The Relationship of Downward Mobbing with Leadership Style and Organizational Attitudes Aysegul Ertureten • Zeynep Cemalcilar • Zeynep Aycan Received: 26 August 2011 / Accepted: 20 August 2012 / Published online: 31 August 2012 Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012 Abstract The present study investigates (1) the relationship of different leadership styles (transactional, transformational, authoritarian, paternalistic) with mobbing behaviors of superiors (i.e., downward mobbing) and (2) organizational attitudes (job satisfaction, organizational commitment, turn- over intention) of mobbing victims. Data were collected from 251 white-collar employees. Path analysis findings showed that transformational and transactional leadership decreased the likelihood of mobbing, whereas authoritarian leadership increased it. Paternalistic leadership was mildly and nega- tively associated with mobbing. Regarding the consequences of mobbing for employees’ organizational attitudes, the same analyses suggested that higher perceptions of downward mobbing was significantly associated with lower job satis- faction, lower affective commitment, higher continuous commitment, and higher turnover intention. Keywords Authoritarian leadership Á Leadership style Á Mobbing Á Organizational attitudes Á Paternalistic leadership Á Transactional leadership Á Transformational leadership Á Turkey Introduction Researchers have studied hostile behaviors in the work- place under the heading of ‘‘workplace bullying’’ or ‘‘mobbing’’ (Brodsky 1976; Leymann 1990). Specifically, mobbing has been defined as ‘‘hostile and unethical com- munication that is directed in a systematic way by one or more persons, mainly towards one targeted individual’’ (Leymann 1990, p. 120). The most common type of mobbing is ‘‘downward mobbing,’’ in which the mobbers are superiors and victims of physical and psychological harm are the subordinates (Vandekerchove and Commers 2003, p. 42). The aim of the present study is twofold. First, it investigates the relationship of different leadership styles (i.e., transactional, transformational, authoritarian, pater- nalistic) with mobbing behaviors of superiors. Second, it focuses on the organizational attitudes of employees (i.e., job satisfaction, organizational commitment, turnover intention) exposed to mobbing from superiors. Leadership has been identified as one of the most important predictors of mobbing in the literature (Leymann 1996; Vartia 1996). The terms ‘‘health endangering lead- ership’’ (Kile 1990), ‘‘petty tyranny’’ (Ashfort 1994), ‘‘militant managers’’ (Elbing and Elbing 1994), ‘‘destruc- tive leadership’’ (Einarsen et al. 2002; Skogstad 1997), and ‘‘abusive supervision’’ (Tepper 2000) are used in the lit- erature for managers and leaders who mob their subordi- nates. However, the relationships between various leadership styles and mobbing behaviors have seldom been explored in the literature (cf., O‘Moore and Lynch 2007). The present study fills this void by systematically exam- ining the extent to which different leadership styles relate to the likelihood of mobbing from superiors. Most of the previous literature on the consequences of mobbing is primarily concentrated on the harms on vic- tim’s health and well-being (e.g., post traumatic stress disorder, apathy, lack of concentration and socio-phobia, withdrawal, psychosomatic symptoms, depressions, anger, anxiety) (e.g., Bjorqvist et al. 1994; Leymann 1990; Niedl This research was conducted as part of the first author’s Master’s thesis at Koc¸ University, under the supervision of the second and the third authors. A. Ertureten Á Z. Cemalcilar (&) Á Z. Aycan Koc¸ University, Istanbul, Turkey e-mail: zcemalcilar@ku.edu.tr 123 J Bus Ethics (2013) 116:205–216 DOI 10.1007/s10551-012-1468-2