BUS603: Managing People

We see the extension and integration of leadership and followership theories in the dark-side realm as one of the major contributions of this Research Topic. The work presented places particular emphasis on the role that followers can play in dark-side leadership, whether through their own traits, implicit theories or attributions. We also see the importance of the context as one major aspect for further investigations. Future research should add to the understanding of how leaders, followers, their relationships and the context interact within the dynamic of dark sides in organizations. Moreover, future research can look into how negative leadership affects different life spheres of the followers, as well as of the leaders themselves, We see particular strengths of the empirical papers presented here in their methodological rigor, including experimental as well as survey data, gathered from multiple sources and in multiple-study series. Better understanding the dark sides of leadership and followership is, so we believe, timely. Future research may decipher more unique and discrete types of dark leadership and followership, focus on toxic relationships and their consequences, and find ways to reduce the harmful effects. In other words, there can be at least "50 shades of gray" in dark-side leadership.