Tyrannical leadership as a tough love boss: how leader career mentoring and tough-love labelling shape employee career optimism?

Purpose Drawing on leadership categorisation and labelling theories, this study explores how tough-love labelling mediates the relationship between tyrannical leadership and employee career optimism. In addition, we examine how leader career mentoring moderates the association between tyrannical leadership and tough-love labelling, and how this indirectly affects employees' career optimism. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected from employees working in service-oriented organisations using a time-lagged survey approach. The relationships were tested using Mplus (v. 8.6). Findings Results show that tough-love labelling mediates the path between tyrannical leadership and employee career optimism, and leader career mentoring moderates the relationship between tyrannical leadership and tough-love labelling, which, in turn, increases employee career optimism. Originality/value This study advances the leadership and career literature by demonstrating how tough-love labelling functions as a mediating mechanism linking tyrannical leadership to career optimism, thereby offering a novel explanation for when and how such leadership behaviours may be associated with positive career-related perceptions. Additionally, it identifies leader career mentoring as a critical boundary condition, showing how career guidance shapes employees' interpretations of tyrannical leadership and encourages its categorisation as developmental rather than detrimental.