Turnover Intention in the intertwining of LMX and Micromanagement: A Broad Survey in an Italian Healthcare Context
Domenico Sanseverino, Alessandra Sacchi, Alessia A. Rossi, Monica Molino, Chiara Ghislieri
The role of leadership in shaping organizational culture and promoting the sustainability of organizational life is crucial. While positive leadership (Leader-Member-Exchange, LMX) and destructive leadership (e.g. micromanagement) are sometimes considered separately, this study focuses on their intertwining, aiming to examine how employees’ perceptions of their direct superior’s leadership style are distributed and to analyse differences in turnover intention (TI), a particularly relevant variable in the healthcare sector. Participants in the study are 1287 employees from a local health authority. Cluster analysis revealed 4 subgroups characterized by different leadership experiences. The highest TI was observed in the group experiencing high micromanagement and low LMX, followed by the «neglected» group (low LMX and low micromanagement). The group with high LMX and high micromanagement exhibited a medium-low TI. The lowest TI was observed in the group with high LMX and low micromanagement. These findings suggest that within the same organization, people may experience different forms of leadership and sometimes light and dark sides of leadership overlap. The relationship between leadership style and turnover intention warrants further investigation.
Keywords
Leadership, LMX, Micromanagement, Turnover intentions, Positive leadership, Destructive leadership, Healthcare, Cluster analysis.
