The impact of despotic leadership on emotional exhaustion: mediating role of dehumanisation and moderating role of core self-evaluation

Leadership is one of the most important variables which have been discussed by different researchers for many years. Since inception, leadership has been considered by accentuating the positive effects of leaders on subordinates while ignoring the dark side of leadership. Considering this gap, the aim of the current study is to investigate the impact of despotic leadership on emotional exhaustion with the mediating role of dehumanisation and the moderating role of core self-evaluation. In this study, data were collected from the sales force of pharmaceutical industry through questionnaire. Findings of the study reveal that despotic leadership has positive effect on emotional exhaustion, while dehumanisation partially mediates this relationship. Furthermore, core self-evaluation reduces the impact of despotic leadership on dehumanisation. This study is novel in investigating the mediating role of dehumanisation between despotic leadership and emotional exhaustion. Conservation of resources theory and social exchange theory support the study.