Employees, managers and high performance work practices: A ‘win-win’ or the transformational leader’s exploitative approach to organizational performance

High Performance Work Practices (HPWP) are a coherent set of practices aimed at promoting employee well-being and organizational performance. When aligned with transformational leadership, HPWP serve to communicate positive signals that inspire employees to go beyond their personal interests for the greater good of the organization. However, there are instances where the principles of HPWP and transformational leadership may be misapplied. For example, a transformational leader might be so passionate about achieving organizational performance that he/she, inadvertently, exposes employees to high work demands and work-related stress. Enacting HPWP with transformational leadership in such circumstances may be counterproductive and lead to undesirable outcomes. This chapter explores the role of transformational leadership in accentuating or attenuating the effects of HPWP. It builds on the emerging literature on ‘dark side’ of transformational leadership to identify plausible ways in which a transformational leader’s use of HPWP may be detrimental for employee well-being and organizational performance.