Erstwhile research depicts that term leadership has always been resonated with something positive. However, over last few years, another side of the coin has been unearthed by underscoring the importance of the negative side of the leadership. The current study provides the empirical evidence in the literature by showing the impact of exploitative leadership on employees’ outcomes (burnout, workplace deviance, organizational justice) and moderating role of narcissism with the support of conservation of resource theory.

Data was collected from 263 white collar employees of public sector banks of Pakistan targeting branches geographically located in Islamabad and Rawalpindi.  A questionnaire pertaining to the study constructs was administered using convenient sampling technique. Correlation and regression analysis were used for data analysis. The results of the empirical study claimed that exploitative leadership has a direct and positive impact on the two types of employees’ outcome i.e. job burnout and workplace deviance, while has a negative relationship with organizational justice. Further, results about the moderating relationship of narcissism between exploitative leadership and followers’ outcomes (organizational justice, workplace deviance and job burnout) claimed that narcissism is playing a moderating role among the exploitative leadership and two types of followers’ outcomes i.e. job burnout and organizational justice, but there is no moderation effect for workplace deviance.

The managers will be better able to harness variables (such as exploitative leadership and its negative outcomes) in order to reduce its impact on the performance of employees at the workplace. The study shows that a follower’s negative perceptions are not merely based on subjective judgment but are rather triggered by actual exploitative behaviours of leaders. The research will provide a guideline to both leader and followers in understanding perceptions and reactions to exploitative leader behaviours.

Keywords: Exploitative Leadership, Burnout, Workplace Deviance, Organizational Justice and Narcissism