Impact of Despotic Leadership with Mediation of Emotional Exhaustion on Life Satisfaction and Organizational Career Growth: Moderating Role of Emotional Intelligence

Abstract

Previous research has only emphasized on positive traits of a leadership figure ignoring the despotic behaviors a leader might possess damaging employee performance while causing emotional exhaustion. The current study is directed to examine how despotic leadership impacts employees’ life satisfaction and organizational career growth with moderation and mediation of emotional intelligence and emotional exhaustion. The study was conducted on 330 employees using simple random sampling among 12 hospitals in 6 cities in Pakistan. Data was analyzed by using statistical package for social science (SPSS). Results for Pearson product correlation indicated existence of substantial relationship between despotic leadership, life satisfaction, organizational career growth, emotional intelligence of employees, and emotional exhaustion. Results established a significant direct relationship between despotic leadership and emotional exhaustion (β= .556, p<0.05, t-value= 18.14) and the indirect effect that despotic leadership has on life satisfaction was (β=-.382, t=-10.5437, p=.000) and organizational career growth (β=-.225, t=-9.37, p=.000).  Furthermore, results dispatched significant moderation of emotional intelligence between the relationship of despotic leadership and emotional exhaustion (b= -0.1480, p<0.05). this study also assists to develop a system for a managerial level where with the help of training, development programs, practicing moral values, seminars/group projects motivating teamwork, and implementing rules (for centralized organizations), a leader’s despotic practices can be mitigated, giving rise to friendly culture between employer and subordinates. There is also room for using other software like AMOS, VOS viewer, or Stata for reliable results.

      Keywords: emotional intelligence, despotic leadership, organizational career growth, emotional exhaustion, life satisfaction