To be Participative or Laissez-Faire? Supervisors’ coping strategies to ego depletion depend on their power distance orientation

Abstract

To date, studies of supervisor depletion have predominantly examined its negative effects on supervisor- and subordinate-related outcomes. However, not all supervisors necessarily respond to feeling depleted in the same way. Scenically, we suggest that supervisors with varying power distance orientations will respond to depletion differently, such that low power distance-oriented supervisors will exhibit participative leadership when depleted whereas high power distance-oriented supervisors will exhibit laissez-faire leadership when depleted. Increases in supervisors’ daily participative leadership will in turn be associated with increases in subordinates’ organizational citizenship behavior, whereas increases in supervisors’ daily laissezfaire leadership will be associated with increases in subordinates’ counterproductive work behavior. We tested our predictions via an experience sampling study of supervisor-subordinate dyads who completed daily morning and afternoon surveys over a two-week period.