Leader Anger Research Articles

Exploring the impacts of leader anger expressions on employee boundary-spanning behavior in construction projects

Exploring the impacts of leader anger expressions on employee boundary-spanning behavior in construction projects

Impacts of leader anger expressions on newcomer proactive career behavior and work alienation in the construction industry

PurposeDespite the growing body of empirical research on leader anger expressions, the issue of how and when leader anger expressions shape newcomers’ proactive career behavior and work alienation in the construction industry has been largely overlooked. Building upon social information processing theory, this research identifies newcomers’ organization-based self-esteem as a mediator, and suggests that newcomers’ performance goal orientation could moderate the relationship.Design/methodology/approachA questionnaire study was conducted on the construction industry in China, and the PROCESS program developed by Hayes was used to test the hypothetical model with 215 valid cases.FindingsThe results suggest that leader anger expressions are negatively associated with newcomers’ organization-based self-esteem, and organization-based self-esteem mediated the link between leader anger expressions and newcomers’ proactive career behavior and work alienation. Furthermore, the newcomers’ performance goal orientation moderates the negative impact of leader anger expressions on newcomers’ organization-based self-esteem.Research limitations/implicationsDue to the cross-sectional nature of this study, causal implications are difficult to draw. Moreover, all data we received was based on participant self-reports, which may raise concerns about common method variance.Originality/valueIn this paper, we contribute to a deeper understanding of the mediating mechanisms and boundary conditions by which leader anger expressions influence newcomers’ proactive career behavior and work alienation from social information processing perspective, in addition to providing valuable insights for management of newcomers in the construction industry.

Anger for good? Unethical‐behavior‐targeted leader anger expression and its consequences on team outcomes

SummaryAlthough leader anger expression targeted at employees' unethical behavior is pervasive in the workplace, we still know little about its theoretical meaning and consequences. To address this theoretical blind spot, we drew on fairness heuristic theory to investigate whether, how, and when unethical‐behavior‐targeted (UB‐targeted) leader anger expression affects team outcomes. Our findings from two time‐lagged field studies suggest that a punishment‐based distributive justice climate mediates the positive effects of UB‐targeted leader anger expression on team organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and team viability. Moreover, leader moral decoupling weakens these indirect relationships. Specifically, the indirect relationships are weaker when the leader separated judgments of performance from those of ethics. These findings highlight the importance of a fairness perspective in understanding the consequences of leader anger expression targeted at unethical behaviors.

Get Angry or Get Compassionate? How Leader Displays of Moral Emotions Influence Leader Effectiveness

Ethical transgressions in organizations are emotionally evocative events, yet it is not fully understood how leader emotional responses in these situations influences their perceived effectiveness. In this research, we draw on emotions as social information theory to compare how leader effectiveness is impacted by display of two moral emotions amongst leaders: anger and compassion. Across three studies with full-time employees, including two experiments and a critical incident design, we document several key results. First, anger (versus compassion) led to greater perceived leader effectiveness when leaders did not punish transgressing employees, but given that the leader punished the employees, leader compassion resulted in greater perceived leader effectiveness. Second, the degree to which the transgressing employee expressed guilt for the transgression diminished the effectiveness of leader anger. Additionally, benevolence-based trust mediated the positive effect of leader compassion on leader effectiveness. Leaders who expressed anger were seen as more effective in part due to increased integrity-based trust, benevolence-based trust, social intelligence, and leader prototypicality, but only when employee guilt was low. Collectively, these results highlight the effectiveness of a “tough love” approach, whereby leaders punish transgressing employees to correct and disincentivize unethical behavior, yet also demonstrate compassion for their welfare.

The Social Consequences of Anger Expression: An Interpersonal Perception Perspective

Previous research has paid much attention to whether leader anger expression is effective in enhancing leadership effectiveness, but the social consequences of anger expression for ordinary employees have seldom been examined in organizational context. Integrating emotion-as-social information (EASI) theory with social perception theory, we propose two conflicting mechanisms contributing to the ambivalent influences of anger expression on expressers’ leader emergence. Specifically, we theorize that anger expression has a positive (and a negative) indirect effect on leader emergence by increasing coworkers’ perceptions of expressers’ competence (and warmth). Furthermore, apology after anger expression (anger apology) benefits leader emergence via warmth as perceived by others. The results from two vignette experiments provided convergent support for the role of warmth in mediating the negative effect of anger expression and the positive effect of anger apology on leader emergence. Contrary to our prediction, anger expression had a negative (Study 1) and a nonsignificant (Study 2) effect on observers’ perceived competence and leader emergence when the appropriateness of anger expression was low (Study 1) and high (Study 2). These findings were replicated in Study 3 with the critical incident technique. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed in relation to the organizational context of Chinese firms.

How does Leader Anger Expression towards Unethical Behavior Impact Team OCB?

Based on fairness heuristic theory, this study examines how and when leader anger expression towards unethical behavior influences team OCB. Team-level data are collected at three time points from 453 employees in 93 work teams. Results show that distributive justice climate mediates the positive relationship between leader anger expression towards unethical behavior and team OCB. Moreover, leader moral decoupling weakens the positive impact of leader anger expression towards unethical behavior on team OCB via distributive justice climate. The findings suggest the importance of adopting a fairness perspective to understand the collective level consequences of leader anger expression.

I Lost My Temper! An Intrapersonal Perspective on the Consequences of Leader Anger Expression

Although prior research has examined the social influences of leader anger expression on employees’ psychological and behavioral outcomes, little attention has been given to understanding leaders’ own responses to their anger expression. Integrating implicit leadership theory with identity threat theory, we develop an intra-personal model that considers anger expression as a trigger of the leader’s perceived threat to the leader role identity. We further theorize that angry leaders tend to downplay leadership behaviors (i.e., initiating structure and consideration) and escalate anger expression to cope with the threatened leader role identity. A three-wave experience sampling method (ESM) study with data collected from 107 leaders provided support to the detrimental intra-personal consequences of leader anger expression. Moreover, consistent with the life span arguments, older leaders were found to exhibit stronger perceptions of leader role identity threat associated with anger expression than younger leaders. Theoretical and empirical implications of these findings were discussed.

Expressão de Raiva e Desempenho: Testando Modelos de Moderação

Resumo Tratou-se de um estudo correlacional com 108 líderes e 176 liderados de quatro empresas públicas ou de economia mista em que se testou o efeito da percepção de raiva e de poder do líder no desempenho do liderado, moderado por dois traços pessoais dos liderados (conscienciosidade e agradabilidade). A base teórica foi o modelo EASI (Emotion as Social Information). Os liderados responderam três instrumentos: a) traços pessoais de agradabilidade e conscienciosidade; b) Medida de Poder Social Global do líder; e c) Escala de Percepção da Expressão Emocional de raiva do líder. Os líderes responderam à Medida de Desempenho de Tarefa de seus liderados. Os resultados indicaram que apenas a conscienciosidade moderou a relação entre a percepção de raiva do líder e o desempenho do liderado.

AUTHENTIC LEADERSHIP, LEADER ANGER AND FOLLOWER JOB OUTCOMES: A COMPARISON OF ANGRY VS. NON-ANGRY LEADERS

This study investigates the effects of authentic leadership and leader anger on follower job outcomes of affective organizational commitment, trust in leader, and job satisfaction. In order to test the hypotheses of the study, an experiment and a survey were conducted, respectively. In the experiment, four different fictive leader types were constructed, and respondents were asked to answer questions about these leaders with the assumption that they worked with these fictional leaders. The findings of this study reveal that authentic leaders aroused higher levels of affective organizational commitment, trust in leader, and job satisfaction by their followers as compared to inauthentic leaders. Furthermore, both authentic and inauthentic leaders who displayed anger aroused lower levels of affective organizational commitment and trust in leader by their followers as compared to their counterparts who did not; and only authentic leaders who displayed anger aroused lower levels of job satisfaction as compared to their non-angry counterparts.

More than just an angry face: A critical review and theoretical expansion of research on leader anger expression

Stories about angry bosses in the workplace are relatively common. Have you ever wondered what causes their anger and how the expressed anger impacts the workplace? Our review of 58 studies on leader anger expression provides an overview of research findings on this phenomenon. The review demonstrates significant research progress in understanding leader anger expression, including its causes, consequences, mechanisms, and boundary conditions. However, the review also reveals that the current approaches to leader anger expression are quite static, which creates the need for a dynamic approach to examining leader anger expression. Integrating a range of theories, we suggest three ways of building dynamic models of leader anger expression, considering its temporal dimension, the dynamics between its mechanisms, and the complexity of emotional episodes in which anger is expressed. Our research contributes to the existing literature by being the first to take stock of leader anger expression research to date and propose a dynamic approach to understanding this phenomenon.

Dimensions of Leader Anger Expression Unveiled: How Anger Intensity and Gender of Leader and Observer Affect Perceptions of Leadership Effectiveness and Status Conferral.

While significant organizational research evaluates effective leadership traits and decades of psychological research have investigated emotion, there is a lack of consensus in organizational behavior research related to whether emotion expressed by a leader elicits positive or negative outcomes. We seek to augment existing research by exploring the effect of three dimensions, namely, the intensity of anger expressed, the gender of the leader, and the gender of the observer on perceptions of leadership effectiveness and future status conferral. In Study 1, we recruited 40 participants from a well-known U.S. university to select appropriate terms attributable to intense, moderate, and neutral levels of anger expression. In Study 2, we recruited a diverse pool of 296 participants and employed a quasi-experimental method by randomly assigning participants into one of the six conditions created by three levels of anger expression intensity and the leader gender. Participants were asked to read a vignette in which a male or a female leader responds to an anger-provoking situation with different levels of anger expression and evaluate the leader on perceived leadership effectiveness and future status conferral. Our study findings demonstrated that a leader demonstrating no anger was perceived higher in leadership effectiveness than a leader showing either moderate or intense anger. Juxtaposed to these results, for future status conferral, a leader expressing no anger was perceived as higher in future status than a leader expressing moderate anger without significant difference found between no anger and intense anger. We also found a significant main effect of observer gender with female participants giving lower ratings for leadership effectiveness and status conferral than male participants. Possible explanations and practical implications regarding gender-specific findings are discussed.

工作场所领导愤怒的有效性及其作用机制

工作场所领导愤怒的有效性及其作用机制

Trust in the leader alleviates the negative effect of leader anger expressions on leader effectiveness

PurposeLeaders often provide negative feedback to underperforming followers with the intention of helping improve their performance. However, the anger expression that is often involved in the delivery of the feedback may cause followers to infer negative intentions and, thus, harm the effectiveness of the leader. The purpose of this paper is to examine, from a relational perspective, the condition under which the negative effect of leader anger expressions on leader effectiveness can be alleviated.Design/methodology/approachData were collected from 355 participants in total through two main studies and two validation studies.FindingsThe author found that leader anger expression in negative feedback delivery had detrimental effects on leader effectiveness through follower-inferred negative intentions. More importantly, the detrimental effects of leader anger expressions on leader effectiveness were alleviated when followers had high levels of trust in their leaders.Originality/valueIntegrating leader emotion and trust literatures, the present research is the first to examine from a relational perspective (i.e. follower trust) the boundary condition under which leader anger expressions influence leader effectiveness.

THE MODERATING EFFECT OF LEADER ANGER ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LEADER-MEMBER EXCHANGE AND FOLLOWER JOB OUTCOMES

This study investigates the moderating effect of leader anger on the relationship between LMX, which is one of the most prominent leadership theories, and the three follower job outcomes of affective commitment towards the organization, trust in leader, and job satisfaction. This study was undertaken in the format of an experiment which is followed by a survey in which four groups of different fictional leader types were created, and respondents were asked to answer questions about these leaders assuming that they work with the described leader. The results of the study reveal that leader anger moderates the relationship between leader-member exchange and the three follower job outcomes in such a way that they result in diminished levels of affective commitment towards the organization, trust in leader, and job satisfaction in cases of both high LMX and low LMX leaders.

Moral anger as a dilemma? An investigation on how leader moral anger influences follower trust

Leaders' expression of moral anger is considered important in curbing unethical behaviors and maintaining an ethical environment in organizations, but how it affects follower trust in leaders is unknown. The present research examines how leader anger expression in response to moral transgressions influences follower trust. I propose two paths through which leader moral anger affects follower trust: a character-based path whereby leader moral anger increases follower trust by elevating follower perceived leader integrity, and a relationship-based path whereby leader moral anger decreases follower trust by reducing follower perceived leader benevolence. I further propose that the balance of these mechanisms depends on follower moral orientation (i.e., justice orientation or care orientation). The results from two experimental studies did not provide support for the character-based path, but did provide tentative support for the relationship-based path between leader moral anger and follower affective trust. In addition, the results from the exploratory analyses indicated that leader moral anger had a negative direct effect on follower affective trust but not on follower overall trust. Theoretical and practical contributions are discussed and a revised model is proposed for the future research.

Motivational or dispositional? The type of inference shapes the effectiveness of leader anger expressions

Existing leadership research has presented conflicting views on the effects of leader anger expressions. The present research aims to reconcile these findings by proposing that the type of inferences followers make (i.e., motivation-focused inference or trait-focused inference) is a key factor determining the outcomes of leader anger expressions. Through one survey study (Study 1) and two experimental studies (Studies 2 and 3), the present research indicates that the effectiveness of leader anger expressions is associated with the type of inferences followers draw from the anger. In general, we found support for the negative relationship between trait-focused inferences and leader effectiveness, but were unable to properly test the positive relationship between motivation-focused inferences and leader effectiveness due to the lack of appropriate instrumental variables. We also investigated whether followers' implicit theories of personality (i.e., entity versus incremental theory) would moderate the effect of leader anger expressions on the type of inferences made by followers, which in turn shapes leader effectiveness. The results of Study 3 provide evidence of the moderating role of implicit theories of personality. Theoretical contributions and practical implications of the present research are discussed.

Sparking Anger and Anxiety: Why Intense Leader Anger Displays Trigger Both More Deviance and Higher Work Effort in Followers

While previous research has assumed that intense leader anger displays result in negative consequences, researchers have recently started to outline their potential for prompting followers to improve their performance. We explain these conflicting positions by demonstrating that leaders’ anger intensity positively affects both deviance and work effort through triggering anger and anxiety in followers. We conducted two critical incident studies, replicating our results with different methodologies and controlling for potential alternative explanations. In line with theories on reciprocal emotions, supervisor-directed deviance became more likely with higher leader anger intensity because followers reacted with correspondingly more anger. However, in line with theories on complementary emotions, leaders’ anger intensity was also positively related to followers’ work effort due to followers’ anxiety. These results were replicated when taking leaders’ anger appropriateness into account as a potential moderator of the deviance-related path and when controlling for followers’ feelings of guilt (an alternative explanation for followers’ work effort). Our paper provides evidence that intense anger displays increase followers’ work effort but also cautions leaders to show these, as the work effort caused by them is based on followers’ intimidation and likely to be accompanied by deviant reactions. By considering the affective reactions triggered in followers, our paper integrates diverging theoretical perspectives on followers’ reactions to leaders’ anger intensity. Moreover, it is one of the first to disentangle the interpersonal effects that different expressions of the same emotion may have.

Sparking Anger and Anxiety: How Leader Anger Displays Enhance (Dys)functional Follower Behaviors

Current theoretical and empirical accounts assert that leader anger results in negative consequences when it is displayed to other organizational members with high intensity. Leaders in practice of...

Symmetrical and asymmetrical outcomes of leader anger expression: A qualitative study of army personnel.

Recent studies have highlighted the utility of anger at work, suggesting that anger can have positive outcomes. Using the Dual Threshold Model, we assess the positive and negative consequences of anger expressions at work and focus on the conditions under which expressions of anger crossing the impropriety threshold are perceived as productive or counterproductive by observers or targets of that anger. To explore this phenomenon, we conducted a phenomenological study (n = 20) to probe the lived experiences of followers (as observers and targets) associated with anger expressions by military leaders. The nature of task (e.g. the display rules prescribed for combat situations) emerged as one condition under which the crossing of the impropriety threshold leads to positive outcomes of anger expressions. Our data reveal tensions between emotional display rules and emotional display norms in the military, thereby fostering paradoxical attitudes toward anger expression and its consequences among followers. Within this paradoxical space, anger expressions have both positive (asymmetrical) and negative (symmetrical) consequences. We place our findings in the context of the Dual Threshold Model, discuss the practical implications of our research and offer avenues for future studies.

Interpersonal Influences of Emotions in the Workplace: New Directions in Theory and Research

In recent years, scholarly interest in the role of emotions in the workplace has been rapidly increasing. Whereas early research focused on individuals’ emotions as outcomes of workplace events, more recent studies have demonstrated that the emotions expressed by organizational members can also impact the perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors of others. However, the literature on the interpersonal effects of emotions is still in its infancy; we lack a precise understanding of when and how such interpersonal influence occurs. Drawing upon multiple theoretical perspectives and methodologies, this symposium brings together leading experts to provide new insights that can contribute to a richer and more precise understanding of the interpersonal effects of emotions in the workplace. Specifically, the presentations in this symposium (a) examine individual and personality differences (e.g., implicit theories of personality, cultural background) that influence how an observer responds to another person’s emotions, (b) identify important emotion characteristics (e.g., intensity, target, complexity) that moderate the effects of emotions on employees’ attitudes and behaviors, (c) highlight cognitive and affective mechanisms (e.g., inferences, attitude formation) linking antecedents to outcomes, and (d) identify a range of organizationally-relevant outcomes of expressing and observing emotions in the workplace (e.g., cooperation, relationship satisfaction, leadership effectiveness). In addition, the symposium will include an interactive discussion and question period aimed at shedding further light on these issues and identifying future research avenues. The Interpersonal Effects of Incidental Emotions in Negotiation Presenter: Annika Hillebrandt; Wilfrid Laurier U. Presenter: Laurie J. Barclay; Wilfrid Laurier U. Presenter: Russell Cropanzano; U. of Colorado, Boulder Everything in Moderation: The Social Effects of Anger Depend on Its Perceived Intensity Presenter: Hajo Adam; Northwestern U. Presenter: Jeanne M Brett; Northwestern U. Benefiting from Complexity: The Social Function of Emotional Complexity for Leaders Presenter: Naomi B. Rothman; Lehigh U. Presenter: Shimul Melwani; U. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill How Implicit Theories of Personality Shape Interpretations and Outcomes of Leader Anger Expression Presenter: Bo Shao; U. of New South Wales Presenter: Lu Wang; U. of New South Wales