Abusive Leadership Research Articles

Participation in team sports as related to alcohol and marijuana use growth in youth

The aim of this study was to increase our understanding of the harm of abusive leadership on followers’ performance. Student-athletes (N = 145) at a US institution completed surveys. The authors used hierarchical regression analysis and an independent samples t-test to assess the hypotheses. Consistent with core self-evaluations theory, results revealed that core self-evaluations moderate the negative relationship between abusive leader behavior and student-athlete performance, such that the negative relationship is weakened for those with higher, rather than lower, levels of core self-evaluations. Results further indicated that women student-athletes are likely to have lower levels of core self-evaluations than are men, thus highlighting the potential increased impact that abusive leadership may have on women and their performance. Implications of these findings for research, theory and practice on abusive leadership and performance are discussed.

Causes and Consequences of Abusive Supervision in Sales Management: A Tale of Two Perspectives

ABSTRACTAbuse may characterize some most important relationships, and it is estimated that 20 million Americans face abusive work situations on a daily basis. Given this statistic, there is a clear need to investigate this topic within the marketing literature. As a result, the purpose of this study is to explore antecedents and outcomes of abusive supervision in sales management, where the performance‐driven nature of salesperson–sales manager relationships often creates a highly stressful situation. This research looks at several characteristics of sales managers from their perspectives as well as subordinates, and it considers how abuse influences professional and personal lives of both parties. Causes under investigation include leadership style, justice perceptions, negative affectivity, and experiences of abusive leadership by sales managers. Their impact is measured on salesperson and manager job satisfaction and organizational commitment. A model is used to help readers visualize the processes involved with both salespersons and sales managers, and theoretical and practical implications are provided in the close.

English

This article looks at educators’ understanding of workplace bullying through the lens of a twodimensional model of bullying. Educators, who were furthering their studies at the University of the Free State, were invited to take part in a study on different types of bullying. Deductive, directed content analysis was used to analyse 59 participants’ descriptions of workplace bullying. The study found that the theoretical model provided a valuable framework for studying bullying in this context. The analysis of the educators’ descriptions provided the following insights about the relational and organisational foundations of workplace bullying: (1) The relational powerless victims are subjected to public humiliation, disregard, isolation and discrimination. The bullying of educators results in escalating apathy and disempowerment, to the detriment of their professional and private wellbeing. (2) Bullying is likely to occur in schools where organisational chaos reigns. Such schools are characterised by incompetent, unprincipled, abusive leadership, lack of accountability, fairness and transparency. (3) There is interplay between relational powerlessness and organisational chaos, i.e. the absence of principled leadership, accountability and transparency gives rise to workplace bullying.

Leadership and Neuroscience: Current Controversies and New Evidence

In the pursuit to better understand leadership, scholars are increasingly considering the application of neuroscience methods such as EEG and fMRI. These new methods offer unique advantages over existing methods. Thus they hold the potential to reshape and expand existing theories of leadership as well as to generate new research questions and new theoretical perspectives. In this symposium we bring together a select group of leadership scholars who have already applied neuroscience methods in their research. They present ideas and evidence based on those new methods to address research questions about ethical leadership, abusive leadership, leaders’ decision-making, and leadership coaching. Together, their presentations offer insights and inspiration about how neuroscience methods can be successfully employed in leadership research. The symposium will conclude with a discussion about opportunities and challenges in pursuing leadership research with neuroscience methods.

Both Sides of the Story - Leaders and Followers in Constructive and Destructive Leadership Processes

Current leadership studies on either constructive or destructive leadership seem to build independent streams of research. In this symposium, we aim for an integration of both streams of research by bringing together researchers who study constructive leadership, destructive leadership, or both. We will discuss studies on leader-member exchange, supportive, or health-oriented leadership and studies on abusive supervision or unethical leadership in one symposium. The specific focus of the symposium is on leader and follower characteristics and their particular role in constructive or destructive leadership processes. Based on five empirical contributions, we will discuss interactions between constructive and destructive leadership, the role of leaders’ skills, attitudes, and self-regulation, and of followers’ self-regulatory strategies and information processing for constructive and destructive leadership processes. Cass Shum and Riki Takeuchi investigate whether the relationship between abusive supervisio...

Moderation of Career Aspiration in the Relationship between Abusive Leadership and Work Outcomes

The authors explored the relationships between abusive leadership and three under-studied subordinate outcomes, including task performance, individual-directed organizational citizenship behaviors ...

“Destructive Leadership – Antecedents and Consequences”

Free AccessCall for Papers“Destructive Leadership – Antecedents and Consequences”A Topical Issue of the Zeitschrift für PsychologieGuest Editors Jan Schilling and Birgit SchynsGuest Editors Jan Schilling University of Applied Administrative Sciences, Hannover, Germany Search for more papers by this author and Birgit Schyns Durham University Business School, United Kingdom Search for more papers by this authorPublished OnlineFebruary 28, 2015https://doi.org/10.1027/2151-2604/a000147PDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInReddit SectionsMoreWhile a lot of leadership research has focused on positive behavior, more and more knowledge has become available on negative aspects of leadership. The reason for this shift is an acknowledgment that negative leadership can have serious consequences for followers (e.g., in terms of stress, well-being, and health), organizations (such as lower performance, reputation issues), and leaders themselves (e.g., for their career path).Negative aspects of leadership have been captured under many headings, such as destructive leadership, toxic leadership, or abusive leadership. This topical issue does not narrow the focus to one specific definition; however, defining which type of leadership is the focus of any specific contribution will be crucial so that its place in the literature can be clearly determined. Therefore, we will put particular emphasis on theoretical definitions in each contribution.The focus of this topical issue is on understanding more about the triggers of destructive leadership, both in terms of actual destructive behavior (such as the relevance of leader personality or organizational/cultural context) as well as outcomes, specifically in how far effects of destructive leadership can be prevented or what facilitates/hinders negative outcomes of destructive leadership. We are looking for original empirical articles as well as review-type articles or theoretical contributions that outline new models of thinking about destructive leadership.How to submit: Interested authors should submit a letter of intent including: (1) a working title for the manuscript, (2) names, affiliations, and contact information for all authors, and (3) an abstract detailing the content of the proposed manuscript to either of the guest editors:Jan Schilling (mailto:jan.schilling@nds-sti.de)Birgit Schyns (mailto:birgit.schyns@durham.ac.uk)There is a two-stage submissions process. Initially, authors are requested to submit only abstracts of their proposed papers. Authors of the selected abstracts will then be invited to submit full papers. All papers will undergo blind peer review.Deadline for submission of abstracts is October 15, 2013.Deadline for submission of full papers is February 15, 2014.The journal seeks to maintain a short turnaround time, with the final version of the accepted papers being due by June 15, 2014. The topical issue will be published as issue 4 (2014).For additional information, please contact:Jan Schilling (mailto:jan.schilling@nds-sti.de)Birgit Schyns (mailto:birgit.schyns@durham.ac.uk)General Information About the JournalThe Zeitschrift für Psychologie was founded in 1890 and is the second oldest psychology journal in the world. One of the founding editors was Herrmann Ebbinghaus. Since 2007, it is published in English and is devoted to publishing topical issues that provide state-of-the-art reviews of current research in psychology.For detailed author guidelines, please see the journal’s website at www.hogrefe.com/journals/zfp/FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Volume 221Issue 3January 2013ISSN: 2190-8370eISSN: 2151-2604 tabs.informationZeitschrift für Psychologie (2013), 221, pp. 201-201 https://doi.org/10.1027/2151-2604/a000147.© 2013Hogrefe PublishingPDF download

Positive Leadership and Employee Well-Being

We report two studies examining the relationship between positive leadership behaviors and employee well-being. In the first, data from 454 nursing home employees showed that (a) a newly developed measure of positive leadership was distinct from transformational leadership and (b) positive leadership behaviors predicted context-specific and context-free well-being after controlling for transformational and abusive leadership. In the second study, data from a daily diary study ( N = 26) showed that (a) positive leadership predicted positive, but not negative, employee affect and (b) positive leadership interacted with transformational leadership to predict employees positive affect.

Beware the angry leader: Trait anger and trait anxiety as predictors of petty tyranny

Drawing on the general aggression model and theories of victimization and temperamental goodness-of-fit, we investigated trait anger and trait anxiety as antecedents of petty tyranny: employing a multilevel design with data from 84 sea captains and 177 crew members. Leader trait anger predicted subordinate-reported petty tyranny. Subordinate trait anxiety was associated with subordinate-reported petty tyranny. The association between leader trait anger and subordinate-reported petty tyranny was strongest among low trait anger subordinates supporting the theory of temperamental goodness-of-fit—or rather misfit—in dyads. Hence, leader anger-generated petty tyranny seems to constitute itself both as an average leadership style and as behavior targeting specific subordinates, in this case low trait anger subordinates. In addition, anxious subordinates report more exposure to such abusive leadership behaviors irrespective of levels of trait anger in the captain. The practical implications are above all the needs for organizational and individual management of leader trait anger.

Leader identity as an antecedent of the frequency and consistency of transformational, consideration, and abusive leadership behaviors.

Drawing from identity-based theories of leadership, we examined relations of leader identity with leader behavior and perceived effectiveness. To do so, we employed multiwave methodology to examine the differential impact of leaders' chronic collective, relational, and individual identities on the frequency and consistency of their subsequent transformational, consideration, and abusive behaviors over a 3-week period. We also examined the relative importance of these leadership behaviors for predicting perceived leader effectiveness as rated by subordinates and peers. Results indicated that leaders' collective and individual identities were uniquely related to transformational and abusive behaviors, respectively. We also observed a significant collective by individual identity interaction, such that abusive behaviors were most frequent when a strong individual identity was paired with a weak collective identity. Frequency of transformational behaviors accounted for the largest proportion of variance in perceived leader effectiveness, followed by frequency of abusive behaviors and consistency of transformational behaviors. We discuss the implications of these findings for leadership theory and development.

Young workers' experiences of abusive leadership

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a model of abusive leadership as experienced by young workers. Abusive leadership is understood to be subjective and as such this research seeks to explore the experience of abusive leadership through a qualitative approach.Design/methodology/approach – Drawing on interviews with 30 young workers who identified themselves as having a “bad” boss, this study employs a constructivist grounded theory approach in order to identify behaviours, moderators and outcomes of abusive leadership.Findings – A definition and model of abusive leadership as experienced by young workers is proposed. The model details 11 behaviours, five moderators and six individual and two organizational outcomes of abusive leadership.Originality/value – The adoption of a constructivist grounded theory approach reveals several unique factors that moderate the relationship between behaviors and outcomes of abusive leadership in young workers. By grounding the model in the actual experiences...

How Smart are Smart Sanctions?

For over a decade, the comprehensive trade sanctions against Iraq have hung like amillstone around the practice of economic statecraft. Scholars and policymakersalike recognize that the sanctions have had a devastating humanitarian impact onthe Iraqi population. Yet the sanctions have failed to coerce the Iraqi regime intofull compliance with the requisite UN Security Council resolutions. At the sametime, the United Nations has relied heavily on this tool of statecraft over the pastdecade, imposing sanctions fourteen times since 1990. In his 2002 Nobel lecture,Jimmy Carter said that nations must ‘‘strive to correct the injustice of economicsanctions that seek to penalize abusive leaders but all too often inflict punishmenton those who are already suffering from the abuse.’’ This presents a challenge: isthere any way to accommodate the rising demand for multilateral sanctions whileminimizing the humanitarian costs such policies create?Enter David Cortright and George Lopez. Under the auspices of the Universityof Notre Dame’s Fourth Freedom Forum, Cortright and Lopez are responsible fora healthy fraction of the recent scholarly work on economic sanctions (Cortrightand Lopez 1995, 2000, 2002). Their latest effort, Smart Sanctions: Targeting EconomicStatecraft, examines the prospect of smart sanctions: measures that are tailored tomaximize the target regime’s costs of noncompliance while minimizing the targetpopulation’s suffering. In its eleven chapters, this edited volume reviews the varioustypes of smart sanctions and their implementation by the United Nations, theUnited States, and the European Union. It will likely serve as the definitiveresource on the subject for some time.The logic behind smart sanctions is that for economic coercion to work properly,it is necessary to understand the domestic political economy of the targeted state.Most of the sanctions literature argues that as the costs imposed on the targeteconomy increase, so will the likelihood of success. However, some scholars(Kaempfer and Lowenberg 1992; Kirshner 1997) argue that this formulation is toosimplistic. What matters is not the target’s gross economic damage, but whether thetarget government and its key domestic constituencies feel significant economicpain from noncompliance. Smart sanctions are designed to raise the target regime’scosts of noncompliance while avoiding the general suffering that comprehensivesanctions often create. Like precision-guided munitions, smart sanctions targetresponsible parties while minimizing collateral damage. Examples include assetfreezes, travel bans, and arms embargoesFmeasures that stand in stark contrast tothe comprehensive trade ban against Iraq.Are smart sanctions more efficient? At first glance, the answer seems to be ‘‘no.’’Cortright and Lopez’s introductory chapter reviews the fourteen UN sanctionsepisodes since 1990. They note ‘‘even with this small number of cases, the obviousconclusion is that comprehensive sanctions are more effective than targetedor selective measures. Where economic and social impact have been greatest,