When Despotic Leaders Prompt Cooperation: The Strategic Use of Communion Striving Amid Job Insecurity

Despite extensive evidence on the detrimental effects of despotic leadership, less is known about when and why employees might respond with constructive, relationally motivated behaviors. Integrating Conservation of Resources (COR) theory with emerging views on affiliative coping, we theorize that despotic leadership may paradoxically elicit prosocial behavior by triggering communion striving, a relational goal orientation aimed at restoring belonging and interpersonal safety. Importantly, we argue that this indirect pathway is contingent upon job insecurity, which heightens the perceived threat of resource loss and intensifies affiliative motivation. Across a three-wave field study of 495 employees in China. We found support for a moderated mediation model: despotic leadership indirectly increases prosocial behavior via communion striving, with this effect amplified under high job insecurity. These findings challenge the unidimensional view of toxic leadership as purely destructive and illuminate the strategic, context-sensitive ways employees cope under threat. Implications for leadership theory, motivation science, and workplace well-being are discussed.