This study focuses on follower resistance as a potential antecedent of destructive leader behavior and examines leader-related moderators and mediators to help explain the relationship between follower resistance and destructive leader behavior. Drawing from implicit followership theories, we propose that the relationship between follower resistance and destructive leader behavior is moderated by leaders’ Theory X schema. Furthermore, we build on affective events theory to hypothesize that follower resistance increases destructive leader behavior via leaders’ negative affect. We tested our hypotheses in a within-subjects online field experiment. Our study findings demonstrate that follower resistance increases destructive leader behavior and that this relationship is mediated through leaders’ negative affect and moderated by leaders’ Theory X schema. We discuss theoretical implications regarding the impact of (resistant) follower behavior on destructive leadership and offer methodological advances in terms of research design and analytical approaches to deal with endogeneity issues and derive causal inferences. Lastly, we derive practical implications for utilizing follower resistance.

这项研究关注跟随者抵抗是破坏性领导者行为的潜在先决条件，并研究了与领导者相关的主持人和中介者，以帮助解释跟随者抵抗与破坏性领导者行为之间的关系。借鉴隐性跟随者理论，我们提出跟随者抵抗与破坏性领导者行为之间的关系应通过领导者的X理论图式加以调节。此外，我们以情感事件理论为基础，假设追随者的抵抗会通过领导者的负面影响而增加破坏性领导者的行为。我们在受试者内部在线实地实验中检验了我们的假设。我们的研究结果表明，追随者的抵抗会增加领导者的破坏性行为，这种关系是通过领导者的消极影响来调节的，并由领导者的X理论图式来缓和。我们讨论了有关（抵抗）追随者行为对破坏性领导力的影响的理论含义，并提供了研究设计和分析方法方面的方法学进展，以处理内生性问题并得出因果关系。最后，我们得出了利用追随者抵抗的实际含义。