Running Head: ABUSIVE LEADERSHIP 1
Abusive Leadership
Liberty University
BMAL 501
ABUSIVE LEADERSHIP 2
Abstract
Research agrees that abusive leadership is not only detrimental to employees, it is
counterproductive for the organization. Over the years, there has been plenty of research done
on every aspect of the negative outcomes of abusive leadership. These negative outcomes are
things like job dissatisfaction, lack of innovative behavior, negative physiological climate,
feelings of job insecurity, and poor employee physical health. There has not been as much
research done on how to correct the problem of abusive leadership. In a covenantal approach to
leadership a leader would strive to inspire, encourage, create a positive environment and lead by
example. Throughout this literature review, I will present research conducted on different factors
that arise during abusive leadership and ways to change this form of leadership for the better.
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Abusive Leadership
I. Abusive Leadership
a. “Leaders define moral values, cultural tolerance within organization and figure
out institutional tactics including their implementation and effectiveness”
[CITATION Zae17 \p 19 \l 1033 ].
b. “Abusive supervision is defined as “subordinates” perceptions of the extent to
which their supervisors engage in the sustained display of hostile verbal and non-
verbal behaviors, excluding physical contact” [CITATION Mul18 \p 946 \l 1033 ].
“Extant literature shows that abusive supervisory behaviors are associated with
harmful consequences for employees including emotional exhaustion, depression,
counterproductive work behaviors, retaliatory behavior, work–family conflict and
reduced performance” [CITATION Mul18 \p 947 \l 1033 ].
c. “Successful leaders are required to ideally combine the charisma of an iconic role
model, the strategic understanding of a general, the empathy of a loving mother as
well as the dominance and strength of an alpha-male” [CITATION Bus18 \p 1 \l
1033 ].
d. Extensive research has been done on the topic of the effects of abusive leadership
on employees. Not as much research has been done on how to fix the problem.
II. Effects of Abusive Leadership
a. In all the research it is agreed that when there is abusive leadership present there
tends to also be job dissatisfaction, lack of innovative behavior, negative
physiological climate, feelings of job insecurity, and poor employee physical
health.
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b. Job Dissatisfaction
i. “The present study examined abusive supervision as an antecedent of job
dissatisfaction and it investigated feedback avoidance and critical thinking
as moderators on the abusive supervision-job dissatisfaction relationship”
[CITATION Qia17 \p 496 \l 1033 ].
ii. “Abusive leadership as a type of destructive leadership, has been found to
bring negative consequences to employees’ attitudes toward their jobs and
organizations, well-being, and work behaviors” [CITATION Xia19 \p 50 \l
1033 ].
iii. “Due to the minimum negative consequences of withdrawing discretionary
behaviors, decreasing prosocial voice and silence costs less and is safer
than confronting supervisors directly. Thus, we posited our first
hypothesis: Abusive supervision will negatively relate to subordinates’
prosocial voice and silence” [CITATION Wan151 \p 206 \l 1033 ].
c. Innovative Behavior
i. “Job insecurity is negatively related to
innovative behavior” [CITATION Wan19 \p 153 \l 1033 ].
ii. “The results suggested that, abusive supervision had negative effects on
psychological safety and organizational identification, and psychological
safety partially mediated the relationship between abusive supervision and
organizational identification, and organizational identification fully
mediated the relationship between psychological safety and creativity, and
the negative effect of abusive supervision on employee creativity was
ABUSIVE LEADERSHIP 5
mediated by psychological safety and then by organizational
identification” [CITATION Liu18 \p 130 \l 1033 ].
d. Psychological Climate
i. “The present study addresses these shortcomings by investigating the role
of psychological climate as an antecedent of abuse and as a moderator of
employee responses to such abuse” [CITATION Ker16 \p 309 \l 1033 ].
ii. “A psychological climate perceived to be intolerant of abuse will be
negatively related to perceptions of abusive supervision” [CITATION
Ker16 \p 311 \l 1033 ].
iii. “Our results indicate that: first, abusive supervision exerted a negative
influence on employees’ perception of psychological safety” [CITATION
Liu18 \p 141 \l 1033 ].
e. Job Insecurity
i. “Job insecurity, defined as employees’ worry and anxiety as to the loss of
existing work, is one such subjective stressor. In contrast to actual job loss,
job insecurity refers to the perception that the nature and continued
existence of one’s job are at risk. According to the conservation of
resources theory, an increase of abusive supervision in the workplace
causes the energy of employees’ psychological resources to decline”
[CITATION Wan19 \p 153 \l 1033 ].
ii. “Drawing on the Conservation of Resources Theory by Hobfoll, we
examined the relationships between abusive supervision, job insecurity,
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focus of control, and employees’ innovative behavior”[CITATION
Wan19 \p 125 \l 1033 ].
f. Employee Physical Health and Safety
i. “Our findings indicate that abusive supervision does indeed predict
physical health and that this effect is mediated by rumination, even when
controlling for temporal changes in these variables over the course of 1
year and the effects of alternate mediating mechanisms” [CITATION
Lia181 \p 1061 \l 1033 ].
ii. “Extant literature shows that abusive supervisory behaviors are associated
with harmful consequences for employees including emotional exhaustion,
depression, counterproductive work behaviors, retaliatory behavior, work–
family conflict and reduced performance” [CITATION Mul18 \p 947 \l
1033 ].
III. Changing the Behavior of Abusive Leadership
a. All of the research agrees that the abusive behavior is a bad thing. It is bad for the
employees and unproductive for the organizations. The approach to changing the
behavior is pretty much training across the board. How to implement training is
the biggest variable.
i. Breaking the cycle of supervisory abuse by changing the culture
[ CITATION Bre181 \l 1033 ].
ii. Leadership behavior changes through leadership training [ CITATION
Lar171 \l 1033 ].
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iii. Covenantal approach with Christian spiritual leadership[ CITATION
Mab17 \l 1033 ].
b. Breaking the Cycle
i. It is important to recognize that abusive behavior can be learned from
previous leadership. “Abusive supervision is particularly destructive
because it can be contagious and self-perpetuating. A growing body of
research indicates that subordinates who endure abusive behavior at work
will, in turn, enact it on others” [CITATION Bre181 \p 689 \l 1033 ].
ii. Abusive leadership can also come from the culture of the organization. If
a new leader sees other leaders conducting business this way then they
may feel it is the right way. “Because of the uncertainty of this period,
new leaders look to others in their environment for cues as to how to
behave. Organizational newcomers look to supervisors or peers for
information on successful task and interpersonal behaviors when they
enter a new role” [CITATION Bre181 \p 690 \l 1033 ].
iii. “Drawing from the literature on moral cleansing, we posit that supervisors
who engage in abusive behavior may paradoxically engage in more
constructive leadership behaviors subsequently as a result of feeling guilty
and perceiving loss of moral credits” [CITATION Lia18 \p 1039 \l 1033 ].
c. Leadership Behavior Changes
i. Even though there is a lot of research concerning the effects of abusive
leadership, there has not been much research in the way of correcting the
problem through training. “Research on leadership is extensive yet studies
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on the effectiveness of leadership development interventions is sparse and
inconclusive” [CITATION Lar171 \p 62 \l 1033 ].
ii. Train leadership what it means to be supportive of their employees.
“Training would involve explaining the utility of supportive supervision
and providing supervisors with the necessary skills and strategies to enact
such behavior” [CITATION Gon18 \p 152 \l 1033 ].
iii. Training procedures should be set after a needs analysis has been
conducted. “The objective of the training program was to provide
supervisors with strategies to treat subordinates more supportively.
Supervisors received instruction in the benefits of supervisor support and
in four basic supervisor support strategies (benevolence, sincerity,
fairness, and experiential processing)” [CITATION Gon18 \p 155 \l
1033 ].
d. Christian Spiritual Leadership
i. “Questioning dubious practice rather than staying silent” (Mabey, Conroy,
Blakeley, & de Marco, 2017, p. 763)
ii. “Embracing work as a calling rather than a job”[CITATION Mab17 \p
764 \l 1033 ].
iii. “Thinking theologically rather than materially” [CITATION Mab17 \p 764
\l 1033 ].
iv. “Maintaining ethical purpose rather than bowing to market pressure”
[CITATION Mab17 \p 765 \l 1033 ].
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v. “Being transformed internally rather than regulated externally”
[CITATION Mab17 \p 765 \l 1033 ].
IV. Conclusion and Recommendations
a. There are extensive studies on the effects of abusive leadership on employees.
b. The strengths of the research are that since there is so much information, virtually
every aspect is covered in one research study or another.
c. The overall weaknesses are that the research is limited when it comes to changing
the behavior of leaders.
d. There should be more extensive study on how to change the abusive behavior and
how employees should handle the behavior when it does happen.
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