Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies

When subordinates experience abusive supervision, they often respond with “fight” (e.g., organizationally-directed counterproductive work behavior: CWB-O) or “flight” reactions (e.g., turnover intentions). Drawing on cognitive appraisal theory, we propose that negative (NA) and positive affect (PA) explain these distinct responses and that coworker emotional support differentially moderates the relationships of affective states with CWB-O and turnover intention. That is, we expect that emotional support exacerbates the mediating effect of NA, whereas it weakens the mediating effect of PA. We tested the hypothesized model in two time-lagged studies, one among subordinates (N = 162), and the other among supervisor-subordinate dyads (N = 255 dyads). Results confirmed that the relation between abusive supervision and CWB-O was mediated by NA, and that the relation between abusive supervision and turnover intentions was mediated by PA. Coworker emotional support strengthened the mediating effect of NA, but it did not attenuate the mediating effect of PA. These results only hold for CWB-O, not for supervisor-rated CWB-O. Explanations, implications as well as limitations and ideas for future research are discussed.

Limited research has explored the potential explanatory mechanisms for the link between abusive leadership and non-negative employee-based behaviors in the effectiveness of organizational management. Based on affective response theory to construct a theoretical model, this study enhances the mapping of how employee-perceived abusive leadership triggers employee affective responses and influences their political behaviors to facilitate task-related goals. It also investigates how the moderating effects of employee-perceived leader's narcissistic personality interact with the variables of the main effects. This study was implemented in Taiwan's financial and insurance institutions. Using a sampling framework via a market survey agency, participants completed three online surveys within a 3-week period. 350 employed participants registered for the study. Based on the findings, we suggest that managers in a hierarchical organization may be able to intentionally vary their leadership style to arouse employees' negative emotions without hindering, and perhaps even improving, employees' motivation to achieve their task aims. When leaders demonstrate their self-confidence in the workplace, employees perceive less anxiety at work and less need to adopt workplace political behaviors to solve work troubles. This research suggests managers should recognize employee-perceived abusive leadership as an influential factor that contributes to illuminating the processes underlying workplace perception-to-behavior and leader–member interactive links, as well as the boundary conditions of mediating and moderating these processes.

Effective communication is a foundational leadership skill. Many leadership theories implicitly assume communication skills, without investigating them behaviorally. To be able to research leader communication as a building block of effective leader behavior, we propose a new concept, i.e., leader attentive communication which refers to “an open-minded, attentive demeanor while in a conversation with an employee”. Instead of focusing on the content or form of the communication, we propose to study the communication skills of the leader from the viewpoint of the employee. In this article, we both validate a questionnaire and test LAC's influence on employee wellbeing in four different studies. We use information from 1,320 employees and their leaders, in 422 teams, in 3 different datasets. The result is a 10-item questionnaire with 2 dimensions consisting of general attention (towards the employee) and attention to non-verbal cues. We also find that LAC is associated with work engagement, psychological needs and Kahn's conditions for work engagement. With this questionnaire, we contribute to calls for a more behavioral, detailed view on leader communication behavior.

Although the workforce has become more diverse, there is still a predominance of White men in positions of senior leadership. This is incongruent with social norms and values, evolving population demographics, and political movements (e.g., the MeToo and Black Lives Matter). Further, it suggests that, despite progress in shattering the glass ceiling, there may still be obstacles to senior leader roles for people who vary from the expected demographic profile. Eagly and Carli (2007a) addressed this issue for women by developing the labyrinth metaphor; however, few researchers have explored how the labyrinth and its inherent challenges might apply to others. We strive to broaden the discussion of the labyrinth metaphor, increasing its applicability, by considering two types of labyrinths—unicursal and multicursal. We also deepen the theoretical foundation by positioning the labyrinth metaphor within two prominent organizational perspectives: institutional theory and social identity theory. Relying on arguments culled from these theories, we build a typology consisting of four different categories of challenges—identity, acceptance, access, and expectations—leaders may face on their path to senior leader roles. We then explicate how these challenges create differential paths for individuals who align with the traditional leader prototype and those that do not. We believe that awareness of the underlying mechanisms of the challenges leaders may face will particularly help create solutions to these obstacles faced by individuals who are diverse in gender, race, sexuality, religion, and other important factors.

The current article examines the emergence and dynamics of leadership during an extreme situation—a terrorist attack at the foreign subsidiary of a multinational energy corporation—and the crisis response undertaken at the corporate headquarters. The inductive analysis reveals that the in-situ crisis leadership involved impromptu interactions between multiple individuals leading collectively. Multiple sources of leadership emerged to carry out four critical leadership functions, namely strategic framing, ad hoc structuring, relational coping, and instant developing. These functions were carried out by several formal and informal leaders together, enhancing the overall leadership capacity in the crisis management organization (CMO). With increased capacity to lead efforts in different domains came specialization, which could have led to misalignment and fragmentation. But this was avoided by leaders acting as “role boundary transgressors,” expanding the boundaries of their responsibilities across roles, functions, and levels to foster the alignment of collective efforts across the CMO. Based on rich data from a leadership situation that researchers rarely have access to, this study contributes to the understanding of leadership during extreme situations by illustrating who leads (the emergence of multiple leadership sources), what leaders do (leadership functions), and how leadership plays out over time and across levels (through dynamic role boundary transgressions).

Despite increased interest in the role of paradox in organizations, our understanding of paradoxical leader behavior (PLB) remains limited. We analyze PLB through the lens of cognitive dissonance theory and argue that trait mindfulness represents an important boundary condition shaping the effectiveness of PLB as a leadership style. This research sheds light on mindfulness and PLB, by investigating whether leader and follower trait mindfulness changes the impact of PLB on follower performance. Our analyses of multilevel, multisource, and multiphase data from 561 employees working in 54 teams show that PLB is positively related to follower performance when followers have high trait mindfulness. Furthermore, when followers and leaders are both low on trait mindfulness, PLB hurts follower performance. We thereby advance research on managing paradox, trait mindfulness, and the effectiveness of paradoxical leader behaviors for promoting follower performance.

This study examines how differentiation in leader–member exchange relationships (LMXD) provokes different individual responses depending on personal dispositions—internal locus of control and self-efficacy. Further, we identify three types of individual behavioral responses to LMXD: in-role and extra-role performance as self-focused responses, impression management toward the leader as a leader-focused response, and social undermining of coworkers as a coworker-focused response. Analysis of data from a survey conducted in South Korea demonstrates cross-level interaction effects between LMXD and the two dispositional variables on these behavioral responses of individuals. Specifically, LMXD is more positively related to in-role and extra-role performance and impression management toward the leader for individuals high than low in internal locus of control and for individuals high than low in self-efficacy. However, the cross-level interaction effects are not supported regarding social undermining of coworkers. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.