Power struggles within the top management team: An empirical examination of follower reactions to subversive leadership

Abstract

This study examined the response of an organization's members to subversive leadership and the undermining of the CEO. When the top-management team is in conflict, there is a lack of leadership from the highest levels within the organization. The lack of leadership is likely to produce extraordinary stress throughout the firm, and become a health-risk factor for the organization's members, especially the CEO. After exposure to this undermining, we hypothesize that organizational members will lose trust in the leadership and will have lower job satisfaction, as well a higher intent to leave the organization. The findings indicated that individuals, within the subversive-leadership environment, have lower job satisfaction and higher intent-to-leave the organization. Furthermore, the individual's emotional intelligence level does mediate the relationship between trust in the leadership and job satisfaction, but does not mediate intent-to-leave.