How Does Authoritarian Leadership Lead to Employees’ Depression? The Mediating Role of Work-Related Rumination

This unprecedented research proposes that authoritarian leaders contribute to employees’ depression through increasing work-related rumination. That is, employees who are influenced by authoritarian leadership are more likely to ruminate which is likely to result in depression. In this study, we adopted cross-sectional research with convenience sampling. Hypotheses were tested on a sample of ۲۰۱ employees working in diverse sections of manufacturing, education, health, banking, and public services in different cities in Iran. The results verified both reliability and validity. Using the PROCESS Module of SPSS, the results showed that, after controlling for several variables (i.e., gender, age, education, and tenure), work-related rumination still mediates the positive association between authoritarian leadership and employees’ depression. Limitations, practical implications, and directions for future research are discussed.

Keywords:

authoritarian leadership , employees’ depression , work-related rumination