A Test of a Dual Mediation Pathway Linking Authoritarian Leadership to Employee Creativity

In this present research, we examined how authoritarian leadership influence individual employees creativity. Specifically, we drew from the transactional model of stress to suggest that authoritarian leadership induces silence motivated by fear (i.e., defensive silence) and emotional exhaustion; resulting in reduced levels of creative behavior. Results from two multisource and multiwave employee-supervisor dyad field studies conducted in two different countries (Nigeria; Study 1 and China; Study 2) provided support for our hypotheses. In both studies, our research findings revealed that authoritarian leadership was negatively related to employee creativity and this relationship was mediated by employee defensive silence and emotional exhaustion. We discuss the implication of these findings for both theory and practice.