The influence of leaders organizational citizenship behaviors and counterproductive work behaviors on employee wellbeing: A multilevel investigation

Abstract

Leader’s organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) have been found to directly and indirectly enhance group OCBs, while counter productive work behaviors (CWBs) can have an effect on employee stress and related problems. While previous research has considered these separately, Moral Licensing Theory suggests that those leaders who engage in positive behaviors can feel that they are then able to subsequently engage in negative behaviors. We test the influence of 134 leaders’ on 306 followers job burnout, and find leaders’ self-rated organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) were negatively related to follower-rated leaders’ counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs) and followers’ job burnout, and leaders’ CWB were positively related. We also tested and found that CWB interacted with OCBs, which showed that leaders’ who highly engage in positive behaviors still have a positive influence on their followers even when they engage in negative behaviors. Overall, we find empirical support for moral licensing, finding that leaders’ positive behaviors are still most important.