29th January 2026
Dr.S.Dhanabagiyam, Associate Professor, ISME Bangalore.
Course Relevance
This caselet is designed for the following PGDM / MBA courses:
Human Resource Management (HRM), Organizational Behaviour, Talent Management.
Discusses Leader, task behaviour, burnout.
Academic Concepts
Differentiates motivators (recognition, growth) and hygiene factors (policies, pay). Aisha reignited motivators through empowerment and acknowledgment. COR Theory and SDT theory
Demonstrates how specific, challenging goals enhance performance when coupled with feedback.
Abstract:
In Leadership, there are various types in which Exploitative leadership is one of the most common, in many of the mid-sized and structured Organization In which the leaders ask their subordinates to overload with work and use the advantage for their own interest of gain. Many of the organization it been high noticed in more task oriented organizations and most of the leader prioritization their outcomes from their employees. More investigation is essential for understanding of their emotional behaviour of an employee and also to mitigate the more negative impacts on this study. In this context of this case a mid-size company is taken to understand the exploitative leadership and High expectancy level of organization, When managers are taking lot of credit from their subordinate’s work and offering very minimal recognition instead a despite exploitation and employee engage in helping behaviour with supporting peers, sharing workload, emotional support and employee helping behaviour such as supporting behaviour serves as a influence behaviour and allowing employees to sustain their work pressure and help them in building the employee morale and also risks innormalizing exploitation along with peer support recompenses for leadership collapse.
Keywords: Exploitative leadership, peer support, task related assistance, emotional imbalance, and motivation and employee morale.
Background of the study:
A midsize company, the exploitative leadership is incontestable with the help of comprehensive demands for unnecessary overtime of working hours, Perfection of subordinated accomplishment, and methodical renunciation of recognition. Also, within the unhealthy climate and culture of peer support has emerged. In such situations Employees engage in helping behaviour such as task-related assistance, workload sharing and emotional support. Such peer support system serves as a critical cushion in influencing employee morale, maintaining the stability of employee performance, with the compensation for leadership failures. However, this critical risk is identified via peer support, it may also carelessly normalize manipulation by allowing the organization to function despite its dysfunctional leadership, thereby continuing the cycle. Its theoretical background draws on frameworks such as social exchange theory (SET) and conservation of resources (COR), organizational justice, and deviant workplace behaviour models, which explain why exploitative or abusive leadership erodes trust, well-being, and performance.
Exploitative Leadership is characterized by behaviour that undermine organizational goals, exploit followers, or prioritize personal gain over collective welfare and it ranges from unethical and manipulative practices to outright abusive or exploitative actions. Exploitative leadership (EL) undermines Social Exchange Theory (SET) by disrupting the balance of reciprocity between leaders and followers. When employees perceive unfair treatment particularly in terms of international justice, they tend to withhold contributions such as effort and knowledge. This erosion of fairness damages trust, diminishes work passion, and weakens performance, ultimately collapsing the positive exchange relationship and harming employee well-being. By prioritizing self-interest, exploitative leaders create inequitable relationships in which employees receive inadequate rewards for their input, leading to disengagement or withdrawal an outcome central to SET.
What are the Motivational Factors help subordinates to bring a proper work culture can be:
- 1)More team work can be emphasized, where the team members share their opinions, ideas and it also bring back the bonding factor between their employees, also the emotional support like their listening and encouragement can be enhanced which in turn also enhances the knowledge sharing and mentoring peers informally. More also the motivation factors can also be enhanced like bringing back the collective resilience across the hierarchy, can stop the exploitative practices, preservation of team morale and reciprocity norms within peer groups. This can be initiated in the short term cohesion and also to reduce the exploitative practices along with preservation of team morale. The reciprocity norms within peer groups can also be enhanced. The long-term can be risk normalizing the exploitation and helping the substitutes for structural change.
Mediation Mechanism: The mediation mechanism can be the processes pr structures that intervene between exploitative leadership and employee outcomes like it can be formal grievance redressal, anonymous reporting and informal conflict resolution within the teams and their behavioural change Processes or structures that intervene between exploitative leadership and employee outcomes. organizational safeguards can be regulation and policy reframing like workload distribution and recognition.
The impact of this theoretical base like Tuckman’s Group Development, Conflict management can impact on the employee turnover and disengagement. The main key insight of the case can be changing the leadership behaviour, employee satisfaction and sustainable solution. Role of mediation is essential to break the exploitation cycle and bringing fairness among the workforce.
Teaching Note:
TheExploitative leadership always underestimate the employee well-being but bring collectivism in bargaining and helping in behaviour demonstration of the leader to build the resilience with the help of the mediation mechanism to prevent the long-term harm. Organization are also must balance the informal support systems with formal mediation structure which balance the work pressure and sustainable employee engagement. Exploitative leadership is always creating burnt-out among the employees and also it establish confidence mediation channels and also they train the leaders to enhance the ethical. Establishing a confidential mediation channels and train leaders to be more systematic with professional organizational practices and organizational safeguards. Monitor the employees well-being through surveys and feedback loops.
Case Questions:
- How exploitative leadership degrades the organization culture and impact on employee sustainability?
- Mention what are all the leadership strategies can be implemented to maintain the organizational performance?
- What are the theoretical support can impact the sustainably of the workforce.
