ABUSIVE LEADERSHIP BEHAVIOR EXPLAINED:
THE EFFECT OF LEADERS’ SELF-PERCEIVED INCOMPETENCE ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN POWER AND ABUSIVE LEADERSHIP
by
D. WIERSUM
University of Groningen Faculty of Economics and Business
ABSTRACT
This research examines the roles of power and self-perceived incompetence in relation to abusive leadership. Specifically, I argue that the relationship between power and abusive leadership is moderated by self-perceived incompetence, such that power only leads to abusive leadership behavior when leaders feel incompetent (versus competent). Fifty-three leaders and one hundred and thirty-two direct subordinates from various Dutch institutions and organizations participated in this study. Surprisingly, results did not support the proposed relationship. Instead, analysis revealed that power combined with high levels of self-perceived incompetence lead to decreased abusive leadership behavior. Implications for research on power and abusive leadership are discussed, the study’s limitations are identified, and directions for future research are suggested.
INTRODUCTION
How often does your boss talk down to you, tries to undermine your efforts to be successful, or just simply hurts your feelings? These are all prime examples of abusive leadership behavior displayed by leaders towards their subordinates. Employees in organizations often suffer from abusive behaviors expressed by their leaders towards them. Hogan, Raskin, and Fazzini (1990) found in a literature review on organization climate research (from the mid 1950’s to 1990) that up to 75 percent of all employees reported that the worst part of their job was their immediate leader.
Many scholars have dedicated time and effort to research the destructive consequences of abusive leadership behavior (Duffy, Ganster & Pagon, 2002; Duffy, Ganster, Shaw, Johnson & Pagon, 2006; Georgesen & Harris, 1998; Tepper, 2007). To date, however, relatively little research has been done to explain why and when leaders in positions of high power abuse their subordinates. This research aims to address this research gap by identifying under what circumstances leaders engage in abusive leadership behavior. Specifically, this research proposes that leaders who feel that they need to justify their position of power are associated with increased abusive leadership behavior and that this behavioral change occurs when leaders perceive themselves as lacking in competency to be in possession of power.
People with power are valued in our society. Power is defined as the amount of control one person possesses over another and the ability to administer rewards and punishments (Dépret & Fiske, 1993; Fiske, Morling, Stevens, 1996; Kipnis, Castell, Gergen & Mauch, 1976). Power influences the way people behave and interact with others (Keltner, Gruenfeld & Anderson, 2003). Leaders believe they can influence the outcomes of subordinates by using strong controlling means. These controlling means lead to subordinates changing their attitude or behavior. Therefore, leaders believe changes in targeted subordinates’ behavior are caused by their ability to influence them not by free choice of targeted subordinate (Kipnis et al., 1976). Research has shown that high power is associated with more reward rich environments and the freedom to pursue rewards (Keltner et al., 2003; Vries, 1991). People with power generally receive significantly more symbolic and material rewards (e.g., salary, authority, prestige and recognition) compared to others (Aquino & Douglas, 2003). In addition, being in a position of power forces leaders to judge subordinates (Goodwin, Gubin, Fiske & Yzerbyt, 2000).
Expectancies are not just set by surrounding people but also by leaders themselves (Biddle, 1986; Higgins, 1987). Increased power is associated with higher expectations about your abilities as a leader to be able to interact and influence subordinates (Biddle, 1986; Fast, 2009). Being in the possession of power and having the entitlement to be able to judge others can create a situation where leaders hold a position of power but can simultaneously have a feeling that he or she is not competent to skillfully judge, alter, or interact with subordinates in the environment (White, 1959). It is because of this of feeling incompetency that leaders want to show that their power is justified.
When leaders feel that their power is threatened they will undertake precautions to maintain their position of power and justify their possession of power (Aquino & Douglas, 2003; Scheepers & Ellemers, 2005). This is done from an egocentric point of view to defend their self-image and to justify their privileged access to resources (Galinsky, Gruenfeld & Magee, 2003; Harris & Schaubroeck, 1988; Kipnis et al., 1976). Leaders will abuse their subordinates to become more positive about themselves (Georgesen & Harris, 1998; Kipnis, 1972; Kipnis et al., 1976). By expressing abusive leadership behavior leaders attempt to increase social and psychological distance with the targeted subordinate (Kipnis et al., 1976). A clarification of such behavior can be found in social dominance theory (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999).
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
Abusive Leadership Behavior
Abusive leadership behavior displayed by leaders towards their subordinates is something that frequently occurs in organizations (Aasland, Skogstad, Notelaers, Nielsen & Einarsen, 2010; Hubert & van Veldhoven, 2001). Research conducted in The Netherlands by Hubert and van Veldhoven (2001) found that approximately twenty-three percent of the Dutch questioned employees indicated the prevalence of abusive leadership by their leaders towards them. In a similar study in Norway, Aasland and colleagues (2010), found that one third of the questioned employees had been the target of abusive leadership behavior within six month prior to the questioning.
While a variety of definitions of the term abusive leadership have been uttered, present research refers to abusive leadership behavior as a leader’s behavior intended to hinder, over time, the ability to establish and maintain positive interpersonal relationships with direct subordinates, as well as the display of sustained hostile verbal and nonverbal behavior towards subordinates, not including actual physical abuse (Duffy et al., 2002; Tepper, 2000). Most of the earlier research on the concept of abusive behavior was conducted in non-work domains (Rook, 1984; Vinokur & van Ryn, 1993). It was not until the beginning of this century that scholars started to specially look at human exchanges within the working domains. Vinokur, Price and Caplan (1996) first created a definition of the concept by including the following aspects of behavior towards a specific target; (1) behavior that indicates or displays negative effect such as anger or dislike, (2) a negative evaluation of the target in terms of attributes, action and efforts (criticism), and (3) actions that inhibits the attainment of instrumental goals. These elements are still very much acquainted to the definition used in the present research to define abusive leadership behavior.
consequences of abusive leadership (Duffy et al., 2002; Tepper, 2000; Tepper et al., 2006).
Considering these detrimental effects of abusive leadership behavior for subordinates, organizations and society as a whole, it is pivotal to become aware what factors lead to this kind of behavior. Earlier research found predictors that led to similar outcomes that can be qualified as abusive leadership behavior (Duffy et al., 2006; Tepper, 2007). Specifically, Tepper, Moss and Duffy (2011) found three predictors of abusive behavior: leader perceptions of deep-level dissimilarity, subordinate performance, and relationship conflict. In a different study Duffy, Shaw and Scott (2006) looked at the moderating role of self-esteem and neuroticism in relationship with abusive behavior and found that abusive behavior was stronger among groups and individuals high on self-esteem combined with neuroticism. Their findings proved that there are specific circumstances that lead to abusive behavior, which makes it relevant to look for other moderators that may predict abusive leadership behavior.
Abusive behavior can be expressed by various organizational perpetrators and exposed to different targets. Many scholars examine abusive behavior without identifying the perpetrator or the intended target. The influence of leaders in a supervising role on subordinates has been proven to be much stronger than the influence of co-worker or outsiders (Hershcovis & Barling, 2010). When leaders express abusive behavior towards subordinates, stronger adverse effects are measured than when other perpetrators would express the same types of behavior. Giving the destructive consequences of abusive leadership behavior and the great influence leaders have on their subordinates, it is important to understand when leaders display these types of behavior. This research explores the role of power in relation to abusive leadership behavior.
The Effects of Power
Before arguing how power might affect abusive leadership behavior, it is important to understand the literature and theories of power, especially the ones that touch upon the harmful effect of power possessed by leaders in relationships with subordinates. In order to predict why and when leaders with power display abusive behavior towards subordinates, it is necessary to clarify why and when leaders want to be in positions of high power in the first place.
dependency between two parties such that leaders with power control the outcomes of their subordinates (Magee & Galinsky 2008). With regards to the present research, the structural relationship between leader and subordinate is such that subordinates depend upon their leaders to obtain rewards or to get access to resources. Besides power being a social position where leaders can control resources and outcomes of subordinates, is power is also a psychological state, a perception of a leader’s ability to influence others (Anderson, John & Keltner, 2012; Fast, 2009; Galinsky et al., 2003). The experience of holding power can influence the effectiveness of leaders. The leaders own beliefs about their power build their actual influence over their subordinates (Anderson et al., 2012). Therefore, power is more than just a conceptual position but it also entails a psychological concept embedded in people’s minds (Chen, Lee-Chai & Bargh, 2001; Galinsky et al., 2003).
Power differences are prevalent in most, if not all, organizations. The majority of organizational structures display fewer people at the top of the organization than at the bottom (Magee & Galinsky, 2008). People in high power positions experience more freedom and less constrains from others (Magee & Galinsky, 2008). They are less dependent on others to control resources (Emerson, 1962), and are more often associated with reward rich environments (Aquino & Douglas, 2003; Keltner et al., 2003). These benefits make leaders both consciously and unconsciously reluctant to relinquish power (Vries, 1991). Earlier research suggests that leaders’ dependency on power is extremely high, such that suffering a loss of power leads to painful withdrawal symptoms (Vries, 1991). This would clarify why leaders desperately want to hang onto their power. To be in a position of power has an altering effect on leaders. Power transforms a person’s individual psychology such that the power-holder thinks and acts in ways that lead to the retention and acquisition of power (Magee & Galinsky, 2008; Vries, 1991). This motive is at least partially responsible for inferiority between people or within groups (Jost et al. 2004; Magee & Galinsky, 2008).
the study by Kipnis (1972) in which he experimentally examined the influences of power in a laboratory setting. The control of power appears to facilitate the development of a cognitive and perceptual system which serves to justify the use of power. That is, the individuals (i.e. university business students in a manipulated role as managers) with power thought less of their subordinates’ performance, viewed them as objects of manipulation, and expressed the desire to remain distanced from them on a social level.
Social Dominance Theory
A well know theoretical perspective which implications suggest why leaders with power want to diminish the efforts of subordinates is that of social dominance. Even though social dominance theory is mostly oriented towards explaining behavior occurring in group phenomena, its concept of legitimizing myths is also useful for generating predictions for individual-level behavior (Georgesen & Harris, 2006). Social dominance theory suggests a multiple-level explanation of social hierarchies, including individuals’ differences in social dominance orientation as well as evolved psychologies based on gender differences and also structural factors such as cultural ideologies and institutional practices (Pratto, Sidanius & Levin, 2006; Sidanius, Pratto, van Laar & Levin, 2004). People with high levels of power are motivated to maintain their privileged power positions and will adopt hierarchy-enhancing legitimizing myths to provide moral and intellectual justification for oppression and power differences. Hierarchy enhancing legitimizing myths are beliefs, values and attitudes that imply that powerless individuals (e.g. leader’s direct subordinates) deserve their disadvantaged position in the power hierarchy (Pratto et al., 2006). The term myth is meant to imply that people use ideologies to fulfill their own perception, it does not say whether their perceptions are false or true (Pratto, Sidanius, Stallworth & Malle, 1994). By widening the gap of equality between leaders and subordinates leaders can accomplish their ultimate goal of justifying and preserving their high power position. These myths can be used as forms of abusive behavior to decrease threats to the power holding position and in favor of the justification of power. The more leaders feel they stand well above their direct subordinates from a power perspective, the better leaders can justify their position of power (Georgesen & Harris, 2006). Using legitimizing myths to maintain the present power hierarchy falls in line with the prediction that leaders will look for ways to justify their power when they feel that their position of power is in danger.
When leaders feel that their power is under attack they act in such a way that protects their position of power. The reasoning behind this can be found in the theory on egocentric bias (Harris & Schaubroeck, 1988). Egocentric bias is the main effect of defensiveness, wherein a leader at first will do what it takes to secure his position of power. In accordance, a threat to power causes leaders to alter their behavior to justify and maintain their position of power (Fast & Chen, 2009; Fast, Halvey & Galinsky, 2011; Georgesen & Harris 1998; Kipnis 1972; Rodríguez-Bailón, Moya & Yzerbyt, 2000). For instance, Rodriguez and colleagues (2000) showed in a controlled experiment that powerful leaders in order to maintain and justify their position devote more attention to negative stereotype-consistent information about their subordinates. This effect was even greater when the possession power was manipulated to be illegitimate (i.e., position of power was told to be randomly assigned instead of earned). Furthermore, Fast and Chen (2009) showed that a leader’s feeling of incompetency can lead to general aggressive tendencies. It did not matter whether power was measured in the working field or in a laboratory setting, the combination of power with self-perceived feelings of incompetence were consistently associated with heightened aggression levels. Moreover, Fast and colleagues (2011) manipulated power and status in an experiment to observe whether high/low power and high/low status would influence their choice to make others perform demeaning behavior. Results show that individuals assigned with high power and low status roles fostered far more demeaning behavior towards subordinates than any other combination. Finally, Georgesen & Harris (2006) manipulated power, positional threat and powerholder expectancies to test conditional factors that may affect powerholders’ expressed abusive behavior towards subordinates. Results showed that leaders tend to start to abuse their subordinates when they feel the stability of their power position becomes endangered. Overall, these researches indicate how influential different conditional factors can be on the behavior of individuals in the possession of power.
resources and possess control over direct subordinates. A leader needs to be convinced of its own competency to be in a position of power. This self-perceived feeling of competency plays a very important role in the explanation of abusive leadership behavior. Self-perceived competence refers to perceptions of one’s personal ability to skillfully interact with and alter the environment (White, 1959). The more power you get the higher ones level of competency is expected to be in order to fulfill the job. These suggestions of power indicate that leaders who have power over others should tend to internalize an increased need for competence in order to meet the expectations of their role as power-holder (Fast, 2009; Fast & Chen, 2009). Therefore, it is possible for a leader to be in a position of power but perceiving him- or herself to be incapable of influencing their direct subordinates. Because of this distinction between power as a position and power as psychological state, this research proposes that a mere power position is not directly related to abusive leadership expressed by leaders. Thus, abusive leadership behavior is the consequence of a self-perceived incompetent power-holder that expresses abusive behavior in an attempt to signal that he or she has relative superiority over their direct subordinates and in doing so they try to meet the expectations of their role and protect their threatened ego.
Present Research
Concluding, this research continues on the notion that leaders high in power and high self-perceived feelings of incompetency will derogate or as this research specifically recalls abuse their direct subordinates. Specifically, this research aims to show that abusive leadership behavior occurs when leaders feel incompetent in their abilities to skillfully interact and control their direct subordinates, graphically displayed in figure 1. By arguing for a moderating effect of feelings of incompetency on the relationship between power and abusive behavior this research states the following hypothesis:
Figure 1.
Theoretical Model of Power and Abusive Leadership Moderated by Self-perceived Incompetence
Self-perceived incompetence
METHOD
Participants and Procedure
Separate questionnaires were developed and distributed to supervisors (leaders were referred to as supervisors during the data collecting process) and their immediate subordinates. All participants were assured full confidentiality of their responses. Participants represented different institutions and companies across the Netherlands with a large representation of companies located in the Northern region of the Netherlands. The largest employment sector represented by the participants is that of the public sector (20%). Though the procedures varied slightly across organizations, the overall data collection process used the following strategy: supervisors were sought via e-mail notifications and word of mouth. Once supervisors were identified as participants, they received a link to the online questionnaire. At the end of this questionnaire the supervisors listed 2 to 5 employees that fall under their direct supervision.
In total, 59 supervisors completed the questionnaire. Four supervisors were excluded from the analyses due to missing values on key variables. The supervisors’ average age was 45 years (SD = 10.17) and 71 percent were male. All of the participating supervisors had the Dutch nationality. 23 supervisors (42%) were active at the lower management level, 15 supervisors (27%) indicated to work at the middle management level, and 17 supervisors (31%) held higher management positions. 92% had a permanent employment contract and 86% of them indicated to work 36 hours or more per week. Supervisors’ average tenure at the organization was 13 years (SD = 11.46).
Measures
The constructs measured in this research are: power, self-perceived incompetence, and supervisor’s abusive leadership behavior. The complete scales and items used for measuring the concepts can be found in appendix A.
Power was measured by presenting a 15-cm (5.9-in.) vertical line and asking the supervisors to rate their current level of power within the hierarchy of the organization by indicating the appropriate point along the line. The scale ranged from zero to a hundred, zero meaning “working at the ground level of the organization” and 100 meaning: “working at the top of the organization” (M = 82.70, SD = 16.06). This method has been successfully used before by Lammers, Stoker, Jordan, Pollmann and Stapel (2011). Previous research showed that this measure of power highly correlated with the degree of control over others (Lammers, Stoker, & Stapel, 2010).
Self-perceived incompetence was measured using a slightly altered version of the 12-item version of the Fear of Negative Evaluation scale developed by Leary (1983). Instead of 12 items the current study used 11 items. Sample items include: “I’m frequently afraid of other people noting my shortcoming” and “I often worry that I will say or do the wrong things”. The current study used a 7-point Likert scale instead of the original 5-point scale used by Leary (1983). Response options for the item ranged from one to seven (1 = completely disagree, 7 = completely agree). According to Leary (1983) the FNE scale has been successfully used to determine the degree to which people experience apprehension at the prospect of being evaluated negatively. In the current study, Cronbach alpha coefficient was .95.
(very often) which is the same scale size as the original scale used by Tepper (2000). The variable abusive leadership is conceptualized at the group level, requiring aggregation of the data collected from individuals.
Control variables. Based on a review of relevant and comparable literature, I controlled for three potential covariates: age, because older leaders may experience lower levels of feeling incompetent (Aquino & Douglas, 2003); gender, because men may behave differently than women when preforming leadership roles (Day & Stogdill, 1972; Walker, 1989) and finally organizational tenure, because tenure may influence the attitude of the leader towards subordinates (Harris, Kacmar & Zivnuska, 2007; Mitchell & Ambrose, 2007; Zellars et al. 2002).
Interclass correlation
Measurement errors can seriously affect statistical analysis and the interpretation of statistics (Shrout, & Fleiss, 1979). Several researches have noted that group means may provide more reliable estimates of occurrence than do raw individual-level variables (Glick, 1985; James, 1982; Ostroff, 1993; Paunonen & Gardner, 1991). To justify the use of aggregated data throughout the analysis, the reliability of the abusive leadership scores were assessed. Assessing rater reliability was done by calculation the ICC(1), ICC(2) and Rwg index.
ICC1 compares the variance between units of analysis (different leaders) with the variance within the units of analysis (Schneider, White, Paul, 1998). The ICC(2) assesses the relative status of between and within variability using the average ratings of subordinates within their group (Bartko & Carpenter, 1976). The ICC(1) value for the abusive leadership variable was .20; and the ICC(2) value was .36. Glick (1985) argues that scores on both ICC(1) and ICC(2) should be at least >.60 to justify the use of aggregated data. Because the ICC(1) and ICC(2) values were low, I used the Rwg as an additional measurement. The Rwg statistic is used to determine inter-rater agreement. The median Rwg statistic for abusive leadership behavior was .99. Debate exists regarding the cutoff point for Rwg values (Lance, Butts, & Michels, 2006), in general values >.70 justify the use of aggregation.
among the answers is because measurements of abusive leadership behavior tend to show low mean scores with a small spreads (Aquino, Grover, Bradfield & Allen, 1999; Tepper 2000; Tepper et al., 2011).
Analysis
The hypothesis was tested by a moderated Ordinary Least Square (OLS) regression. All independent variables were standardized and reported coefficients are standardized coefficient values. Standardization was done by detracting the mean from the variable. To compute the interaction variable, the standardized independent variable (power) was multiplied with the standardized moderating variable (self-perceived incompetence). The new created interaction variable was used to conduct a regression analysis.
To justify the use of an OLS regression the included variables should generally fall under the assumption that they are normally distributed (Shapiro & Wilk, 1965). Even though non-normality can lead to inefficient outcomes of the regression model (Box & Watson, 1962), previous research has shown that the techniques of OLS regressions are in many cases more robust than the underlying assumptions and small deviations from normality will not influence the reliability of the outcomes (Shapiro & Wilk, 1965; Mertler & Vannatta, 2002). Normality
RESULTS
Table 1 shows descriptive statistics, including correlations among the study variables. Power had a small positive association with age (R = .23, p = .12), suggesting that older leaders had higher levels of power. Association between power and gender was negative (R = -.20, p = .14), indicating that men hold higher levels of power than woman. Tenure correlated positively with age (R = .50, p = .01), indicating that older leaders had longer tenures. No correlations were found for Self-perceived incompetence and Abusive leadership and any of the covariates.
Power shows a high mean (M = 82.70; SD = 16.06), this mean is higher than means found in comparable studies on Power (Lammers et al. 2011). Self-perceived incompetence shows a relative low mean (M = 2.67; SD = 1.19) compared to other studies (Weeks, Heimberg, Fresco, Hart, Turk, Schneier & Liebowitz, 2005; Gilbert & Meyer, 2005) Abusive leadership shows a low mean (M = 1.23; SD = .23), this mean is consistent with means found in studies on abusive leadership (Aquino et al, 1999; Tepper 2000; Tepper et al., 2001). Power was significantly and negatively related to perceived incompetence (R = -.31, p = .02), higher levels of power led to lower levels of perceived incompetence. No associations were observed between power and abusive leadership (R= -.13, p = .36). Neither were associations found between self-perceived incompetence and abusive leadership (R = .19, p = .17).
Table 1.
Descriptive Statistics and Correlations among Study Variables
Variable Mean s.d. 1 2 3 4 5 6 1. Power 82.70 16.06 1.00 2. Self-perceived incompetence 2.67 1.19 -.31* 1.00 3. Abusive leadership 1.23 .23 -.13 .19 1.00 4. Age 45.71 10.17 .23 -.09 .05 1.00 5. Gender 0.29 .46 -.20 .14 -.13 -.09 1.00 6. Tenure 13.06 11.46 -.03 -.05 .16 .50** -.09 1.00
Results of the moderated OLS regression are depicted in table 2. No significant relationships were established between age, gender, or tenure and abusive leadership. Furthermore, analysis revealed no relationship between power and abusive leadership (ß = -.08, p = n.s.) or perceived incompetence and abusive leadership (ß = .16, p = n.s.). Analysis did reveal the predicted interaction effect among power and self-perceived incompetence for abusive leadership (ß = -.44, p = .01). Results are graphically displayed in Figure 1. Simple slopes for the association between power and abusive leadership were tested for low (-1 SD below the mean) and high (+1 SD above the mean) levels of self-perceived incompetence. Under high levels of self-perceived incompetence, power was associated with abusive leadership (ß = -.57, p = .01), but under low levels of self-perceived incompetence power was unrelated with increased abusive leadership (ß = .17, p = n.s.). These results suggest that power combined with high levels of self-perceived incompetence leads to decreased abusive leadership behavior.
Table 2.
Regression Analysis of Power Self-perceived Incompetence Predicting Abusive Leadership
Variables Step 1 Step 2 Step 3
Age -.06 .01 -.05
Gender -.09 -.14 -.22
Tenure .20 .16 .11
Power -.19 -.21
Self-perceived Incompetence .07 -.09
Power X Self-perceived Incompetence -.43**
R2 .04 .09 .24
Figure 2.
GENERAL DISCUSSION
The purpose of this research was to examine the role of self-perceived incompetence as moderator in the relationship between power and abusive leadership behavior. The formulated hypothesis stated that the relationship between power and abusive leadership behavior is moderated by perceived self-incompetence, such that power only leads to abusive leadership behavior when leaders feel incompetent. The results do not support this expectation. Instead, results show a contrary effect. The combination of power and higher levels of self-perceived incompetence among leaders is suggested to lead to less abusive leadership behavior expressed towards their direct subordinates. In this section, different explanations will be given to provide a better understanding of this result.
Leary (1982) argues that high self-perceived incompetence often relates to higher willingness to be accepted and therefore people become friendlier and will do as much as possible to be liked. They will decrease their behavior that would possibly lead to negative reactions. A self-perceived feeling of incompetency may be based on fear that others (i.e. subordinates or peers) will perceive you as less likeable on a social level as well as the fear of being excluded. Expressing positive behavior rather than negative behavior when you feel incompetent may lead others to overlook your weaknesses because they acquaint you more with the positive expressions to that you display.
Results from different studies using the same scale to measure the level of leaders’ self-perceived feelings of incompetence showed that power-holders high on self-perceived incompetence would behave negatively rather than positively towards others (Fast, 2009; Fast & Chen, 2009). This makes me wonder what differences there are between the research designs of those studies and the current research.
within organizations is much higher. According to Hofstede (1980), organizational culture in The Netherlands is characterized by low power distance, whereas the United States scores relatively high on power distance. Therefore, one could argue that country where the research was conducted may lead to differences in the results.
Secondly, the present research specifically looks at abusive behavior intended towards leaders’ direct subordinates, wherein the study of Fast (2009) and Fast and Chen (2009) the target at which abusive behavior was intended for was not explicitly established. Their findings suggested more general abusive behavior, not intended for anyone in specific. As stressed by Hershcovis and Barling (2010), strength or even directions of relationships between concepts may differ depending on which specific targets and perpetrators are involved.
Thirdly, in the study of Fast and Chen (2009), power and self-perceived incompetence were unrelated (R= -.09, p = .42) whereas the present research did find a significant relationship between power and self-perceived incompetence (R = -.31, p = .02) and higher levels of power led to lower levels of perceived incompetence. If increased power is directly related to decreased feelings of self-perceived incompetence, leaders would not feel an urgency to justify their power and as a consequence will not express abusive behavior.
Limitations and Future Research
Because the results of the analyses failed to support the hypothesis and the underlying theories of this dissertation, it is important to address the limitations of the study. An important limitation of this study is the generalizability of the results. The current study had a small and relatively homogeneous sample group, only 53 leaders in a supervising role participated. As mentioned the diversity among participating leaders and subordinates was low. All participants had rather similar demographic backgrounds, which may not be representative for modern day organizations where demographic backgrounds tend to be more differentiated. Therefore, the generalizability of the results should be done with caution.
Furthermore, differences across sectors included in the research sample may lead higher or lower occurrence of abusive leadership. Hubert and van Veldhoven (2001) look at occurrence of abusive leadership across different sectors. Their research sample consisted of 66,764 employees representing eleven sectors in The Netherlands. Their main conclusion is that undesirable behavior such as abusive leadership occurs more in sectors such as: industry, education, local governmental and administration, and remaining services. It is possible that leaders and subordinates from these risk sectors might have been underrepresented in the present research sample. Therefore, as an implication for future research, this research suggests taking into account which kind of organizational sectors to include or exclude to draw your sample from.
As mentioned in the introduction, most of the recent studies on abusive leadership focus on the consequences of abusive leadership, less time and effort is devoted to coming up with answers that explain abusive behavior in the first place. Suggestions have been made that differences in leaders’ personality traits can be vital in explaining different behavioral outcomes of power-holders. The presence of certain personal traits may cause power-holders to doubt their own abilities and behave negatively towards others. Chen and colleagues (2001) found that having power reduces the likelihood of harming others among people who are high in communal relationship orientation, but increases the likelihood of harming others among people who are high in exchange relationship orientation. It would be interesting to conduct further research of the relationship between power and abusive leadership based on differences in personality traits of leaders.
Theoretical Implications
The results of this research offer several important contributions. First, they enrich the literature on the concept of power and the psychological process of power by showing that power combined with higher levels of self-perceived incompetence among leaders is suggested to lead to less abusive leadership behavior expressed towards their direct subordinates. These findings create new insights that have not been found in any research involving the combination of power and self-perceived incompetence.
Secondly, this research showed that power does not increase or decrease abusive leadership behavior in and of itself as other research suggests (e.g., Kipnis, 1976). Although, this study is not the first to pair power with moderating factors to suggest changing effects in individuals’ behavior (Georgesen & Harris 1998; Rodríguez-Bailón, Moya & Yzerbyt, 2000; Fast & Chen, 2009; Fast, Halvey & Galinsky, 2011), these studies all found negative implications of power, whereas the present research found a rather positive implication that power led to less abusive leadership behavior only when in combination with high self-perceived feelings of incompetency.
Practical Implications
CONCLUSION
The consequences of abusive leadership behavior have detrimental effects on organizations as a whole and on individuals being the target of abusive leaders. These negative consequences are causes for concern and stress the importance to find out what might be the cause for leaders to express abusive leadership behavior. This research aimed to show that abusive leadership behavior occurs when leaders feel incompetent in their abilities to skillfully interact and control their direct subordinates. The results found in this research proved to be the opposite, showing that the combination of power and higher levels of self-perceived incompetence among leaders leads to less abusive leadership behavior expressed towards direct subordinates. These findings indicate that power combined with increased feelings of self-perceived incompetence do not foster abusive leadership, it actually suggests to lower the expression of abusive leadership behavior.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
REFERENCES
Aasland, M. S., Skogstad, A., Notelaers, G., Nielsen, M. B., & Einarsen, S. (2010). The prevalence of destructive leadership behaviour. British Journal of Management, 21(2), 438-452.
Anderson, C., John, O. P., & Keltner, D. (2012). The personal sense of power. Journal of Personality, 80(2), 313-344.
Aquino, K., Grover, S. L., Bradfield, M., & Allen, D. G. 1999. The effects of negative affectivity, hierarchical status, and self-determination on workplace victimization. Academy of Management Journal, 42, 260-272.
Aquino, K., & Douglas, S. (2003). Identity threat and antisocial behavior in organizations: The moderating effects of individual differences, aggressive modeling, and hierarchical status. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 90(1), 195-208.
Bartko, J. J., & Carpenter, W. T. (1976). On the methods and theory of reliability. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 163(5), 307-317.
Biddle, B. J. (1986). Recent development in role theory. Annual Review of Sociology, 67-92. Box, G. E., & Watson, G. S. (1962). Robustness to non-normality of regression
tests. Biometrika, 49(1-2), 93-106.
Chen, S., Lee-Chai, A. Y., & Bargh, J. A. (2001). Relationship orientation as a moderator of the effects of social power. Journal of personality and social psychology, 80(2), 173-187
Day, D. R., & Stogdill, R. M. (1972). Leader behavior of male and female supervisors: a comparative study. Personnel Psychology, 25(2), 353-360.
Dépret, E. F., & Fiske, S. T. (1993). Social cognition and power: Some cognitive consequences of social structure as a source of control deprivation. In Weary, G., F. Gleicher F. & Marsh, K. (Eds.), Control Motivation and Social Cognition. New York: Springer-Verlag.
Duffy, M. K., Ganster, D. C., & Pagon, M. (2002).Social undermining in the workplace. Academy of Management Journal, 45(2), 331-351.
Duffy, M. K., Ganster, D. C., Shaw, J. D., Johnson, J. L., & Pagon, M. (2006).The social context of undermining behavior at work. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 101(1), 105-126.
Duffy, M. K., Shaw, J. D., Scott, K. L., & Tepper, B. J. (2006). The moderating roles of self-esteem and neuroticism in the relationship between group and individual undermining behavior. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91(5), 1066.
Fast, N. J. (2009). Power, incompetence, and hubris. Doctoral dissertation, Stanford University, California.
Fast, N. J., & Chen, S. (2009). When the boss feels inadequate Power, incompetence, and aggression. Psychological Science, 20(11), 1406-1413.
Fast, N. J., Halevy, N., & Galinsky, A. D. (2011).The destructive nature of power without status. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48(1), 391-394.
Fiske, S. T. (1993). Controlling other people: the impact of power on stereotyping. American Psychologist, 48(6), 621.
Fiske, S. T., Morling, B., & Stevens, L. E. (1996). Controlling self and others: A theory of anxiety, mental control, and social control. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 22(2), 115-123.
Georgesen, J. C., & Harris, M. J. (1998). Why's my boss always holding me down? A meta-analysis of power effects on performance evaluations. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 2(3), 184-195.
Georgesen, J., & Harris, M. J. (2006). Holding onto power: Effects of powerholders' positional instability and expectancies on interactions with subordinates. European Journal of Social Psychology, 36(4), 451-468.
Gilbert, N., & Meyer, C. (2005). Fear of negative evaluation and the development of eating psychopathology: A longitudinal study among nonclinical women. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 37(4), 307-312.
Glick, W. H. (1985). Conceptualizing and measuring organizational and psychological climate: Pitfalls in multilevel research. Academy of Management Review, 10(3), 601-616.
Goodwin, S. A., Gubin, A., Fiske, S. T., & Yzerbyt, V. Y. (2000). Power can bias impression processes: Stereotyping subordinates by default and by design. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 3(3), 227-256.
Grasmick, H. G., & Kobayashi, E. (2002). Workplace deviance in Japan: Applying an extended model of deterrence. Deviant Behavior, 23(1), 21-43.
Harris, M. M., & Schaubroeck, J. (1988). A meta‐analysis of self‐supervisor, self‐peer, and peer‐supervisor ratings. Personnel Psychology, 41(1), 43-62.
Hershcovis, M. S., & Barling, J. (2010). Towards a multi‐foci approach to workplace
aggression: A meta‐analytic review of outcomes from different perpetrators. Journal
of Organizational Behavior, 31(1), 24-44.
Higgins, E.T. (1987). Self-discrepancy: A theory relating self and affect. Psychological Review, 94, 319–340.
Hofstede, G. 1980. Culture's Consequences: International Differences in Work Related Values. London: Sage.
Hogan, R., Raskin, R., & Fazzini, D. (1990). The dark side of charisma. In K. E. Clark and M. B. Clark (eds), Measures of Leadership, 343–354. West Orange, NJ: Leadership Library of America.
Hubert, A. B., & van Veldhoven, M. J. P. M. (2001). Risk sectors for undesirable behaviour and mobbing. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 10, 415– 424
James, L. R. (1982). Aggregation bias in estimates of perceptual agreement. Journal of Applied Psychology, 67(2), 219.
Jost, J. T., Banaji, M. R., & Nosek, B. A. (2004). A decade of system justification theory: Accumulated evidence of conscious and unconscious bolstering of the status quo. Political Psychology, 25(6), 881-919.
Keltner, D., Gruenfeld, D. H., & Anderson, C. (2003). Power, approach, and inhibition. Psychological Review, 110(2), 265.
Kipnis, D. (1972). Does power corrupt? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 24(1), 33.
Kipnis, D., Castell, J., Gergen, M., & Mauch, D. (1976). Metamorphic effects of power. Journal of Applied Psychology, 61(2), 127.
Lammers, J., Stoker, J. I., & Stapel, D. A. (2010). Power and behavioral approach orientation in existing power relations and the mediating effect of income. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40(3), 543-551.
Lance, C. E., Butts, M. M., & Michels, L. C. (2006). The Sources of Four Commonly Reported Cutoff Criteria What Did They Really Say? Organizational Research Methods, 9(2), 202-220
Leary, M. R. (1983). A brief version of the Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 9(3), 371-375.
Magee, J. C. & Galinsky, A. D. (2008). 8 Social Hierarchy: The Self‐Reinforcing Nature of
Power and Status. The Academy of Management Annals, 2(1), 351-398.
Markus, H. & S. Kitayama. 1991. Culture and the Self. Psychological Review, 98, 224–253. Mertler, C. A., & Vannatta, R. A. (2002). Advanced and multivariate statistical methods. Los
Angeles, CA: Pyrczak.
Mitchell, M. S., & Ambrose, M. L. (2007). Abusive supervision and workplace deviance and the moderating effects of negative reciprocity beliefs. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92(4), 1159.
Ostroff, C. (1992). The relationship between satisfaction, attitudes, and performance: An organizational level analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology,77(6), 963.
Paunonen, S. V., & Gardner, R. C. (1991). Biases resulting from the use of aggregated variables in psychology. Psychological Bulletin, 109(3), 520.
Pratto, F., Sidanius, J., Stallworth, L. M., & Malle, B. F. (1994). Social dominance orientation: A personality variable predicting social and political attitudes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67(4), 741.
Pratto, F., Sidanius, J., & Levin, S. (2006). Social dominance theory and the dynamics of intergroup relations: Taking stock and looking forward. European Review of Social Psychology, 17(1), 271-320.
Rodríguez-Bailón, R., Moya, M., & Yzerbyt, V. (2000). Why do superiors attend negative stereotypic information about their subordinates? Effects of power on social perception.European Journal of Social Psychology,30, 651-671
Rook, K. S. (1984). The negative side of social interaction: impact on psychological well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46(5), 1097.
Schneider, B., White, S. S., & Paul, M. C. (1998). Linking service climate and customer perceptions of service quality: Tests of a causal model. Journal of Applied Psychology, 83(2), 150.
Shapiro, S. S., & Wilk, M. B. (1965). An analysis of variance test for normality (complete samples). Biometrika, 591-611.
Shrout, P. E., & Fleiss, J. L. (1979). Intraclass correlations: uses in assessing rater reliability. Psychological Bulletin, 86(2), 420.
Sidanius, J., & Pratto, F. (1999). Social dominance: An intergroup theory of social hierarchy and oppression. Cambridge University Press. SDT.
Sidanius, J., Pratto, F., Van Laar, C., & Levin, S. (2004). Social dominance theory: Its agenda and method. Political Psychology, 25(6), 845-880.
Tabachnick, B. G. & Fidell, L. S. (1996). Using multivariate statistics, 3.
Tepper, B. J. (2000). Consequences of abusive supervision. Academy of Management Journal, 43, 178–190
Tepper, B. J. (2007). Abusive supervision in work organizations: Review, synthesis, and research agenda. Journal of Management, 33(3), 261-289.
Tepper, B. J., Duffy, M. K., Henle, C. A., & Lambert, L. S. (2006). Procedural injustice, victim precipitation, and abusive supervision. Personnel Psychology, 59(1), 101-123. Tepper, B. J., Moss, S. E., & Duffy, M. K. (2011). Predictors of abusive supervision:
Supervisor perceptions of deep-level dissimilarity, relationship conflict, and subordinate performance. Academy of Management Journal, 54(2), 279-294.
Vinokur, A. D., & Van Ryn, M. (1993). Social support and undermining in close relationships: their independent effects on the mental health of unemployed persons. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65(2), 350.
Vinokur, A. D., Price, R. H., & Caplan, R. D. (1996). Hard times and hurtful partners: how financial strain affects depression and relationship satisfaction of unemployed persons and their spouses. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71(1), 166.
Vries, M. F. (1991). Whatever happened to the philosopher‐king? The leader's addiction to
power. Journal of Management Studies, 28(4), 339-351.
Walker, L. E. (1989). Psychology and violence against women. American Psychologist, 44(4),695-702.
Weeks, J. W., Heimberg, R. G., Fresco, D. M., Hart, T. A., Turk, C. L., Schneier, F. R. & Liebowitz, M. R. (2005). Empirical validation and psychometric evaluation of the Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale in patients with social anxiety disorder. Psychological Assessment, 17(2), 179.
White, R.W. (1959). Motivation reconsidered: The concept of competence. Psychological Review, 66, 297–333.
Zellars, K. L., Tepper, B. J., & Duffy, M. K. (2002). Abusive supervision and subordinates' organizational citizenship behavior. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87(6), 1068.
APPENDIX A Abusive Leadership (Tepper, 2000; 15 items)
Please indicate how often your supervisor behaves in the way described using the following scale:
1 = never 4 = regularly
2 = once in a while 5 = very often
3 = sometimes
1. Ridicules me
2. Tells me my thoughts or feelings are stupid 3. Gives me the silent treatment
4. Puts me down in front of others 5. Invades my privacy
6. Reminds me of my past mistakes and failures
8. Blames me to save himself/herself embarrassment 9. Breaks promises he/she makes
10. Expresses anger at me when he/she is mad for another reason 11. Makes negative comments about me to others
12. Is rude to me
13. Does not allow me to interact with my coworkers 14.Tells me I'm incompetent
15. Lies to me
Self-perceived Feeling of Incompetence (Leary, 1982; 11 items)
The following questions are about you as a person. Please indicate how much the following statements apply to you as a person. Ranging from 1 (strongly agree) to 7 (Strongly disagree)
1. I worry about what other people think of me even when I know it does not make a difference.
2. It bothers me when people form an unfavorable impression of me. 3. I am frequently afraid of other people noticing my shortcomings. 4. I worry about what kind of impression I am making on someone. 5. I am afraid that others will not approve of me.
6. I am afraid that people will find fault with me. 7. Other people’s opinions of me do not bother me.*
10. If I know someone is judging me, it has little effect on me.
11. Sometimes I think I am too concerned with what other people think of me. 12. I often worry that I will say or do the wrong things.
Power (Lammers, Stoker, Jordan, Pollmann & Stapel, 2011)
In your place of work, what level are you in the organizational hierarchy? (0 = the bottom, 100 = top).
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Bottom Top
APPENDIX B
Table 3.
Regression Analysis for Power and Transformed Moderator Self-perceived Incompetence with Transformed Abusive Leadership as Dependent Variable; Controlled for Age, Gender and Tenure
Variable Step 1 Step 2 Step 3
Age -.03 .03 -.02 Gender Tenure -.07 .21 -.11 .18 -.20 .13 Power -.18 -.21 Self-perceived Incompetence .02 -.07
Power X Self-perceived Incompetence -.35*
R2 .05 .08 .19
Table 4.
Regression Analysis for Power and Transformed Moderator Self-perceived
Incompetence with Abusive Leadership as Dependent Variable; Controlled for Age, Gender and Tenure
Variable Step 1 Step 2 Step 3
Age -.06 .01 -.04 Gender Tenure -.09 .20 -.13 .16 -.23 .11 Power -.21 -.24 Self-perceived Incompetence .02 -.07
Power X Self-perceived Incompetence -.37*
R2 .04 .09 .20
