian ". Journal of Business Economics and Management. 10 (4): 279–289.
  31. Sendjaya, S., Pekerti, A., Härtel, C., Hirst, G., & Butarbutar, I. (2016). Are authentic leaders always moral? The role of Machiavellianism in the relationship between authentic leadership and morality. Journal of Business Ethics, 133(1), 125-39.
  32. Sulu, S., Ceylan, A., & Kayank, R. (2010). Work alienation as a mediator of the relationship between organizational injustice and organizational commitment: Implications for healthcare professionals. International Journal of Business and Management, (5), 27-38.
  33. Schmidt, A. A. (2008). Development and validation of the toxic leadership scale (Unpublished masterˊs thesis). University of Maryland, College Park, City of Maryland.
  34. Seyed Javadein, S., Gholipour, A., & Janlyzade, M. (2014). Identification of the impact of using the Toxic leadership style of the poisonous poison on the outcomes and outcomes of human resources. Quarterly Journal of Human Resource Management Research, (4), 109-27. )Persian(.
  35. Shiry, A., Khalid Sharafi, S., Dehkani, M., & Yasini, A. (2015). Investigating the relationship between adolescents 'narcissism and hypocritical behaviors and the mediating role of managers' macroeconomic behavior in government organizations in Kermanshah. Quarterly Management of Governmental Organizations, (11), 1-18 )Persian(.
  36. Walton (2008). Toxic Leadership: The key concepts. Abingdon: Routledge.
Sport Management Studies
Volume 12, Issue 59
March and April 2020
Pages 135-152

  • Receive Date 20 January 2018
  • Revise Date 05 June 2018
  • Accept Date 30 June 2018

Home

Publication Ethics

Submit Manuscript

News

Journal Metrics

Contact Us