Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it”: the combined effects of leader fear of losing power and competitive climate on leader self-serving behavior

Wisse, B.; Rus, D.; Keller, A.C.; Sleebos, Ed

doi:10.1080/1359432x.2019.1635584

Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it”: the combined effects of leader fear of losing power and competitive climate on leader self-serving behavior

Wisse, B.; Rus, D.; Keller, A.C.; Sleebos, Ed

Authors

B. Wisse

D. Rus

A.C. Keller

Ed Sleebos

Abstract

Power is generally valued as it offers access to numerous tangible and intangible benefits. Fear of losing it might therefore initiate behavioral responses aimed at capitalizing on those benefits while it is still possible. Therefore, we propose that leaders’ fear of losing power may sway them to engage in self-serving behavior. Moreover, we argue that this effect is particularly strong in environments characterized by competition and rivalry, given that such environments foster opportunistic self-interested behavior. The results of two field studies among organizational leaders and their subordinates (one multi-source dyadic study and one multi-source team study) and a scenario experiment show that fear of power loss is positively related to leader self-serving behavior. As predicted, our results show that this relationship is stronger in more competitive organizational climates. We conclude that the potential effects of (anticipated) power loss deserve more research attention than previously awarded.

Citation

Wisse, B., Rus, D., Keller, A., & Sleebos, E. (2019). Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it”: the combined effects of leader fear of losing power and competitive climate on leader self-serving behavior. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 28(6), 742-755. https://doi.org/10.1080/1359432x.2019.1635584

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Jun 11, 2019
Online Publication Date	Jun 25, 2019
Publication Date	2019
Deposit Date	Jul 15, 2019
Publicly Available Date	Oct 10, 2019
Journal	European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology
Print ISSN	1359-432X
Electronic ISSN	1464-0643
Publisher	Taylor and Francis Group
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	28
Issue	6
Pages	742-755
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1080/1359432x.2019.1635584
Public URL	https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1327054

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Advance online version © 2019 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/),
which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.