authoritarian leadership and the subordinate’s psychological response
of compliance. Chenget al.( 2004 ) found that compliance was uncor-
related with authoritarian leadership (r¼.06, n.s.), but significantly
correlated with moral leadership (r¼.41,p<.01) and benevolent
leadership (r¼.42,p<.01). Farhet al.( 2006 ) found that while
compliance was significantly correlated with authoritarian leadership
(r¼.21,p<.01), it was correlated even more strongly with benevolent
leadership (r¼.34,p<.01) and equally strongly with moral leadership
(r¼.24,p<.01). Using structural equation modeling, Farhet al.
( 2006 ) further showed that fear of the leader mediated the effect of
authoritarian leadership on compliance, and compliance was linked
with benevolent and moral leadership through the subordinate’s grati-
tude and repayment, and identification with the leader. These findings,
taken together, do not show that compliance is an immediate psycho-
logical response to authoritarian leadership; instead, fear of the leader
seems to be a more direct, psychological response to authoritarianism.
These findings also suggest that compliance may be considered as a
more distal outcome of PL, affected by all three psychological responses
of gratitude and repayment, identification with the leader, and fear of
the leader.
In terms of subordinate outcomes, authoritarian leadership was found
to be negatively correlated with commitment to the team, satisfaction
with the leader, job performance, intention to stay (Cheng, Huang,
and Chou, 2002 ), OCB, loyalty to and trust in the supervisor (Cheng,
Shieh, and Chou, 2002 ), and organizational commitment (Farhet al.,
2006 ), and positively correlated with angry feelings (Wu, Hsu, and
Cheng, 2002 ). These findings suggest that the exercise of authoritarian
leadership in modern Chinese organizations is unappreciated by the
followers and accompanied by a host of negative outcomes.
Main effects of benevolent leadership
In support of Farh and Cheng’s ( 2000 ) model, benevolence was found
to be strongly positively correlated with gratitude and repayment
(Chenget al., 2004 ; Farhet al., 2006 ). While gratitude and repayment
were also correlated with moral leadership, their correlation with
benevolent leadership was stronger (r¼.65 vs. .48 in Chenget al.,
2004 ;r= .49 vs. .18 in Farhet al., 2006 ). This relationship was not
moderated by situational factors, such as subordinate dependence on
the leader for resources or the subordinate’s orientation to tradition
Paternalistic leadership in Chinese organizations 177