Leadership Research Summary:
- Leadership ostracism widely exists in all types of organizations, yet specific study regarding this trend is limited. With this study, we explore the influencing mechanisms of leadership ostracism through case interview based on literature analysis and grounded theory. Results show that leadership ostracism is the integration of a triadic interaction process between subordinate performance, leadership characteristics, and organizational environment. Based on Padilla’s destructive leadership toxic triangle model, we constructed a toxic triangle model of leadership ostracism.
- Through comparison, we found that these two triad models overlap in the areas of narcissism and power consciousness of supervisors, the self-concept of subordinates, and the management system of situational factors, indicating that leadership ostracism is itself a type of destructive leadership. In addition, the uniqueness, and differences in leadership ostracism are reflected in the model, including stereotypes, and results orientation of supervisors, political skills, job performance, and cognitive style of subordinates, the power distance, Chaxu climate, and organizational politics of the situational elements. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed in the research field that provides prospects for future orientation.
Leadership Research Implications and Findings:
- There are several theoretical implications to our research. First, regarding the supervisor factors, we found that narcissistic tendencies, power awareness, stereotypes, and results orientation may trigger ostracism inclination of a supervisor. Although research has explored the traits and roles of ostracizers, such as power and status authority (Fiset et al., 2017), studies are relatively scant and there is not yet a unified research framework. Through case studies, this paper systematically explores the leadership factors that determine the extent to which supervisors practice leadership ostracism. Because leadership ostracism is a function of supervisors who act as perpetrators, so the emergence of supervisor characteristics can be regarded as a signal effect of leadership ostracism (Howard et al., 2019).
- Second, regarding the subordinate factors, our study revealed that political skills, personality, self-concept, and job performance may make the mentally or physically vulnerable employees become ostracized targets. Extant research has presented the detrimental influence of leadership ostracism on personal performance with little attention on the reflections of subordinates themselves as the ostracized individual (Xu et al., 2015). Essentially, leadership ostracism is an interactive relationship between supervisors and subordinates; hence, it is not a single individual force that determines who suffers as a victim of leadership ostracism (Wan et al., 2016). Furthermore, another valuable contribution to the research would be to explore the different effects of traits of in-group members and out-group members on leadership ostracism within an organization.
- Third, in the organizational situation, case studies show that power distance, Chaxu climate, organizational culture, and the management system would reinforce or perpetuate the negative consequences of leadership ostracism. Situational factors influence management practice; for example, job-oriented and employee-oriented organizational cultures may lead to different leadership behavioral choices (Pheko et al., 2017). Therefore, organizational dynamics in how situational factors are recognized, function, and are applied can be further explored in the theoretical framework in future research.
- Fourth, we applied the interview method using practical cases in an inductive manner to explore when and why supervisors engage in leadership ostracism and to establish a conceptual model that identifies the antecedent mechanism of leadership ostracism from supervisors, subordinates, and the organizational situation. Our model is consistent with the toxic triangle model of destructive leadership proposed by Padilla et al. (2007) and provides empirical testing of the following: (1) the narcissism and power consciousness of supervisors, (2) the self-concept of subordinates, and (3) the management system of the organizational situation.
- Fifth, some distinctive features of leadership ostracism in the model are further found: specifically, stereotypes, and results orientation in the supervisor traits; political skills, job performance, and cognitive style in the subordinate traits; and power distance, Chaxu climate, organization politics in the organizational situation. This contributes to the research on leadership ostracism that distinguishes from destructive leadership and enriches the research on negative leadership. Additionally, we explored the specific influential factors in the Chinese culture, such as Chaxu climate (also referred to as Chaxugeju), which refers to a differential model based on different intimate relationships; however, this area of study merits further exploration that may elucidate triggers leading to leadership ostracism behaviors (Chen and Dian, 2018; Sun, 2019) and deepen our understanding of this social issue. This is especially significant in the Asian culture context.
- Lastly, this study evokes increased future investigation into the triadic interaction between supervisor, subordinate, and organizational situation. In the interactive model, one factor may increase or weaken the effects of another factor under certain circumstances (Mao et al., 2018). Moreover, similarities in the behaviors between supervisors and subordinates may trigger a sense of belonging and exert an interactive influence on leadership ostracism (Song and Kim, 2020).
- Developing a conceptual integrated model is critical for managing the obscure and subtle destructiveness of leadership ostracism on employees and organizations (Akhtar et al., 2020). For supervisors, both strong supervisory skills and control (e.g., policies, command, or system) are the guarantee for maintaining effective management and achieving appropriate checks and balances in the workplace. When selecting or hiring for supervisory positions within an organization, human resource recruiters should pay particular attention to the leadership traits of the candidates, and those with destructive characteristics should be intentionally removed from consideration (Jahanzeb et al., 2018). For subordinates, increased training should be provided to guide employees to freely express themselves and to reject leadership ostracism. In the process, cultivating potential leaders among subordinates would enhance their cognitive and emotional traits when faced with ostracism (Xue et al., 2020). Regarding situational factors, the efforts to eliminate the influence of organizational culture, management system, power distance, and Chaxu climate may depend on organizational norms and values that indicate organizational resilience in the work process. This would include improvement measures in the areas of recruitment, training, job change, compensation and benefits, promotion, as well as other organizational systems (Pheko et al., 2017).