When Leaders and Followers Match: Unveiling the Nexus Between Despotic Leadership, Supervisor-Employee Value Congruence, and Organizational Deviance-Evidence From Egypt.

Introduction: Leadership style and employee behavior has long been a topic of interest in organizational research.

Objectives: To explore levels of despotic leadership, supervisor-employee value congruence, and organizational deviance among the studied nurses. Furthermore, to explore the connection between the three variables.

Methods: The study employed a cross-sectional quantitative design. The researchers used three tools as follows: the despotic leadership survey, an organizational deviance scale, and a perceived supervisor-employee value congruence scale. The first of April 2023 to the first of July 2023 were the 3 months that were used to collect the data from 250 nurses. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Spearman's correlation, Kruskal-Wallis test, and Mann-Whitney U test.

Results: Nurses perceived a moderate level of despotic leadership as mean ± SD, 16.80 ± 3.01, also a moderate level for organizational deviance (30.63 ± 4.65). The studied nurses perceived a moderate level of supervisor-employee value congruence (10.93 ± 1.32) Furthermore, there is a solid positive significant relationship between despotic leadership and organizational deviance where p = .001. There is a negative significant relationship between despotic leadership and supervisor-employee value congruence where p = .001. Also, there is a negative significant relationship between organizational deviance and supervisor-employee value congruence where p = .001.

Conclusion: Nurse managers need to retain leaders to inspire subordinates' uncluttered communication networks, stirring nurses' partaking in nursing committees' assemblies, and decision-making. Hospital administrators ought to focus more on the role that value congruence plays as a buffer for subordinates who exhibit organizational deviance and high levels of mistrust. Strategies should be employed to create and maintain value congruence and reinforce desired nondeviant behaviors to foster a positive work environment.