Examining the Impact of Aversive Leadership on Employee Psychological Distress: The Mediating Role of Anger and the Moderating Role of Psychological Resilience

Abstract

This study examined aversive leadership and employee psychological distress, focusing on anger as a mediator and psychological resilience as a potential moderator. A quantitative and cross-sectional design approach was used to analyzing survey data from 122 participants in Pakistan's healthcare, education, manufacturing, and services facilities through regression and mediation/moderation analysis using SPSS. Aversive leadership has a significant impact on employees' psychological distress, and this relationship is shaped by anger. Psychological resilience had no reduced effect. To ensure employee well-being, toxic leadership must be addressed. This study highlights the importance of emotional reactions – especially anger – in linking poor leadership to psychological distress among employees. By highlighting this relationship, the study highlights the importance of companies addressing toxic leadership styles to protect employee health and promote a more positive work environment. Future research should focus on secondary and alternative resilience designs to address the limitations of this study regarding the non-significant moderating role of resilience, perhaps in terms of issues with a cross-sectional design that limits causal inference or the use of self-reported data, for which the same method may introduce bias. The results show how important it is for companies to develop leadership initiatives that support emotional intelligence and reduce negative leadership practices. Employee psychological distress can be reduced through interventions that focus on stress and anger management. Furthermore, even if communication resilience did not change significantly in this study, the construction of organizational resilience is still important.