Impact of Toxic Leadership on Job Outcomes in the Banking Industry in the United Arab Emirates: The Mediating Role of Group Cohesion

Abstract

Leadership has been a crucial area of scholarly research for decades. Many studies have been devoted to understanding the styles, characteristics, and behaviors inherent in successful leadership. However, few studies have been devoted to understanding the nature and consequences of dysfunctional leadership. Furthermore, the relationships between toxic leadership and job-related outcomes have not been tested systematically. A few empirical studies have attempted to investigate toxic leadership. Many of these studies were conducted to explain the construct space of multiple negative leadership styles. Moreover, toxic leadership has not yet been studied in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). This study aims to examine the impact of the different dimensions of toxic leadership on organizational trust, organizational citizenship behavior, and group productivity, and the mediating the role of group cohesion in the UAE’s banking industry. A field survey questionnaire was conducted to test the study hypotheses. Primary data collected from small, medium-sized, and large organizations located in Abu Dhabi, in the UAE, were used in this study. This study analyzed the data collected from the field survey questionnaires using structural equation modeling