Leading Machiavellians on the road to better organizational behavior

What is it about?

Studies highlighting the negative behavioral influences of machiavellians are abundant; however those prescribing their management are scarce. Machiavellians are intelligent, adaptable, and resourceful people with negative, self-serving, and unethical persona traits. Such people are goal-oriented, willing to go to any lengths to achieve their objectives, manipulate people and breaking organizational rules. Machiavellians, by their definition, are predisposed to engage in negative organizational behavior. Furthermore, they are abundantly found within organizations disguising their true personas. This poses a considerable challenge for managers to tap into their true organizational potential while minimizing the negative consequences of their manipulative behavior. However alike low-machiavellians, they are susceptible to contextual stimulations. Leadership, in particular, can play a crucial role in managing the negative proclivities of machiavellians as well as in harnessing their unique mental capabilities and resourcefulness. This study investigated the moderating effects of transformational versus transactional leadership styles on the relationship between subordinates’ machiavellianism and their organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) as well as on their counterproductive work behavior (CWB). This was done with the aim of highlighting the style that was better adept in managing high-Mach subordinates in terms of their positive and negative organizational behavior.

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