Employee Status and Voice Under Authoritarian Leadership: An Attachment Perspective

Attachment style is essential in guiding individuals’ social interactions, especially in adversities. Based on social defence theory, we develop a moderated-mediation model to explore how employees’ attachment style guides employees’ reactions to threatening authoritarian leadership. Through a time-lagged design with 258 employees and their 142 direct leaders, we find that insecure attachment exhibits a positive role in alleviating authoritarian leaders’ negative indirect influence on employee voice via employees’ perceived status. However, secure attachment strengthens authoritarian leaders’ negative influence on employee status perception and voice behaviour. These findings expand the perspective of leadership drawn upon attachment theory and provide practical implications for management.