Effect of Dark Triad of Leader’s Personality on Nurses’ Counterproductive Work Behavior

Dark triad of personality becomes the reason of individual’s negative behaviors at workplace. The purpose of this study is to analyze the impact of leader’s dark triad of personality on the nurse’s counterproductive work behaviors. The quantitative and cross-sectional study design is used in this study. The self-administered questionnaire was distributed through simple random sampling technique to collect the data from nurses of government hospitals. This study findings showed that there is strong positive relationship between dark triad of leader’s personality and the nurses’ counterproductive work behavior. This study will enhance the knowledge of nurses and help them to identify the dark triad of personality. This study also provides the limitations and recommendations.


Introduction
The dark triad of personality is one of the major issues around the world. In psychology, according to Babiak and Hare (2006), the word dark triad is known as a collection of Narcissism personality traits, which is refer to the unethical behavior in CEO'S and leaders, Machiavellianism have linked as abusive behavior and diminished organizational commitment and psychopathy have tendency of adversely affect productivity (Zettler, Friedrich, & Hilbig, 2011). They are called dark due to their focus on maintaining power and manipulative and malice behavior with subordinates (Kessler, 2010). The people with the dark personality traits exhibits the negative opinions about others. It is very difficult for them to work in the discipline in the organizations. The set of standards, clear policies and well defined job descriptions always creates problems for the dark personalities. They are always uncomfortable and unhappy with controlled organizations. Counterproductive work behavior is employee's behavior against the organization's policy or against the interest of an organization knowingly (Woo, Chae, Jebb, & Kim, 2016). Such as behaving badly with other, fraud, theft, absenteeism, creating disturbance, negligence, failure to follow the instructions, insulting and yelling at others which is damaging for the organization. Counterproductive behavior is considered as one of the most affected behavior in which more damage may occur to the organization that is incurred. According to study, counterproductive work behavior is becoming the top priority of the researchers because of its damaging outcomes for the organizations (Cohen, 2016). The previous study proposes that counterproductive behavior determines the work performance (Oh, Charlier, Mount, & Berry, 2014). And large numbers of employees are involved in fraud and theft which is damaging for the organizations. Studies proved that CWBs is not only cost big amount annually, but also reflecting the negative influence to other employees, which decreases the job satisfaction of other employees, so turnover rate exceeds and finally organizations fail to achieve their goals (Cohen, 2016). Although with several dissimilarities, the personalities share some characteristics. At some points, all these three personality traits show some behavioral trends towards grandstanding, apathetic, deceitfulness and combativeness (Paulhus & Williams, 2002). People having these traits are the prominent reason in causing social problems and issues for their organization especially if they are in management, they are less agreeable, empathetic, compassionate in their lives and less likely to believe others. Dark triad personalities are typically construed as interpersonally maladaptive: psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism (Landman, 2013;Smith & Lilienfeld, 2013). Narcissism is part of the dark triad personality which describe those people who generally a combination of grandiosity, pride, egotism, and also apathetic behavior (Rosenthal & Pittinsky, 2006). In government hospitals, the supervisor or leader support is one of the basic things in improving organizational outcome, which is very poor in the form of counterproductive behavior of subordinates like nurses. Employees' encouragement and support initiating better work outcome. As Narcissist only love their self, like their own ideas, and want only their admiration. Those leaders are arrogant in their behaviors or attitudes, self-centered, struggle for their own success and power (Rosenthal & Pittinsky, 2006). Similarly, narcissists tend to see themselves as very smart and unique (Judge, LePine, & Rich, 2006). They never miss any opportunity to present their self-more superior then others. Their apathetic behavior proposing counterproductive behavior among nurses and ultimately affect organizational productivity. Similarly, Machiavellianism is another part of dark triad personality, the people with these traits are focused on their own interest. These people manipulate the dialogue and deceive others to meet their goals. In the unstructured organizations, the people with the dark triad are comparatively successful, because they are given required environment to grow in order to meet their goals (Ferris & King, 1996). Those personalities never support and guide their subordinate to work in a better why nor they motivate and encourage them to work hard because of their apathetic behavior even though some normal personalities can do better for a productive outcome (Spain, Harms, & LeBreton, 2014). The third part of the dark triad of personality is Psychopathy which refers to the people who act impulsively combine with anxiety and apathy (Babiak, Hare, & McLaren, 2006;Skeem, Polaschek, Patrick, & Lilienfeld, 2011). Such people show aggressive, outbursts, misconduct, oppositional and antisocial behavior (Gervais, Kline, Ludmer, George, & Manson, 2013). According to Boddy (2010a, 2010b) those employees who work under the psychopath leaders they are less trained, less helping and not motivated to work, they are not competent in clinical practice and demotivated. Similarly, they also experience unfair behavior from their supervisors and, poor communication which lead to less friendly environment. The leader with psychopathic personality traits is very poisonous and cruel in behavior. They just strive for the self-benefits, lie to meet their goals (Rauthmann, 2012). Psychopathy personalities are always trouble maker (Gervais et al., 2013). Due to their superiority complex and self-belief, psychopath leaders are very hostile to someone and having no guilt on their act which is the unique and prominent feature of psychopath (LeBreton, Binning, & Adorno, 2006;Lynam & Widiger, 2007).
According to John, (2014), dark triad of personality feels relax in their desired environment such as uncertain and unclear environment, because it offers them to meet their needs. They like the environment when there is less possibility of being caught and the organization does not work as per policy and slandered. Those who keep the dark triads (i.e. Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy narcissism) of personality show the much wearied behaviors at workplace as they are less trained, less friendly and less helping.
In the develop countries studies on the dark personalities and their damaging effect is not sufficient which encourages the new researcher to focus on this issue to bring betterment at the workplace. Studies on this dark triad personality have assessed and suggested that they are really appalling and noted researchers to pay attention on the work outcomes (Jonason, Wee, & Li, 2015). Hence, the aim of the current study is to analyze the effect of the dark triad of leader's personality on the counterproductive behavior of government hospital's nurses of Lahore (Landman, 2013).

Significance of the Study
Current study will highlight the importance of effective leadership with positive personality traits and also analyze the reasons of nurse's counterproductive behavior at workplace. The current study will be helpful to understand how dark triad of leaders' personality effect organizational productivity. Likewise, the administration of the organization will get the benefit from this research study to keep an eye on the leaders and observe their behavior with their coworkers and tackle them accordingly.

Problem Statement
Bad leaders' behavior and discouragement make the employees' uncomfortable and showing bad behavior among their fellows and team workers. Leader's unfair behavior make the work environment worse and in return nurses are showing counterproductive behavior. Moreover, the focus of the studies was not sufficient to overcome these issues of counterproductive behavior of employees. Thus, it is become the need of the time to find out the way how leaders' such behavior could minimize to established the healthy working environment for the nurses and for the better nursing care to the client and also for the upgradation of the organizations.

Purpose of the Study 1.
The purpose of the study is to analyze the effect of dark triad of leaders personalities on counterproductive behavior of nurses.

Research Question 1.
What are the effects of dark triad of leader's personality on the nurses counterproductive work behaviors?

Literature Review
The word dark triad is referring to the dark aspects of personalities that leaders and CEO's possessed. Those who are holding the dark triads (i.e. Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy) showing much negative behavior at the workplace, less friendly and less helping. The focused on these dark triad of personality have been increased since it was the root cause of many issues and counterproductive behavior of the employees. Several studies have been conducted on these dark sides of personalities some assess them separately and some were assessing all these three collectively such as Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopath. Dark triad of personality represent combination of three personality traits which is Narcissism, referring to the unethical behavior, Machiavellianism have linked as abusive behavior and diminished organizational commitment and Psychopathy have tendency of adversely affect productivity and apathetic behavior (Zettler et al., 2011). The leaders and CEO's with these personality traits are very cruel in nature, apathetic behavior with subordinates they are self-centered and egoistic, they only praise their own work and have malice attitude towards their employees. They never happy with others and feel no emotional guilt when they are at mistake which is the root cause of nurses' counterproductive behavior. Counterproductive behavior is employee's bad behavior against the rules of the organization and the reason is leaders' unfair treatment which minimize the organizational productivity and distress the personalities. As nurses are the backbone of the healthcare organizations, so counterproductive behavior and turnover make the bad reputation and lessen the productivity. Narcissists tend to see themselves as very smart and unique (Judge et al., 2006). They never miss any opportunity to present their self-more superior then others. As narcissism which is known as unethical in behavior are treating their subordinates unethically which cause disturbance mentally and physically and ultimately lead the counterproductive behavior. Similarly, few researchers proposed the positive relationship between Machiavellianism and negative behavior (Kessler, 2010). Machiavellians are not socially fair and associated with the unethical behavior. Machiavellians are feeling less obligated to the social norms and standards and mistreat the employees at the workplace(Kish-Gephart, Detert, Treviño, Baker, & Martin, 2014). The Machiavellian identity is characterized by three arrangements of interrelated qualities: a declared faith in the adequacy of manipulative strategies. In managing other individuals, a pessimistic perspective of human instinct and flippant standpoint that puts convenience above standard (O'Boyle et al., 2012). Similarly, the relationship between psychopath and counterproductive behavior is also negative because they have no sense of guilt and anxiety at their act. The more prominent features of psychopath are their callous and impulsive behavior (Jones and Paulhus, 2014). Psychopath leaders' are less likely to focus on the workers need, mistreatment and not responsive and cause the poor organizational productivity (O'Boyle, Forsyth, Banks, Story, & White, 2015). However, dark triad leadership has the negative impact on the subordinates at the workplace where the co-workers never feel easy and liberty of doing work (Jonason et al., 2015). Hence, the outcome is workers counterproductive behavior. Dark personality is the middle ground between normal personality and clinical-level pathology. Sadly, the vast majority of research on these traits utilizes either student (for the study of Narcissism and Machiavellianism) or incarcerated populations (for the study of Psychopathy). As a consequence, considerable amount has known about the nature and outcome of these personality traits but hardly has reached into workplace research. Hence, the objective of my study is to investigate the effect of dark triad of leader's personality on nurses' counterproductive behavior.

Methodology
It is of quantitative non-interventional and cross sectional study design. The target population was nurses of two government hospital of Lahore named Jinnah and children hospital. The total population sample size of this study was 160. The inclusion criterion for this project is all the staff nurses whose clinical experience is more than one year. The exclusion criteria for this project is the student nurses and the staff nurses who have less experience than one year. The data is collected with simple random sampling technique by circulating the questionnaire. At first the demographic part of the questionnaire has the information regarding Gender, Age, Clinical experience and education. Second part of the questionnaire consists of questions on the study variables i.e. dark triad of leader's personality consists of 12 questions based on 5-point Likert scale (Jonason & Webster, 2010) and counterproductive behavior consists of 18 questions based on 5-point Likert scale (Raver, 2004) Software Package for Statistical Analysis (SPSS) version 21 was used for data analysis. The reliability and validity of my data was checked with descriptive and regression test analysis. This study took three months and the ethical measures were fulfilled through the proper consent and secrecy of data.

Framework
Hypothesis H0: Dark triad of leader's personality has no positive significant effect on nurse's counterproductive behavior. H1: Dark triad of leader's personality has positive significant effect on nurse's counterproductive behavior.

Results
Descriptive analysis is used to investigate the effect of dark tried of leader personality transformational leadership on nurses' performance. It tells us about the status of Effect of dark triad of leader's personality on CWB. Correlation analysis is used to check the relationship between dark triad of leader's personality and CWB in government hospital Lahore. Regression analysis and structure linear equation is used for checking the effect of dark triad of leader's personality on nurses CWBS. It is also used to check the effect of moderation.  Table no. 8 demonstrates the correlation among study variables. The results described with the help of Pearson's coefficient of correlation (r) and the value of significance (p). The values of correlation coefficient vary between -1.0 to +1.0. The value of correlation coefficient closer to 1 shows the stronger positive relationship. On the other side, if the value of correlation coefficient will be closer to -1, it shows the stronger negative relationship between two variables. And if its value lies exactly at 0.0 than it shows that there is no relationship between two variables. Correlations between dark triad is r=.490 and the result is significant as P<0.05. Table no.9 Table no.9 shows that R square is the total variation in the dependent variable CWB cause by independent variable dark triad of leaders' personality. As R square is .240, so the total variation in CWB explained by dark triad is 24%.  Table no.11 shows that the DT has significant (P<0.05) relationship with CWB and positive change of one unit in DT cause the positive increase of 0.633 in the CWB.

Discussion
The purpose of the current study is to analyze the effect of dark triad of leaders' personality on the nurses' counterproductive behavior. Study results shows that the positive significant relationship among the nurse's counterproductive behavior and the dark triad of leaders' personality. The finding of this study proposed that the dark triad of leader' personality has the positive effect on the nurses' counterproductive behavior. The counterproductive behavior refers to purposefully violation of safety rules and rude behavior to others (Huang & Liang, 2014). Under the leadership of dark triad, 55% of respondents were agree that they publicly embarrass someone at work. It is found that unethical leadership has bad influence on the subordinates, for this reason workers misbehaves others and publicly embarrass (Cohen, 2016). The dark triad manager lies to others and behave in dishonesty. They don't think that their manager has uses dishonesty or lie to get his/her way. It has been reported that dark triad personality uses dishonesty with their work (Spain et al., 2014). So the hypothesis (H I) Dark tried of leader's personality has positive effect on nurses' counterproductive behavior is supported . There is a significance relationship between both leaders' dark personality traits and the nurses' counterproductive behavior.

Conclusion
This study results shows the positive significant relationship among the dark triads of leader's personality and nurses' counterproductive work behavior. Most of the respondents responded that their manager tends to utilize others at workplace, on other hand, the respondent reported in high number that they take property from their workplace without permission. Further, the results reveal that leader's dark triad of personality has positive and significant relationship with counterproductive behavior. In this study, data was gathered from only government hospitals of Lahore due to shortage of time. This study is taken one time data and only from single city which raise the issue of generalizability. Further, only direct relationship is investigated between leader's dark triad of personality and counterproductive behavior. Furthermore, nursing seminar and training must be conducted for the proper understanding of dark side of leader and CWBs of nurses. Likewise, future studies should focus on the potential mediators and moderators.