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Individual factors such as cognitive capacities matter when one is requested to spot fake news. We suggest, however, that social influence–specifically as exercised by an authoritarian leader–might matter more if one is expected to agree with the fake news. We developed a single-item prototype measure of leadership styles and recruited participants from four Western countries (Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, United States, N= 501) who identified whether their immediate boss was an autonomous, paternalistic, or authoritarian leader. Then they were asked to evaluate the accuracy of several fake news articles and their expectations to agree with these articles. Although people could identify fake news under all three leadership styles, employees with authoritarian bosses were less accurate in spotting fake news (Cohen’sd= 0.32) compared to employees with autonomous bosses. The bigger effect, however, was that they reported they would agree with the news they knew was fake when the news was shared by their authoritarian boss compared to employees with autonomous (Cohen’sd= 1.22) or paternalistic bosses (Cohen’sd= 0.66). We argue that in addition to effects on perceived accuracy of information, social influence, conformity, and obedience are crucial and unacknowledged causes of how misinformation is maintained and propagated by authoritarian leaders even in democratic countries.