Impact of Despotic Leadership on Burnout: A Mediation Mechanism of Organizational Justice

Abstract

Purpose: The study aims to determine the impact of despotic leadership on burnout with the mediation of organizational justice. There is no study that has checked the impact of despotic leadership on each dimension of burnout. Also, the mediation of each type of organizational justice between despotic leadership and burnout has not been checked till now. The current study fills the gap by taking burnout with its three dimensions as a dependent variable and organizational justice with its three types as a mediating variable.

Methodology: Data was collected from 236 employees of three universities in Sialkot. Structural Equational Model techniques was used to analyze the data of this cross-sectional study.

Findings: Evidence revealed that despotic leadership positively effects the burnout and organizational justice mediates the correlation between despotic leadership and burnout.

Limitations: Current study only observed despotic leader as an antecedent of burnout whereas there are many other factors that affect burnout. Secondly, data was collected form the Sialkot city only due to time constraints. Researchers just checked the mediating role of organizational justice. In the future, the moderating role of personality traits and workplace diversity may be included. The Impact of organizational culture and coworker support can also be checked as a mediator in future studies.

Originality/Value: This is the first study that find the impact of despotic leadership on each dimension of burnout along with the mediating role of individual dimension of organizational justice.