The Effect of Positive Psychological Capital in Preventing Destructive Leadership Behaviours in a Portuguese Retail Chain

Abstract

Although Leadership is mostly viewed under a positive light, there is growing research on leadership’s negative impacts, a new field that has been called destructive leadership. This paper reviews the literature on destructive leadership and verifies if Positive Psychological Capital (PsyCap) of the followers can help prevent the occurrence of destructive leadership behaviours. 98 teams of a retail chain, comprising 567 employees, reported on their PsyCap, prosocial behaviours, and leaders’ destructive behaviours. Results show that teams with high PsyCap neutralized the negative impact of one behaviour of destructive leadership in one of the measures of prosocial behaviours.