When Dark Leadership Backfires: Mach-Leader and Deviance Through Cronyism in an Egoistic Climate

Machiavellian leaders are destructive to followers, yet how and when they engage in negative behaviour towards followers is still to be known. Building on a combined theoretical foundation of leader-member exchange and social cognitive theory, we have posited that mach leaders impact the constructive deviance of followers through a moderated mediation model entailing cronyism and egoistic climate. Using a time-lagged field (n=365) and experimental study (n=179) we analyzed the data from an employee and student sample working in small and medium-scale enterprises from Pakistan using moderated mediation and causal-chain design. The results illustrated that a leader’s machiavellianism leads to reduced constructive deviance through organizational cronyism and an egoistic climate exacerbates the direct and indirect relationship.