Master’s Project
TOP-DOWN ABUSE IN THE WORKPLACE:
A Systematic Review of Terminology and Impact in Academic Literature
by Brier Albano
B.A., University of Calgary, 2003 B.A. Hons., University of Calgary, 2006
A Master’s Project Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
MASTER OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION In the School of Public Administration
©Brier Albano, 2019 University of Victoria
All rights reserved. This project may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without the permission of the author.
i Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my husband and children for affording me the time and the ability to invest in learning, growing, and enhancing my education. I would also like to acknowledge my sincere gratitude to Dr. J.B. Cunningham, my supervisor, who was supportive, always available and provided me with an opportunity to learn on a topic I thoroughly enjoyed researching as well as second reader Dr. K. Speers who connected me to the project. I would also like to acknowledge Judy Selina as an important individual for all distance students in the MPA program because her organization and kind, supportive assistance helped with all the paperwork and questions that allowed me to move towards the end of my degree.
ii Abstract
Academic focus on top-down abuse in the workplace has increased while society has shown tremendous interest in the topic matter as abusive leaders of large organizations are highlighted in popular media. Through a systematic review, this project focused on 55 studies, and evidence in 127 academic articles to discover that at present, there is no consistency in the academic definitions of top-down workplace abuse that can encompass abuse as it presents through different levels and impact radiuses of a workplace. This project proposes a framework for top-down abuse terminology that recognizes the differentiation between top-down abuse in the workplace terms like, leadership and behaviour, and the scope-impact (defined as impact through which the overall scope of the consequence is a critical factor) bear consequence on the differences of this abuse. The project calls for Destructive Organizational Leadership,
Destructive Leadership and Abusive Leadership to be used in reference to the scope-impact of top-down abuse in the workplace and further, calls for behaviour to be used more frequently to support a more consistent methodology in future empirical studies. Additionally, this project recommends three areas of future study including: (1) a broad-analysis of leadership behaviours, (2) the creation of a model for measuring scope-impact, and (3) testing of a variety of
iii Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction ... 1
2.0 Background ... 3
3.0 Methodology and Methods ... 5
4.0 Results ... 10
5.0 Discussion and Analysis ... 23
5.1 Supervision, Leadership, Destructive, and Abusive ... 23
5.2 Compare and contrast/polarized definition techniques ... 24
5.3 Ethical and unethical concepts in the literature ... 25
5.4 The self-interest variable ... 26
5.5 Scope-impact ... 29
6.0 A Framework for Top-down Abusive Terminology ... 31
7.0 Research Implication for Public Administrators and Recommendations ... 33
8.0 Conclusion ... 35
10.0 References ... 36 APPENDIX A: Detailed Search Terms and Results ... I APPENDIX B: Articles by Year from Searched Databases ... II APPENDIX C: Abusive Leadership Articles Citations by Year ... III APPENDIX D: Leadership Type Mentions in Academic Literature ... IV
iv Figures and Tables
Figure 1: Initial Article Review (Phases one and two) ... 6
Table 1: Articles on Abusive Leadership by Year ... 7
Table 2: Abusive Leadership Articles Citations by Year ... 8
Table 3: Abuse impact models ... 8
Table 4: “Leadership Type” in Reviewed Literature ... 11
Table 5: Terminology Used by Empirical Studies ... 12
Table 6: Empirical Studies with a focus on a Direct Reporting Relationship ... 13
Table 7: Empirical Studies with a focus on Organization-level relationships ... 19
Table 8: Empirical Studies with a focus on Multi-level Reporting Relationships ... 21
1 1.0 Introduction
Top-down abuse in the workplace, in its non-physical form, has received increased attention in the last decade and continues to drive our attention in the media. In 2018, the BBC reported former chief executive of France Telecom, Didier Lombard and six other top managers were accused of “moral harassment” in the workplace (BBC News, 2018). While the BBC reported that over 19 employees took their lives over tough restructuring methods, an additional account published in the Journal of Business Ethics theorizes that between February 2009 and October 2011, the number of employee suicides was as high as 69, with a further 41 employees attempting to take their life (BBC News, 2018; Chabrak, Craig, & Daidj, 2016, p. 502). In the same period, the death of Hunter Harrison, a North American railroad leadership legend, lauded for his results and bottom-line focus, left a trail of confused media coverage with Harrison being claimed as both “admired and loathed” (Stephenson, 2017). Employees of Harrison stated that despite impressive results, Harrison was known for creating a “culture of fear” (Stephenson, 2017). These media examples demonstrate abuse that can permeate entire organizations and have a substantial impact on employee’s lives.
Over the last decade, there has been extensive growth in the academic literature
pertaining to top-down abuse garnering a wide variety of theoretical, quantitative, qualitative and summative articles on the topic. A key challenge in the dissection of the academic literature is a general lack of consistent terminology and understanding of how this terminology can be applied to the contexts of abuse. Given the media attention, it is hypothesized that there are multiple scope-impacts in the workplace – with scope-impact defined as impact through which the overall scope of the consequence is a critical factor. The scope-impact can derive from a variety of top-down interactions with abusive individuals and can include a direct abusive relationship with one’s supervisor, experiencing abusive behaviour that permeates multiple levels, or abuse, like that suggested through Lombard and Harrison (above) that poison entire organizational
environments.
The initial goals of this project were to ask:
1. What is really happening in terms of the academic contributions to abusive leadership?
2. Where do the gaps in the literature exist?
3. Are there places from which there are opportunities to contribute to the field? To respond to these questions, this project systematically 55 studies, and evidence in 127 academic articles and discovers that at present, there is no consistency in the academic definitions of top-down workplace abuse that can encompass abuse as it presents through different levels of a workplace. It identifies that scope-impact is a necessary consideration moving forward in the field and proposes a framework for top-down abuse terminology that recognizes differentiation between top-down workplace abuse terms like, leadership and behaviour, and the scope-impact differences of the workplace abuse experience.
2 In this project, the background of abuse in the workplace is reviewed, including the significant definitional contributions of B.J. Tepper in 2007 which provided a frame from which this project derives although the context and goals are different. Next, the methodology used in this project will be recounted. This is followed by the results of the systematic review. Next, the project will then discuss the results and propose a framework that has the ability to encompass the majority of terms and definitions that contribute to this field of study. Lastly, the project will address how Public administrators can be called on to contribute further to the literature.
3 2.0 Background
Quinn et. al (2015) suggest that leadership models “held by individuals often reflect models held by society at large” (pg. 3). Topics in leadership, including abuse and bullying, have been explored throughout history extensively. Machiavelli’s The Prince in 1532, from the
Renaissance period, even states “that many have written about this” referring to the extensive dialogue on leadership and supervision (Machiavelli, 1992, pp. 278-279). Machiavelli himself may have very well may have set the tone for connections of autocratic, authoritarian or other high-control leadership-types to naturally be perceived as abusive and bullying behaviours.
A survey of data pertaining to “abusive leadership” recognized that over the past twenty years, the extensive growth in the field of research has had an exponential explosion of academic contributions (Table 1, see Methodology). One of the key articles that appears during a peak in 2007/2008 is B.J. Tepper’s article in the Journal of Management, “Abusive Supervision in Work Organizations: Review, Synthesis, and Research Agenda” - one of the most highly cited article on abusive workplaces in the last twenty years with over 1000 citations in over 500 articles. Tepper’s (2007) work addressed the rise in academic literature and clearly defines eight constructs of nonphysical supervisor hostility (p. 261). Through this meta-analysis, the
constructs, antecedents, and the consequences found in abusive supervision literature are framed and provided an opportunity from which academic literature grows and aims to prevent some of the discord and definitional confusion he noted existed in the to-date literature – specifically he referred to the literature as “fragmented and poorly integrated” (Tepper, 2007, p. 262).
Tepper (2007) uses a definition of “abusive supervision” in his work as a construct for top-down workplace abuse stemming from his work in 2000 that abusive supervision is a “subordinates’ perceptions of the extent to which supervisors engage in the sustained display of hostile verbal and nonverbal behaviors, excluding physical contact” (p. 264). His work, although extensive, primarily focuses on direct relationships and does not venture into trickle-down or the scope-impact of abusive behaviour. Tepper (2007) does identifies supervisor-level factors, organizational-level factors, industry effects, cultural factors and methodological issues as key to developing the field (p. 281), however, in Tepper’s call for organizational-level factor research he addresses his call towards specifically to how organizational norms can influence direct supervisory behaviour in lieu of questioning the overall scope-impact of a leader at the top of the organization (p. 282), again, excluding organizational impact and the scope of the impact from his discussions and discovery.
At the same time Tepper’s (2007) highly cited article emerged, concepts of unethical supervision, aimed at being contrasted against the popular “ethical leadership” type were also emerging. “Ethical leadership: A social learning perspective for construct development and testing” was published in 2005, and since, has been cited almost 3000 times by peers adding to the field of leadership and creating a trend of the ethical leader. Articles on unethical leadership (eg. Barling, Christie, & Turner, 2008; Byun, Karau, Dai, & al., 2018), note the same
4 consequences and similar conversations from “abusive supervision” including psychological distress and other workplace dysfunctions.
Andreoli and Lefkowitz in 2009, reviewed characteristics of supervisors (eg. sex, job satisfaction, etc) in addition to organizational-level factors and found that organizational attributes were a larger predictor of misconduct than personal characteristics (p. 326) which suggested that organizational constructs have developed in the years after Tepper’s initial review. Sharma (2018) also completed a systematic review of organizational context and proposed a model that suggests outcome stresses, cooperative goals and power asymmetries, leader/employee chemistry, team-building, resource scarcity, interventions and pooled task independence all can lead to “abuse” (pp. 204, 213), however, Sharma elects to use new
terminology to discuss how this pertains to organizations using “leader workplace aggression” to the mixture of concepts hoping to encompass a wide scope of negative experiences had by employees around the world.
Returning to Tepper (2007), it is suggested that current research into the area of
supervision is typically motivated by an understanding of how to become a more effective leader and aims to uncover the characteristics best suited for “favorable outcomes (eg. high motivation, high individual and group performance and favorable attitudes towards the job, organization, and leader)” (p. 261). Mitchell and Ambrose (2007), confirm this approach that research on abusive leadership has typically fallen into categories aimed at understanding employee reactions and consequential work performance when faced with an abusive work environment (p. 1159). Both Tepper (2007) and Mitchell and Ambrose (2007) however, do not address how the scope of the interactions or variety of levels within an organization play a role in an abusive work
environment. The difference between high-level leadership over entire organizations, and direct employee-supervisor relationships is ignored.
In 2012, Martinko, Harvey, Brees and Mackey also systematically reviewed abusive supervision also using Tepper’s 2007 framework to review if the call to action from Tepper had been heeded appropriately by researchers and discusses the possibility for revision (p. S120). However, by 2012, the researchers only noted 62 contributions to abusive supervision since 2007 and also, like Tepper, did not include ethical and unethical leadership in academic literature within the scope of abusive supervision, preferring to focus on a similar methodology as Tepper in 2007 (Martinko, Harvey, Brees, & Mackey, 2013, pp. S121-S122). The authors also chose not to call for investigation on the scope-impact of abuse however, Martinko, Harvey, Brees and Mackey (2012) contribute that there is a distinguishing difference between abusive supervisory behaviour and perceptions of abuse which became important in our research which also noted that a separation between leadership, and leadership behaviours was needed in the literature.
5 3.0 Methodology and Methods
The initial search for this systematic review took place over the months of July and August 2018. Five databases were selected to provide a broad overview of the literature on abusive leadership and to ensure that search functionality included the ability to limit search results on the basis of journals that were academic in nature and also peer reviewed. To ensure the results reflected current contributions to the topic matter, publication dates were also used as a limiter to initially secure results published from the last 20 years (1998-2018).
The databases selected included PsycINFO, Business Source Complete, Web of Science, PAIS International and Archive (CSA) and Academic Search Complete. Each search was run twice to ensure that limiters were used consistently and all results titles were entered into an excel database for further review. Advance search options were recorded for each database used and appear in Appendix A.
The databases were searched using the term “abusive leadership” which was advantageous in retrieving the largest number of results for the review. From these results, articles were then eliminated (Figure 1). 1059 academic contributions were collected from the initial search from the five databases. Within these results, 209 articles were eliminated due to duplication and 8 were eliminated as notice of corrections or introductory journal forums (although corrections were noted although none were significantly relevant). At the end of the initial search phase, the remaining contributions left 842 articles.
Special attention was next given to ensure results were within the subject matter of workplace and organizational contexts. A further 305 abstracts were reviewed and articles then eliminated for unrelated content. Examples of unrelated content included articles on domestic abuse, childhood bullying, lateral workplace bullying or political humanitarian situations that did not fit the scope of this research project. In order to ensure no relevant articles were eliminated in error, any article where the abstract did not clearly outline criteria for exclusion was reviewed to ensure validity. The final result of this second phase was 537 articles (Figure 1).
6
Figure 1: Initial Article Review (Phases one and two)
In the third phase of the review, the results were next sorted by year in an effort to determine common and popular patterns in the publications. A count by year was completed which resulted in a noticeable peak after 2007 (Table 1; Appendix B). Noting that further
elimination would be necessary in order to extract patterns from the articles, the next step was to determine the citation count.
7
Table 1: Articles on Abusive Leadership by Year
(APPENDIX B) 537 articles were next fed into a sixth database, Google Scholar, to collect data regarding citations. Google Scholar was not initially selected as a primary database due to its broad search engine with few options for limitations, which captured not only academic articles and books, but also popular culture sources which this project did not want to include. However, the database was superior in providing broad citation results to capture the patterns of article use from the other five databases and these patterns were then analysed to determine the top cited articles from the results. Charting the citation results determined a peak growth period for the academic literature and peaks in both 2010 and 2012 (Table 2).
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
Articles on Abusive Leadership by Year
8
Table 2: Abusive Leadership Articles Citations by Year
(APPENDIX C) Due to the abundance of literature on this topic and a desire to capture the most prevalent themes in the topic matter, articles with more than 100 citations from 2007 to 2017 were
reviewed in detail and, in an effect to capture current trends, this project also reviewed all articles captured from 2018. It was clear from the citation analysis that most articles from 2018 would not be captured appropriately by a high number of citations as they had not yet had the time to be cited. It was decided to including all articles captured in our initial review from the first half of 2018 to avoid any challenges or errors that this limitation would cause. This also supported our aim to have relevant data to the work that was being done at present.
This provided 127 articles that were reviewed in detail over the course of twelve weeks. Review of each article included creating a short personalized abstract, noting the most prominent constructs and consequences as defined by Tepper’s 2007 article (in the event this was
significant), making brief notes as to why the article fit into these constructs and consequences and making note of any prominent paradigms, constructs or theories used in the articles. A secondary document in word was created, and any general themes and trends were also recorded in notes with supporting articles throughout the research in order to aid in finding patterns. From this data, 87 articles that mentioned leadership-type were reviewed summarizing focus
(antecedent or consequence), research design, moderators and the abuse impact model used. The impact models were defined as follows:
Table 3: Abuse impact models
Model Definition
Direct Abuse towards employees directly reporting
to an individual manager 0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
Abusive Leadership Articles Citations by Year
9
Multi-level Abuse with effect at three levels of an
organization (eg. director -> manager -> employee)
Organization-level Abuse cited as having a cultural or universal impact for an organization (eg. France Telecom)
From the 87, only 55 results contained empirical leadership or supervision data specific to top-down abuse. These 55 were reviewed for patterns and results recorded in Table 6. From the table, the initially reviewed 127 articles were then used to support and strengthen concepts and patterns with supporting evidence for the discussion.
10 4.0 Results
From the initial articles reviewed, it was clear that leadership-type and leadership styles were overwhelmingly contrasted (or compared) with top-down abuse in the workplace in a way terms like abusive supervision were not, although abusive supervision appeared the most frequently in empirical research. This created ambiguity and difficulty in creating definitional framework for top-down abuse. Articles that explicitly characterized leadership-type in their discussion of abusive leadership resulted in 198 mentions of leadership-type (eg.
transformational, autocratic) in 93 of the 127 articles reviewed (73.22%). Overall, the most mentioned leadership-type was “ethical leadership” in these specific articles with 33 explicit mentions (25.98%). This was followed closely by “transformational leadership” with 29 mentions (22.83%), unethical leadership with 13 mentions (10.23%) and followed by servant, destructive and authoritarian 11 mentions each (8.66%) (see Table 3; Appendix D).
It was expected that certain leadership types (eg. ethical), would appear as frequently in literature as their clear counterpart (eg. unethical). This however was found to be incorrect as often, different combinations of “bad” or “good” leadership were contrasted with a variety of paradigms or, completely new leadership-types were created in order to accommodate for those behaviours or characteristics that did not fit the mould (eg. paternalistic, pseudo-transformational and personalized charismatic). It was mostly consistent however, that certain types were deemed “good” and others were deemed “bad” with only three main exceptions: charismatic, autocratic and authoritarian.
The three leadership-types of charismatic, autocratic and authoritarian most frequently appeared in both positive and negative contexts when inter-cultural contexts were the center of discussion. Many articles stereotyped without data and therefore, we often saw charismatic portrayed as a “good” leadership style and autocratic/authoritarian as a “bad” leadership-style inherently although this was not reflected at all in the empirical research. Kim, Beehr and Prewitt (2018), make a case for both charismatic and autocratic leadership styles in a positive context where organizations, or countries, seem to present a high power distance structure (p. 262). Using another new concept - empowering leadership - to describe leadership that empowers employees, the authors dissect the complex cultural relationship these two leadership types have beyond their more common stereotyped concepts of being “good” or “bad” for leaders and followers. Duan, Bao, Huang and Brinsfield (2018) also reference high power distance structures in their article on employee silence in China echoing the work from Kim, Beehr and Prewitt (2018). In their work, they found those who did not subscribe to traditional Chinese values had lower satisfaction with authoritarian leaders than those who preferred the traditional high power distance structure of China (Duan, Bao, Huang, & Brinsfield, 2018, p. 64).
Other cross-cultural studies, such as Yoshina, Sendjaya, Hirst and Cooper (2014) assume autocratic culture to be negative, placing it in opposition to leadership-types deemed more positive, such as servant leadership (p. 1402). Xhang, Tsui and Wang (2011) however, return to support this concept of authoritarianism being positive in the right cultural climate – they note that while there is body of evidence that supports negative consequences of authoritarianism, those with traditional Chinese values seem to be less impacted by this leadership-type as their perceptions of injustice (p. 859). Kiazad, Restubog, Zagenczykm Kieqitz and Tang (2010)
11 further agree in their study of authoritarian leadership as displayed through Machiavellian
behaviour which they note is part of authoritarian leadership in lieu of a leadership type itself (p. 517). They noted that while they predicted Machiavellianism would be perceived as abusive, their results showed a more “nuanced view” for example, certain Machiavellian/authoritarian qualities can lead to one being more charismatic (Kiazad, Restubog, Zagenczyk, Kieqitz, & Tang, 2010, pp. 517, 513). Examples from Russia further mix the findings according to
Balabanova, Rebrov and Koveshnikov (2018) again due to a culture of high power distance. The researchers find Russian leaders need to conduct themselves as authoritarian in order to not be perceived as “weak or lacking confidence” (Balabanova, Rebrov, & Koveshnikov, 2018, p. 60).
Table 4: “Leadership Type” in Reviewed Literature
(APPENDIX D) Of empirical studies reviewed (n=55, Table 6), the data captured revealed that most frequently, articles use the term “Abusive Supervision” (n= 31, Table 5), although, there was a high occurrence of this term being used while citing Tepper (2007). When referring to
leadership, “Destructive leadership” (n= 13, Table 5) was preferred over the concept of “abusive leadership” (n= 7, Table 5) which was used infrequently. Often, the term behaviour was used, and it was decided capture behaviour separately, even when used with “abusive leadership” or “destructive leadership” as this seemed to differentiate the more holistic “style” of top-down abuse from actions that could be isolated (even if they were not in particular instances).
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 Ethical Unethical Servant Charismatic Tyrannical Pseudo‐transformational Despotic Autocratic Personalized charismatic Paternalistic Visionary
"Leadership Type" in Reviewed Literature
12
Table 5: Terminology Used by Empirical Studies
(TABLE 6) It was also captured from the studies reviewed that 21 articles were found to have an antecedent focus aimed at finding or investigating common traits or predictors of abuse or destructive activities or leadership. 32 studies focused on consequences overall. The remaining four articles either focused on both antecedents and consequences (Schilling, 2009), focused on prevention tactics (Gonzalez-Morales, Kernan, Becker, & Eisenberger, 2018) or were
definitional in nature (e.g. Aasland, Skogstad, Notelaers, Nielsen, & Einarsen, 2010; Pelletier, 2010).
Of the scopes-impacts reviewed, 39 of the 55 (70.91%) studies focused on direct
interactions between employees and their direct supervisor (Table 6). Of the direct results, 27 of the studies made use of modifiers that varied from power distance orientation (eg. Duan, Bao, Huang, & Brinsfield, 2018; Lian, Ferris, & Brown, 2012) to the supervisor’s organizational embodiment (Shoss, Eisenberger, Restubog, & Zagenczyk, 2013). Of the articles reviewed, geographically, nine included samples focused in Asia (primarily China), eight used samples from Europe and one presented results from Australia. Only one article identified Canadian participants (Barling, Christie, & Turner, 2008). Overall, 16 of the articles focused on the antecedents of abuse while 20 articles aimed at identifying consequences. Three articles did not have a particular focus.
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
Terminology Use by Empirical Studies
13
Table 6: Empirical Studies with a focus on a Direct Reporting Relationship
Study Focus Research Design Direct Report Moderators
Aasland, Skogstad, Notelears, Nielsen & Einarsen (2010) Focus on neither consequence or antecedent – definitional focus 2539 surveyed Norwegian Central Employee Registrants destructive leadership; tyrannical leadership, abusive supervision; derailed leadership; laissez-faire leadership Andreoli & Lefkowitz (2009) Antecedents of employee misconduct including unethical employee behaviour 145 government, non-profit and for-profit employed individuals abusive or intimidating behavior (p. 310); organizational misbehaviour (p. 310) Organizational ethical compliance Barling, Akers & Beiko (2018) Consequence focus on how surgeons’ leadership effect team performance 5 observers reviewed 150 medical operations of varying context in hospital operating rooms abusive supervision; over-controlling leadership behaviours, destructive leadership; passive leadership; “bad” leaders (p. 16) Context Barling, Christie & Turner (2008) Consequence focus on employee effects of pseudo-transformational leadership 611 survey respondents from senior managers having attended a Canadian business school pseudo-transformational; abusive supervision; unethical leadership Idealized influence
Boddy (2014) Antecedent focus on Psychopathy, Consequence focus on employee well-being 304 survey respondents in the U.K. abusive supervision and bullying (p. 108); abusive forms of leadership (p. 108); toxic leadership (p. 117) Gender
Braun & Peus
(2018) Consequence focus on employee perception of supervisor mediated by Correlational field study with 121 participants and an experimental study with 154 abusive supervision; “leadership reduces negative impact” (p. 877)
14 Authentic Leadership participants in Germany Carlson, Ferguson, Hunter & Whitten (2012) Antecedent focus on if burnout from abusive supervision and resulting surface acting lead to work-family conflict and family-work conflict 328 varied internet sourced participants.
abusive supervision Surface Acting from Burnout
Chi, Chen, Huang & Chen (2018) Consequence focus on employee customer service (specifically service sabotage) 186 employee-supervisor pairs from service industries in Taiwan
abusive supervision Perceived
Supervisor power De Clercq, Haq, Raja, Azeem & Mahmud (2018) Consequence focus on Islamic work ethic to employee helping behaviours 283 surveys of working individuals from financial, manufacturing and educational industries in Pakistan destructive leadership; despotic leadership; abusive supervision; dark-side of leadership; tyrannical leadership Despotic leadership Duan, Bao, Huang & Brinsfield (2018) Antecedent focus on authoritarian leadership style with a consequence of employee silence behaviour 324 employees in 16 public manufacturing firms in China
abusive supervision Power distance orientation
Fast, Burris & Bartel (2014) Antecedent focus on leader’s aversion to employee contributions to the workplace (voice) Two-part study: 1) 41 managers matched with 148 employees at an oil and gas company 2) Lab-controlled experiment with 131 participants
15 Glaso, Skogstad, Notelaers & Einarsen (2018) Antecedent focus on how emotional experience mediate employee perceptions of leadership behaviour 312 employee survey using a cross-sectional sample tyrannical leadership behavior, destructive leadership Gonzalez-Morales, Becker, Kernan & Eisenberger (2018) Experimental focus reflecting prevention 23 supervisors at 4 restaurants, and 449 employees (with 241 in a control group)
abusive Supervision Supportive supervisor training Greenbaum, Hill, Mawritz & Quade (2017) Antecedent focus predicting unethical behaviour 175 matched focal employee,
supervisor and co-worker triads from a business
administration program
abusive supervision, Machiavellianism trait, unethical trait
Abusive Supervision
Johnson, Venus, Lanaj, Chang, & Mao (2012) Antecedent focus on leader identity (collective, relational and individual) and the consequences of transformational, considerate and abusive behaviour leading to perceived effectiveness Three-wave survey with 53 high-level managers in a variety of industries participating with employees abusive leadership; abusive behaviour(s); destructive leadership behaviour; Identity levels Kiazad, Restubog, Zagenczyk, Kiewitz & Tang (2010) Antecedents of perceiving abusive behaviour including supervisor personality/leader ship behaviour and employee organization-based self-esteem. Two studies: 1) 92 supervisor-subordinate dyads of varied profession in Australia 2) 200 supervisor-subordinate dyads from financial institutions in Australia abusive supervision, authoritarian leadership behaviour, Machiavellianism
16 Koppe, Kammerhoff & Schutz (2018) Antecedents of exhaustion of leader and the Consequences of employee health
Online study based in Germany. Two waves with 106 indivduals with leaders paired with one or two employees abusive supervision, abusive leadership behaviour (p. 300), destructive leadership behavior (p. 305) Lange, Bormann & Rowold (2018) Consequence focus on leadership behaviour (destructive/transf ormational) Two-source survey of 60 teams destructive leadership, abusive supervision Mindfulness
Lian, Ferris & Brown (2012) Consequence focus concerned with subordinate interpersonal deviance
Two surveys with 297, and 268 respondents over a variety of
professions
abusive supervision Power distance orientation Liu, Fuller, Hester, Bennett & Dickerson (2018) Consequences of authentic leadership on employee behaviour 500 health organization employees with cross-sectional surveys abusive supervision; supervisor aggression Workplace gender ratio
Lu, Zhang &
Jia (2018) Consequence focus on employee emotions when servant leadership is used 305 employees from 25 private food production companies in China abusive supervision, “negative leadership” (p. 8) Trust Martinko, Harvey, Sikora & Douglas (2013) Antecedent focus on employee attribution style and perceptions of abusive behaviour. 433 employees recruited via a undergraduate management course abusive supervision Mesdaghinia, Rawat & Nadavulakere (2018) Consequence focus on bottom-line mentality and the unethical behaviours of employees (unethical pro-leader behaviours) and turnover 153 varied profession employees in the USA abusive supervision; leader bottom-line mentality Moral identity
17 Nauman,
Fatima & Haq (2018) Consequence focus on employee family life Time-lagged study of 224 book sellers in the publishing industry destructive leadership; despotic leadership Subordinate anxiety Nevicka, De Hoogh, Den Hartog & Belschak (2018) Antecedents of employee perceptions of abusive behaviour measuring leader narcissism Two studies: 1) 85 leaders and 128 follower field study in a variety of industries 2)177 leader-follower dyads from Business school contacts. Both studies based in the Netherlands. abusive supervision; abusive leadership; abusive or destructive behaviour; destructive leaders Self-esteem Otto, Thomson & Rigotti (2018) Consequence focus on dark leadership towards restructuring efforts 673 employees in the German finance sector destructive leadership; abusive supervision; dark leadership; abusive leadership; negative leadership Leadership behaviour
Pelletier (2010) Definitional focus on behavioural dimensions of leader toxicity 269 University student respondents to a survey harmful leadership, toxic leader behaviors; toxic leadership; destructive leadership; bullying; abusive leadership; tyrannical leadership
Peng, Wang & Chen (2018) Consequence focus on team creativity Six manufacturing, IT, and architectural companies in South China abusive supervision, negative leadership (p.10) Task interdependence Pundt & Schwarzbeck (2018) Antecedent focus on supervisor irritation Used measure of transformational leadership as distractors but did not analyse. 96 leader-follower dyads participants from German private organizations
abusive Supervision Self-control capacity; External monitoring
18 Leader self-control can prevent abusive supervision Pynnonen & Takala (2018) Antecedent focus aiming to identify the appearance of management-by-fear during employee co-operation negotiations. Review of media texts and releases over the period of 1 year in Finland from a management-by-fear; “bad” leadership (p. 167); destructive leadership; negative leadership; unethical leadership Rafferty & Restubog (2011) Consequence focus on employee organizational citizenship 175 employee-supervisor dyads in the Philippines abusive supervision; destructive leadership Robertson, Dionisi & Barling (2018) Antecedent focus on leader attachment orientation and social self-efficacy 114 leader-subordinate dyads abusive supervision, destructive leadership Shoss, Restubog, Eisenberger & Zagenczyk (2013) Consequence focus on low perceived organizational support based on direct relationship with supervisor 3 samples, with samples from 148 employee-supervisor dyads, 527 full-time working professionals and 430 financial organization employees in the Philippines
abusive supervision Supervisor’s organizational embodiment
Starratt &
Grandy (2010) Consequence focus of abusive on young workers 30 self-identifying workers who identified having a “bad boss” bad leadership; abusive leadership; abusive supervision Motivations and sensemaking processes Thomas & Burke (2009) Consequence focus of vertical violence on junior nurse anger and
221 junior nursing students surveyed over a period of 4 years
19 perceptions of injustice Tripathi & Ghosh (2018) Consequence focus on employees perceived stress and health 165 employees from three public organizations (petrochemical and education) harsh influence tactics, negative sanctions Gender Walsh, Lee, Jensen, McGonagle & Samnani (2018) Antecedent focus on positive leadership (charismatic and ethical leadership) relating to workplace incivility
Two field studies: 1) 342 employee co-worker dyads, 2) 118 employees and 112 supervisors workplace incivility; “dark side of leadership” (p. 496), abusive supervision; negative leader behaviours Perceived norms of respect
Wu, Peng, & Estay (2018) Consequence focus on employee silence 82 leader and 318 employee survey samples from Chinese manufacturing firms destructive leadership Yam, Christian, Wei, Liao & Nai (2018) Consequence focus of leader humour on employees 215 participants enrolled in a part-time MBA program in China
“leader aggressive
humor” (p. 349) Leader aggressive humour
Eight studies (14.55%) identified fell into the organizational definition and the results appear in Table 7. Although, it should be noted that a limitation in this research was that differentiation between the multi-level and organizational categories were often blurred and therefore single researcher judgement was used in their categorization. From the 8 results, only one did not use a moderator in their research although there was no pattern in the results. Of the organization-level results, only four used population samples from Asia, hwoever, one article (Pellegrini, Scandura & Jayaraman, 2010), also used a sample population from North America as well. Shir-Rosenfield & Stoyan (2018) also used a population from Latin America, which was unique to all articles.
Table 7: Empirical Studies with a focus on Organization-level relationships
Study Focus Research Design Organization Moderators
Byun, Karau, Dai & Lee (2018)
Consequence focus 224 leader-employee dyads from South Korea
“Abusive Supervision Leadership” (p. 47) Self-enhancement motives
20 Trickle-down effect
from the corporate leadership
Leung (2008) Consequence focus on employee in-role and extra-role behaviours. 109 responses to questionnaire at a Hong-Kong trading company.
low-levels of ethics Employee loyalty
Nayir, Rehg
& Asa (2018) Consequence focus on employee whistleblowing
327 private sector and 405 public sector employees
abusive actions,
unethical conduct Sector; Idealism
Pellegrini, Scandura & Jayaraman (2010) Consequence focus on employee attitudes and job satisfaction Comparative survey of 215 individuals from America and 207 from India “Leadership less likely to be abusive” (p. 414); “abusive supervision” (p. 414) Paternalistic Leadership Schilling (2009) Both antecedents and consequence of employee feelings and attitudes Interviews with 42 managers regarding concepts of negative leadership negative leadership, destructive leadership, abusive supervision, ineffective leadership Personal characteristics Schuh, Quaquebeke, Keck, Goritz, Cremer & Xin (2018) Consequence focus monitoring employee organizational trust Time-lagged study of 672 employees from a variety of professions leadership behaviours (p. 997), undesirable behaviours (p. 996), notes behaviours considered abusive, but does not call them abusive Shair-Rosenfield & Stoyan (2018) Antecedent of distinct use of executive authority focused on Gender Four male-female political leader pairs over 14 years in Latin America abusive executives, “hyperpresidentialis m” (p. 590) Approval ratings Wang, Tsui & Xin (2011) Consequence focus on employee attitudes and performance
125 firms in China abusive supervision and leadership behaviour (p. 102) Leadership task-focused or relationship focused behaviour
21 Multi-level studies also occurred eight times (14.55%) and the results appear in Table 8. From these results, three articles had an antecendent focus and five had a consequence focus. Two results used a European population (Balabanova, Rebrov & Koveshnikov, 2018; Nevicka, VanVianen, De Hoogh & Voorn, 2018) and only one used a sample from Asia (the Philippines: Wang, Restubog, Shao, Lu & Kleef, 2018). Again there were no patterns in the moderators, but again, only one article did not use a moderator in their research.
Table 8: Empirical Studies with a focus on Multi-level Reporting Relationships
Study Focus Research Design Multi-level Moderators
Balabanova, Rebrov & Koveshnikov (2018)
Antecedent focus on
leadership style 344 interactions from 26 privately owned organizations in Russia ‘dark side’ of transformational leadership (p. 61); High/low power distance Lee (2018) Antecedent of passive leadership related to sexually harassing behaviour in the organization 237 surveys from a variety of organizations in the U.S. recruited through a data firm
abusive supervision; abusive or
destructive
leadership (p. 604)
Liu, Liao & Loi (2012) Consequence focus on employee creativity 762 team members from 108 teams under 22 departments in a U.S. automotive company
abusive supervision Performance promotion motives; Injury initiation motives Mawritz, Mayer, Hoobler, Wayne and Morinova (2012) Consequence focus where employees express interpersonal deviance 1423 employee responses and 295 supervisor responses, varied survey participants abusive management behaviour (p. 326) Hostile climate Nevicka, Van Vianen, De Hoogh & Voorn (2018) Consequence focus on toxic behaviour (defined as narcissistic) in employee attitudes and overall absenteeism 175 retail store employees and multi-level leaders in the Netherlands abusive leadership; destructive leadership styles (p. 706) Leader visibility
22 Tu, Bono &
Shum (2018)
Antecedent focus suggesting when leaders see modelled abusive behaviour leading to success, they are more likely to exhibit this behaviour 93 teams (93 leader participants and 205 team members) abusive leadership behaviors; abusive leadership; abusive behaviours; abusive supervision Ideal leadership self-concepts; Performance Turel & Gaudioso (2018) Consequence focus of technostressors on employee distress 175 Information Technology employees in the U.S. “leadership climate is negative” (p. 312); Hostile supervisor Competitive climate Wang, Restubog, Shao, Lu & Kleef (2018) Consequence focus on employee emotional labour Three studies: 1) lab experiment with 125 participants; 2) 165 from a variety of professions, 3) 222 students from business degree programs at a Philippine University,
follower and upper manager triads
abusive supervision Integrity-based or
competence-based violations
The systematic review also captured results that ended up not serving in the creation of the framework in hopes of determining additional patterns. It was discovered that samples were dominantly drawn from private industry, or manufacturing/industrial industries that were publically owned (Table 6). Only one article had a focus on the differences between the private and public sector with a focus on whistleblowing (Nayir, Rehg, & Asa, 2018). As noted above, while moderators were recorded, there was no discernable patterns found.
23 5.0 Discussion and Analysis
This next section reviews several patterns found in the terminology used in research rand the scope-impacts as they appeared. The results of the systematic review confirmed beyond a doubt that terminology is incredibly problematic – especially when determining the scope-impact of the abuse and the types of behaviours or constructs that contribute to leadership. Top-down abuse in workplaces struggle to define itself despite positive and effective contributions to the literature and it appears that few contributions have been made towards how the highest levels of leadership impact the overall organization in an abusive way.
5.1 Supervision, Leadership, Destructive, and Abusive
Tepper’s 2007 definition of abusive supervision (as anticipated) was cited the most frequently where abusive supervision is mentioned and for many, is used as Tepper intended. For example Martinko, Harvey, Sikora and Douglas (2011) use the definition as a framework for their study aimed specifically at perceptions and attribution styles (pg. 752). Greenbaum et. al (2018) also directly cite this definition in their academic work. In an approach different than Martinko et al (2011), they note abusive supervision and supervisor undermining as a component of unethical leadership (Greenbaum, Mawritz, Bonner, & Webster, 2018, pp. 526-527).
Greenbaum et al (2018) argue that undermining and abusive supervision are specific in focus and not broad, and that abusive supervision itself is a behaviour (2018, p. 527).
However, some articles flipped frequently between abusive supervision, and other terms. For example, Tu, Bono and Shum (2018), who have a multi-level focus, refer to Tepper’s (2007) constructs but use the term abusive leadership behaviours (eg. p. 694), abusive supervision (eg. p. 689) and supervision/leadership interchangeably. Barling (2018), simply defines abusive supervision by “the extent to which supervisors engage in ongoing displays of verbal and non-verbal (non-physical hostility)” citing work from Tepper earlier in his career that did not define abusive supervision so specifically or on the basis of employee perceptions (p. 214).
Leadership was equally problematic and did not appear with a transparent academic structure like abusive supervision did. The term leadership could appear with any number of prenominal descriptors with destructive leadership clearly providing one of the most overarching terms for describing top-down workplace abuse. For example, destructive leadership appeared to encompass the largest amount of abusive categories being defined broadly by statements such as “the cognitive basis of this abuse of power” (Robertson & Dionisi, 2018, p. 215), and “the
systematic and repeated behaviour by a leader, supervisor, or manager that violates the legitimate interest of the organisation by undermining and/or sabotaging the organisation’s goals, tasks, resources, and effectiveness and/or motivation, well-being or job satisfaction of subordinates” (Pelletier, 2010, p. 375).
Common definitions for destructive leadership, again, did not always follow common threads. Krasikova, Green and LeBreton (2013), in their study on destructive leadership, discuss how leaders will use more participatory strategies when they deem followers will respond to supporting them in achieving their goals, and more autocratic/tyrannical approaches when they believe subordinates are blocking them from their goals (p. 1317). In this way, Krasikova et. al
24 (2013) suggest destructive leadership as a behaviour that individuals can come and go from (ie. the leader is not always abusive, destructive or bad). The polarity of good and bad behaviour is again repeated in Scyns and Schilling (2010) who use ethical leadership to contrast destructive leadership in a similar way (pp. 138-139).
5.2 Compare and contrast/polarized definition techniques
Concepts of polarized definitions appeared throughout the initial review. While ethical and unethical leadership were the most clearly defined opposites, the pairing with the most deliberate use was certainly the idea of transformational and pseudo-transformational leadership represented in the empirical research conducted by Barling, Christie and Turner (2008) . It should be noted that this is likely because of the trending focus on transformational leadership in current leadership literature overall.
The academic defining of transformational leadership, at times, acted as an exercise in whatever would fit the research best to represent a leadership-type that could “transform” a negative environment to a more positive one. Wang, Tsui and Xin note that transformational leaders inspire confidence and make followers feel good (Wang, Tsui, & Xin, 2011, p. 93). Balabanova, Rebrov and Koveshnikov (2018) tell us that in high power cultures,
authoritarianism is an important part of transformational leadership as it encourages intrinsic motivations in staff (p. 60). Montano, Reeske, Franke and Huffmeier (2017) state that
transformational leadership is the complete transcendence from one’s own needs and wants to support followers (p. 339). This pattern of diverse definition continued with Glaso, Skogstad, Notelaers and Einarsen (2018) focus on considerate leadership, a construct they create as a “central part of transformational leadership” in binary opposition to tyrannical leadership which is deemed leadership that victimizes the subordinate (p. 52). Bruan and Paus (2018) indicate that transformational leadership can contribute to more work-family harmony than abusive leadership (p. 877) and consider transformational leadership to overlap with authentic and ethical leadership types in opposition to the abusive leadership “type” (p. 889). Hu et. al (2018) notes the
differences between transformational and transactional leadership styles noting that transactional leadership is task driven and focused on targets and the rewards of achieving them, where
transformational leadership focuses on follower needs and the collective mission, to inspire, influence and motivate (p. 42).
Other indicators that appeared in the literature showed that transformational qualities were not always pure in their ability to combat abusive leadership. This is where the concept of pseudo-transformational appears. Zhang, Tsui and Wang (2011) note that at times, it seems transformational leaders may have a self-interested motive (p. 859). They discuss that the concept of pseudo-transformational leadership is aimed to describe those leaders whose “outward behaviors appear to focus on the group’s well-being but their internal desires are for satisfying their own interests” and they compare these pseudo-transformational leaders as similar to authoritarian leaders with the overall intention that authoritarian leadership is inherently negative although there is no evidence to suggest this is always true (Zhang, Tsui, & Wang, 2011, p. 859). Schilling (2009) also touches on how self-interested behaviour lead to the creation of concepts of leadership such as personalized-charismatic leadership or pseudo-transformational leadership – noting that these types are viewed negatively in their inability to focus on the
25 motive towards self-interest (pg. 105, 106).Barling, Christie and Turner (2008), as noted above, define pseudo-transformational as “unethical leadership” (p. 851).
The concepts of both pseudo-transformational and personalized charismatic both embody a type of self-interested variable as a characteristic that defines when good, quality charismatic leadership (eg. socialized charismatic) turns dark and selfish (eg. personalized charismatic leadership). Described by Aaland, Skogstad, Notelaers, Nielsen and Einarsen (2010, p. 439), Barling, Christie and Turner (2008, p. 852) and Schilling (2009, p. 105), the main feature of socialized and personalized charismatic leadership is that in lieu of creating a contrasting leadership-type to be framed against a positively stereotyped leadership style, the less set
stereotype for charismatic leadership allowed to the singular leadership-type to instead be split in two to explain not only how the type could turn bad, but also, how the leadership-type might be used in a positive context as well.
5.3 Ethical and unethical concepts in the literature
It was surprising how infrequently unethical leadership occurred in our results given the proliferation of “Ethical” leadership-type in our initial results and the impact the 2005 work of Brown, Treviño and Harrison which appeared in this review as the most highly cited in the last 20 years with 2907 citations noted in the database. However, unethical leadership was a term that had the most consistent representation from the empirical studies - most prominently in how it related to ethical leadership. From the 32 mentions of Ethical leadership, many defined using Treviño directly for example Robin (2009), Stouten, et al. (2010), Den Hartog and Belschak (2012), Sanders, Wisse, Van Yperen and Rus (2018), and of course, Treviño herself (Brown & Treviño, 2014) with few finding exception to create another model (for example Melé (2009) whom took a more classic approach drawing from Aristotle and virtue-ethics (p. 227)). However, a fully review of the definition of ethical leadership from the 2005 article notes that ethical leadership is a paradigm that extracts from the already developed paradigms of transformational and charismatic leadership (Brown, Treviño, & Harrison, 2005, p. 117). While ethical leadership attempts to streamline the concepts of good and bad leadership, in fact, the concept additionally complicates that definitions by which good and bad leadership can be studied.
Reviewing the larger sample of 127 articles, only 13 directly referred to unethical
leadership in lieu of the 33 times that Ethical leadership is mentioned. It is important to note that many times in our research, the term of unethical was available, but not used as a construct or in polarized effect to the “ethical” paradigm, and in these cases, was not recorded as a “leadership type” but rather viewed more as a term or behaviour of another construct. An example of this is Valentine, Fleischman, and Godkin (2018), where the researchers explored the characteristics that can lead to unethical behaviour, but did not refer to “unethical” in a way that could be considered a construct or paradigm – rather, the word is used to describe values that are negative in the same way good or bad might be used (pp. 135-136). Another example being Barling, Christie and Turner (2008) who argue ethics as a component of transformational leadership and unethical behaviour as a component of pseudo-transformational leadership (p. 851-852).
Where unethical was used as a leadership-type, it often surfaced in response to finding moderating factors for avoiding unethical practice in contrast to ethical practice – which was consistent with the concept of behaviour (ie. abusive behaviours, destructive behaviours, etc).
26 Some studies, such as Byun, Karau, Dai and Lee (2018), used research that showed abusive behaviours spread and the authors created their own trickle-down review of how ethical, or positive, behaviour can have similar effects (p. 44). Another study by Greenbaum, Mawritz, Bonner, Webster and Kim (2018) uses unethical supervision as the paradigm from which to focus on supervisor expediency as a behaviour attempting to see where it fits categorically within the ethical or unethical leadership frame (p. 525). It was found that an employee’s unethical tolerance acts as a mediator of the trickle-down effect of the behaviours of unethical leadership and note that there is value in further review of non-interpersonal forms of unethical leadership due to their results (Greenbaum, Mawritz, Bonner, & Webster, 2018, p. 534). Mesdaghinia et. al. (2018) also looks at ethical and unethical behaviour in a study to avoid employee turnover. Specifically looking at business leaders, the researchers work to associate bottom-line mentality as an extension of unethical behaviour and explore how an employee’s moral identify can result in behaviour from employees in either the ethical or unethical categories, all within the context of if an employee would consider quitting (p. 4-6). This discovery solidified in the research that the concept of abusive/destructive/unethical behaviour was certainly distinct from leadership in that behaviour could appear in singular form, but leadership required repetition.
5.4 The self-interest variable
The concept of self-interest emerges so frequently in the literature that our research led to an understanding that of all abusive or destructive behaviours or leadership styles, a common variable exists in the form of self-interest. Sanders et. al (2018) explores the concept of this variable directly in their article “On Ethically Solvent Leaders: The Role of Pride and Moral Identity in Predicting Leader Ethical Behavior” by reviewing the concepts of both hubris and pride (pp. 632-633). Introducing the article with the corporate scandals of Enron and Olympus, they suggest the leader’s ethics “tipped towards egoism at the expense of altruism” and find that there is a correlation between motivations to act selflessly and more moral (good) leadership (Sanders, Wisse, Van Yperen, & Rus, 2018, pp. 631, 636). Peng, Wang and Chen (2018) conduct qualitative research on how self-serving leadership can hinder the creativity of subordinates by providing an environment where individuals are fearful of sharing their knowledge and
experience with others (p.2). Mesdaghinia, Rawat and Nadavulakere (2018), investigate organizational turnover due to bad leadership finding leaders that focus on the “bottom-line mentality” tend to be motivated by creating the appearance of their own effective leadership - in lieu of actions that actually increase effectiveness - which aligns with self-serving reasons such as their career goals or obtaining financial incentive (pp. 2, 8). Further to this, Andreoli and Lefkowitz (2009) measure both morality and ethics in their study of the antecedents of misconduct in organizations, and suggest that egoistic self-aggrandizement or greed can be motivations for antisocial or harmful acts in organizations (p. 310).
Articles that appeared in our initial results also focused on altruism and other definitions of rejecting self-interest in order to demonstrate non-abusive leadership. Leung (2008), contends altruism is one of two behaviours that leaders can use to contribute to their organization in order to be effective (p. 43). It is noted that when managers display behaviour that supports the
employee and their needs, the employees of that leader can then “reciprocate with good
27 concept. They argue that the idea of fairness is required for a leader to be considered ethical, and within “fairness”, there is a concept of altruistic behaviour that allows a leader to transcend the personal achievement component of conscientious leadership in order to avoid acting on
egotistical motivates (p. 360). In some of the studies reviewed, other key terms used to describe self-interested behaviour as a key variable in abusive leadership were also observed. For
example, Yam, Fehr, Burch, Zhang and Gray (2018) note that self-interested behaviour can be detected from displaying, or not displaying interpersonal citizenship behaviour (p. 3). Leung (2008, p. 43), Nevicka, De Hoogh, Den Hartog and Belschak (2018, p. 361) and Sanders, Wisse, Van Yperen and Rus (2018, p. 631) all refer to altruistic behaviours as the element that can elevate leadership from what can be defined as abusive to effective.
Other articles seek to redefine traditional leadership paradigms to explain negative leadership when self-interest is present. For example, Zhang, Tsui and Wang (2011) consider a defining factor of transformational leadership the ability to “forgo self-interest” noting that when transformational leaders do display more selfish behaviour, it is not truly transformational, but instead pseudo-transformational leadership (p. 859). Barling, Christie and Turner (2008) also agree stating that the existence of pseudo-transformational leadership displays in some
individuals as egotistical/self-serving behaviours and in others, presents as inconsistent altruistic values (p. 852). This concept is also echoed by Schilling (2009) who explains social versus personalized charismatic leadership which provides a similar polarized effect to transformational and pseudo-transformational leadership, attempting to explain both the good and bad dimensions of charismatic leadership.
The concept of social versus personalized charismatic leadership, a social charismatic supports others where a personalized charismatic assumes egocentric behaviour (Aasland, Skogstad, Notelaers, Nielsen, & Einarsen, 2010; Schilling, 2009; Barling, Christie, & Turner, 2008). Self-interest (or personalized behaviour) in charismatic leadership is seen to increase unethical leadership when present (Schilling, 2009, p. 105). Schilling (2009) suggests that both the personalized charismatic and pseudo-transformational leaders strive specifically to
accomplish their own personal goals at the expense of those in their organization – the impression is that both self-esteem from followers and narcissism play a role in creating this negative leadership pathway (p. 105).
A few studies reviewed historical assessments of self-interest and how it relates to abusive leadership. For example, in an interesting article, Teena Gabrielson (2009) explored the leadership of former United States president James Madison. She indicates that Madison was noted to have held the belief that oppression and abuse of power (in governors) was more possible when the territory of their influence was larger (Gabrielson, 2009, p. 439). Gabrielson (2009) notes that “if the government is not anchored by the people’s will, the self-interested will circumvent or appropriate the constitutional machinery for their own purposes” (p. 439). Large populations make it difficult for individuals to see if they are part of a majority and assess if their leader is properly representing them (p. 439). In assessment, this appeared to be a take on how leaders in the public sector could fall into construct of petty tyranny using power for selfish and vindictive reasons.
28 Self-interest as a dependent variable of abusive or destructive behaviour was also proven through praise of specific leadership-types deemed “selfless”. The most prominent example being servant leadership which is defined by Newman, Schwarz, Cooper and Sendjaya (2017) as “a leadership approach by which leaders set aside their self-interest and altruistically work for the benefit of their followers” (p. 49). Yang, Zhang, Kwan and Chen (2018) suggest that with the genuine prioritizing of employees over the organization or self, a servant leader (who is the embodiment of this selflessness) can support the self-esteem of the employees creating improved results for organizations (pp. 596-597). Their research goes on to show that servant leadership can go on to mitigate another effect of abusive supervision by increasing the well-being of not only the employee, but their family members (Yang, Zhang, Kwan, & Chen, 2018, p. 601). Lapointe and Vandenberghe (2018) echo this point noting servant leadership is the act of serving ones subordinates more so than one’s self or one’s organization (pp. 99-100). Contrasting servant leadership against authoritarian, it is perceived that the selfless attitude of a servant leader helps employees feel indebted to the organization through the connection of their leader to the
organization and acts of selfless behaviour likewise, will trickle-down to make each individual employee affect change through the same types of selfless acts (Lapointe & Vandenberghe, 2018, p. 109).
Another example of the self-interested variable appeared in research on supervisor “self-control” in work completed by Pundt and Schwarzbeck in 2018. The authors found that when a supervisor exhibits more self-control they are deemed less abusive (Pundt & Schwarzbeck, 2018, p. 487). This particular research notes that when supervisors are truly annoyed and frustrated, the ability to control their own impulse to act “authentically” can act to moderate abusive behaviour (Pundt & Schwarzbeck, 2018, p. 487). This feature shows supervisors withholding their own comfort and self-interest for the good of either the organization or the employee and is yet another example of the removal of self-interest resulting in less abusive behaviour.
Through the research, one item that provided a challenge to the theory of the self-interested variable was the concept of the laissez-faire leadership-type. Barling, Christie and Turner (2008) suggest that laissez-faire leaders lack egotistical motives, but their indifference creates a poor environment for employees (p. 853). However, the definition provided by Aasland et. al (2010) suggests that laissez-faire leadership is avoidant leadership where an individual “occupies the leadership position, but in practice has abdicated the responsibilities and duties assigned to him or her” (p. 441). This passivity and absence could be argued to be self-interested in that the work ethic or will to support either the organization or the employee is absent due to a personal preference to not engage. In this way, while the concept of self-interest in laissez-faire leadership remains to be explored, a hypothesis can be constructed that laissez-faire leaders, in an abusive context, remain just as self-interested as those with more outward facing egotistical motivations.
Narcissism, also featured in the literature and was sometimes mentioned as a unique leadership type (eg. Nevicka, Van Vianen, De Hoogh, & Voorn, 2018). However, articles referred to narcissistic personality traits as a behaviour associated with abusive supervision (Schilling, 2009; Boddy, 2011; Krasikova, Green, & LeBreton, 2013). Nevicka et al (2018)
29 suggest that in certain situations the same charismatic characteristics that are associated with a “prototypical leader” such as charm and humour, are also the characteristics that can aid narcissistic leaders into positions of power over others (p. 423). In our initial review, many articles on narcissistic personality and leadership appeared, but it also seems these articles are not referenced often and this stream of workplace abuse is under appreciated in the larger scope of abusive leadership and abusive supervision literature.
With specific nod to the work by Clive Boddy on Corporate Psychopaths (2011, 2014), it appears in certain situations, there may be certain types of abusive or destructive behaviour best defined medically and not within the control of an organization, individual leader or employee. It may be important to consider that some behaviour comes from the physicality of mental illness and recognize the unique solutions (including medication) that can remedy abusive behaviour should mental health be a factor in abusive perceptions. Boddy (2011) notes that “psychopaths are people who, perhaps because of physical factors to do with abnormal brain connectivity and chemistry… have no conscience, few emotions, and an inability to have any feelings or empathy for other people” (p. 268) which exemplifies reason to isolate this as unique in that strategies for organizations to eliminate this type of behaviour would need to be completely different than situations where no mental illness occurs.
5.5 Scope-impact
The researcher was disappointed that so little work has been completed to recognize top-down abuse that has the potential to create organization-wide consequences in its impact. It appears that in the empirical research, supervisor-employee dyads are the most common experiment type with trickle-down and multi-level effects only recently making their way into the literature with articles that were recognized to be multi-level in the research typically being from the collection of publications from 2018. No pattern emerged from the multi-level or organizational data showing that certain terms were more likely to be used for broader impact than studies involving direct reports, and terms like “behaviours” appeared just as often in large scope data than in direct supervisor-employee data. However, this also proved a need for the contribution of a framework to support this work in the future.
Often, it was found when completing the systematic review that multi-level and organizational categorizations were incredibly subjective and the concept of organizational or cultural impact was hard to define. For example, in Byun, Karau, Dai and Lee (2018), it was elected that this particular article looking at a “three-level” examination of ethical leadership belonged in the organizational category due to the inclusion of “high level” leaders in the sample that have more organizational impact (p. 48). In contrast, a study like Mawritz, Mayer, Hoobler, Wayne and Marinova (2012), even though “hostile climate” is used throughout, the study focuses very specifically on supervisor-manager-employee triads in its sample (p. 335). This provided reasoning to categorize the sample in multi-level. Through these examples, and others, it became apparent that multi-level often meant “clearly defined hierarchy” whereas
organizational was more abstract.
The one feature of all multi-level and organizational studies that was observed was that no study captured the spirit of the populist media story-telling on abusive workplaces. Stories
