Toxic Leadership Undermines Hotel Employees' Work Engagement Through Mental Well-Being

Natalia Sihombing S.Pd Kamis, Agustus 13, 2026
Illustration by AI
FORMOSA NEWS

Toxic leadership has been shown to exert a detrimental impact on the work engagement of four-star hotel employees in the Tangerang area through the degradation of their mental well-being. This finding was revealed by Andi Tanrioddang Pasamalangi and Oloan Situmorang from the Management Study Program at Universitas Bunda Mulia through a quantitative study involving 64 non-managerial staff selected via purposive sampling. Published in the International Journal of Management Analytics in July 2026, this research is crucial for understanding how the psychological conditions of workers in the demanding hospitality sector can be disrupted by destructive managerial patterns.

The hospitality industry constitutes one of the most operationally demanding service sectors, where employee psychological conditions and work engagement are critical determinants of guest service quality. Although the number of star-rated accommodations in the Banten region experienced rapid growth based on BPS data from 2025, this expansion has not been accompanied by adequate improvements in managerial quality. Toxic leadership—characterized by manipulative, authoritarian, and psychologically harmful behaviors—creates significant psychological pressure that depletes employees' mental energy.

To examine this phenomenon, the study employed a causal associative design with primary data collected via an online questionnaire using a five-point Likert scale on Google Forms. The gathered data was then analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) via SmartPLS 4 software.

Based on the data analysis, the study highlighted several key findings:

  • Toxic leadership has a significant negative effect on employee mental well-being, with a path coefficient of -0.391 and P = 0.007.
  • Mental well-being has a significant positive effect on work engagement, with a path coefficient of 0.458 and P = 0.000.
  • Toxic leadership has a direct, significant negative effect on work engagement amounting to -0.253 with P = 0.032.
  • Mental well-being significantly mediates the relationship between toxic leadership and work engagement with a value of -0.179 and P = 0.022, confirming partial mediation.

The implications of this research emphasize that hotel management needs to recognize toxic leadership as a structural risk factor that damages human capital foundations. Companies are advised to implement 360-degree leadership evaluation systems, establish Employee Assistance Programs, and invest in positive leadership development training, such as servant and transformational leadership. As emphasized by the researchers from Universitas Bunda Mulia, mental well-being serves as a crucial psychological bridge that transmits the destructive impacts of negative leadership onto the reduction of work engagement within the hospitality sector.

Author Profile:

  • Andi Tanrioddang Pasamalangi: Researcher and student in the Management Study Program at Universitas Bunda Mulia, Indonesia, specializing in human resource management.
  • Oloan Situmorang: Corresponding author and lecturer in the Management Study Program at Universitas Bunda Mulia, Indonesia, specializing in organizational behavior and strategic management.

Research Source:

Natalia Sihombing S.Pd

Diposting oleh Natalia Sihombing S.Pd

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