Globalization has highlighted that authoritarian leadership is prevalent in both Eastern and Western organizations. Although there is a growing body of literature that focuses on the effect of authoritarian leadership, an important, but missing, perspective concerns the strategies employees use to deal with authoritarian leaders and the subsequent outcomes. Drawing on impression management theory, this study develops a moderated mediation model to examine the differential effects of authoritarian leadership on employee outcomes. To examine the proposed hypotheses, we conducted a scenario-based experiment (364 full-time employees) and a time-lagged multi-source field survey (464 employees matched with 76 supervisors). The results indicate that Hewlin’s (Journal of Applied Psychology, 94(3), 727–741, 2009) façade of conformity construct is a specific impression management strategy adopted by employees when working with authoritarian leaders. Through triggering employees’ façades of conformity, authoritarian leadership has a positive indirect effect on employee task performance, but a negative indirect effect on employee workplace well-being. These indirect relationships are more salient when authoritarian leaders have high social status. This study not only contributes to authoritarian leadership literature by illustrating its double-edged effects and unveiling its underlying mechanisms but also offers constructive guidance to practitioners.

全球化凸显出独裁领导在东方和西方组织中都很普遍。尽管越来越多的文献关注独裁领导的影响，但一个重要但缺失的观点涉及员工用来应对独裁领导的策略以及随后的结果。本研究借鉴印象管理理论，开发了一个有调节的中介模型来检验威权领导对员工结果的不同影响。为了检验所提出的假设，我们进行了基于场景的实验（364 名全职员工）和一项滞后的多源现场调查（464 名员工与 76 名主管相匹配）。结果表明，休林（Journal of Applied Psychology, 94 (3), 727–741, 2009）的从众结构外观是员工在与专制领导者共事时采用的一种特定印象管理策略。通过触发员工的顺从外表，独裁领导对员工的任务绩效产生积极的间接影响，但对员工工作场所的幸福感产生消极的间接影响。当独裁领导人社会地位较高时，这些间接关系更加突出。这项研究不仅通过说明威权领导的双刃效应和揭示其潜在机制为威权领导文献做出了贡献，而且还为实践者提供了建设性指导。