The Leadership Quarterly xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

The Leadership Quarterly

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/leaqua

Moving beyond the employee: The role of the organizational context in

leader workplace aggression
Payal Nangia Sharma
Steinberg Hall-Dietrich Hall 3014, Management Department, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, United States

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Management and psychology scholars are increasingly seeking to examine how organizational characteristics
Workplace aggression that contextualize leadership shape the occurrence, impact, and prevention of leader workplace aggression.
Mistreatment However, a comprehensive review of this literature has not yet been conducted, so a systematic understanding is
Leadership lacking regarding questions including: (1) when, why and how is such aggression more likely to occur; (2) how
Organizational context
do contextual factors enable or constrain effects of these leader behaviors on employees; and (3) how can
organizations proactively manage their internal dynamics to prevent or reduce such incidences? Drawing on
Porter and McLaughlin's (2006) components of organizational context, I review existing leader aggression re-
search that intersects with seven categories: (1) culture/climate; (2) goals/purposes; (3) people/composition; (4)
processes; (5) state/condition; (6) structure; and (7) time. I then offer theoretical propositions for future work,
which are grounded in the roles and responsibilities inherent to the nature of leadership and coupled with the
changing nature of organizational life. As a result, I set the research agenda for the next decade of organizational
context × leader workplace aggression studies.

Research on leadership continues to develop exponentially, and one
area that has received increasing attention is aggressive behaviors by
leaders in work settings. Surveys estimate that almost half of all U.S.
workers regularly experience behaviors including verbal abuse, delib-
erate destruction of relationships with others, and bad-mouthing of
their professional standing; and more than half have at least heard
about these behaviors occurring in their organizations (Employment
Law Alliance, 2007; Workplace Bullying Institute, 2014). Further, de-
spite inconsistency in measurement and variability between nations
(see Nielsen et al., 2009; Nielsen, Matthiesen, & Einarsen, 2010), “the
prevalence of employees being exposed to workplace aggression has
been estimated in Austria (8% to 26%), Belgium (3% to 20%), Denmark
(2% to 27%), Finland (5% to 24%), France (8% to 10%), Ireland (23%),
Norway (5% to 9%), Lithuania (23%), South Africa (20%), Sweden
(4%), Turkey (55%), UK (11%) and US (10% to 41%)” (Eschleman,
Bowling, Michel, & Burns, 2014: 362). In a meta-analytic review
comparing the magnitude of effects of employee mistreatment by su-
pervisors, co-workers, and outsiders in 66 samples, supervisor beha-
viors had the strongest impact on adverse attitudinal and behavioral
outcomes for targeted employees1 (Hershcovis & Barling, 2010).
A less well-understood, but critical, perspective regards the
intersection of leader workplace aggression and organizational char-
acteristics that contextualize leadership. Context is defined as “situa-
tional opportunities and constraints that affect the occurrence and
meaning of organizational behavior as well as functional relationships
between variables” (Johns, 2006: 386; Osborn, Hunt, & Jauch, 2002).
According to Rousseau and Fried (2001), the term context “comes from
a Latin root meaning to ‘knit together’ or ‘to make a connection’” (2001:
1). Workplace aggression scholars have called for more research that
integrates organizational characteristics, and a growing number of
studies have emerged in recent years (cf. Tepper, 2007). However, a
comprehensive review of this literature has not yet been conducted, so
a systematic understanding is lacking regarding questions including: (1)
due to what contextual factors is leader aggression more or less likely to
occur in the workplace; (2) how does the organizational context enable
or constrain effects of these leader behaviors on employees; and (3)
how can organizations proactively manage their internal dynamics to
prevent or reduce incidences? Accordingly, I synthesize the leader ag-
gression × organizational characteristics literature, uncover several
key issues pertaining to the above questions, and offer theoretically
grounded propositions that set the agenda for the next decade of re-
search (see Fig. 1).

E-mail address: payals@wharton.upenn.edu.

1
As examples, targeted employees have lowered self-efficacy, organizational commitment, and job satisfaction; and increased somatic complaints, counterproductive work behaviors,
withdrawal behaviors, and turnover intentions (Duffy et al., 2002; Duffy, Ganster, Shaw, Johnson, & Pagon, 2006; Kammeyer-Mueller, Wanberg, Rubenstein, & Song, 2013; Lim, Cortina,
& Magley, 2008; Mackey, Frieder, Brees, & Martinko, 2017; Penney & Spector, 2005; Sakurai, Jex, & Gillespie, 2011; Tepper, 2007).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2017.12.002
Received 3 February 2017; Received in revised form 8 December 2017; Accepted 9 December 2017
1048-9843/ © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article as: Sharma, P.N., The Leadership Quarterly (2017), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2017.12.002
P.N. Sharma The Leadership Quarterly xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

PROPOSED THEORETICAL MODEL
Cultures of
stress, anxiety
and outcomes at
any cost P1a-b
Cooperative
P2a-b
goals and power Leader
asymmetries workplace
aggression
P3
Complementary
pairing of leaders
and employees
P4
Team-building, cross-
cutting assignments and P5a-b P7
P6
rewarding competition
with a common enemy
Interventions by
Resource Reciprocal, observers
scarcity and sequential and
crises pooled task
interdependence
Fig. 1. Proposed theoretical model.
In doing so, my review offers two contributions. First, I shift focus
from understanding relational (e.g., relationship quality) or social (e.g.,
power dynamics) contexts of employee-directed leader aggression (cf.
Hershcovis & Reich, 2013) to the role of the organizational context.
Extant theorizing and empirical evidence reflect how leadership is
embedded in, and socially constructed from, context, and that context
can both facilitate and impede individual behaviors (Cappelli & Sherer,
1991; Mowday & Sutton, 1993). The well-known formula that behavior
is a function of both person and environment (Lewin, 1936) ad-
ditionally highlights the importance of understanding situational fac-
tors in management phenomena. Yet the organizational context con-
stitutes a lesser understood domain within leader workplace aggression
dynamics, especially from an antecedent-based perspective, as con-
sequences for individuals, dyads and groups are more often examined in
studies (for reviews, see Schilpzand, De Pater, & Erez, 2014; Tepper,
Simon, & Park, 2017). As a result, this review expands our under-
standing of the nomological network of leader workplace aggression by
highlighting how organizational characteristics can shape the occur-
rence, impact, and prevention of such behaviors.
Second, and relatedly, I turn the spotlight on accountability at the
organizational level of analysis for the quality of the work environment
in which leaders and employees are situated (Crawford, 2001). The
onus of responsibility for behaving in positive ways ultimately lies with
leaders themselves, yet individual differences can exist that lower the
likelihood that leaders will not mistreat their employees (cf. Krasikova,
Green, & LeBreton, 2013; Tepper et al., 2017). Employees who are
mistreated by their leaders are often powerless, for reasons such as
resource dependency on their aggressors, so may struggle to manage
situations on their own (Einarsen & Skogstad, 1996; Tepper, Moss,
Lockhart, & Carr, 2007). Some mistreated employees will hold their
organizations partly responsible for their leaders' aggressive behaviors,
and engage in organizational-directed deviance as a result (see Bowling
& Michel, 2011; Shoss, Eisenberger, Restubog, & Zagenczyk, 2013;
Tepper, Henle, Lambert, Giacalone, & Duffy, 2008). This review
therefore helps inform scholarly and practical understanding of those
precipitating factors of leader workplace aggression which may lie
within an organization's control (including its culture, structure, human
resource practices, and rewards systems).
Literature review and organizational context typology
To conduct a systematic literature review, I identified relevant
studies in three ways: a manual scan of leading management and psy-
chology journals, as well as journals in related fields2; a comprehensive
web-based search of relevant terms (e.g., abusive supervision, social
undermining, incivility, bullying, and destructive leadership, see
Hershcovis, 2011) using several electronic databases (e.g., Business
Source Premier, PsycINFO, Web of Science, Google Scholar); and, a
scan of reference lists from the articles identified through these first two
methods. While the phrase “abusive supervision” explicitly references
the leader, I used the terms “leader,” “manager,” and/or “supervisor” in
conjunction with other more generalized workplace aggression con-
structs (e.g., social undermining) to identify only those studies that
focus on leader actions.
I then manually examined each article identified to determine if its
content coincided with seven organizational context components used
by Porter and McLaughlin (2006) in their review of the leadership lit-
erature from 1990 to 2005. Specifically, the authors examined the
nature and extent of attention paid by scholars to the organizational
context as a factor affecting leader behaviors and effectiveness. Their
categories include: (1) culture/climate; (2) goals/purposes; (3) people/
composition; (4) processes; (5) state/condition; (6) structure; and (7)
time. When describing their selection process and inclusion criteria for
research, importantly, Porter and McLaughlin explained: “organiza-
tional context variables do NOT include elements pertaining strictly to
the individual such as personality traits, gender, intentions and atti-
tudes” (2006: 561). Following this, and as illustrated by Table 1, my
review focuses on approximately 35 conceptual papers and/or em-
pirical studies.
The authors further noted that there is lack of consensus regarding
what components or characteristics constitute organizational context. I
draw upon their typology, however, and situate my agenda for future
research in its categories, for several reasons. First, their work provides
the most recent summary and synthesis of leadership × context studies.
Other taxonomies of situations exist but are less focused on leadership
dynamics (for example—the Situational-Eight DIAMONDS, which as-
sesses psychologically important and meaningful characteristics of si-
tuations: Duty, Intellect, Adversity, Mating, pOsitivity, Negativity,
Deception and Sociality, see Rauthmann et al., 2014). Second, although
Porter and McLaughlin (2006) incorporated findings regarding positive
leader behaviors such as charismatic and transformational leadership,
the leader workplace aggression literature has flourished in the last
decade (cf. Tepper et al., 2017). Thus there is a conceptual imperative
to now use their typology to summarize studies published since 2006.
Third, they offer both breadth and depth of topics in their discussion,
including by subsuming topics referred to in other organizational con-
text frameworks (e.g., Osborn et al., 2002; Tosi, 1991). For example,
scholars have previously identified the importance of situational
strength, or “implicit or explicit cues provided by external entities
2
Consistent with Porter and McLaughlin (2006), I conducted my literature search as
follows. First, I searched for articles in domestic outlets of: Academy of Management
Journal, Academy of Management Review, Administrative Science Quarterly, Journal of Ap-
plied Psychology, Journal of Management, Journal of Organizational Behavior, The Leadership
Quarterly, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Organization Science, and
Personnel Psychology. I then reviewed articles from international and sociological outlets
of: Journal of Management Studies, British Journal of Management, Work and Organizational
Psychology, Organization Studies, Journal of International Business, Management International
Review, Human Relations, American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology,
Social Science Quarterly, and Journal of Social Issues. Finally, to be as expansive as possible,
I also added outlets of: Human Resource Management Review, Journal of Business Ethics,
Journal of Business Psychology, Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, and
Work and Stress. Altogether, my review spans 26 journals.

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P.N. Sharma The Leadership Quarterly xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

Table 1
Summary of literature search.

Category Articles

1. Culture/climate (4) • Kiewitz, Restubog, Shoss, Garica & Tang (Journal of Applied Psychology, 2016)
• Mawritz, Dust & Resick (Journal of Applied Psychology, 2014)
• Mumford, Gessner, Connelly, Connor & Clifton (Leadership Quarterly, 1993)
• Restubog, Scott & Zagenczyk (Journal of Applied Psychology, 2011)
2. Goals/purpose (4) • Lian, Brown, Ferris, Liang, Keeping, & Morrison (Academy of Management Journal, 2014)
• Mawritz, Folger & Latham (Journal of Organizational Behavior, 2014)
• Walter, Lam, van der Vegt, Huang & Miao (Journal of Applied Psychology, 2015)
• Wee, Liao, Liu & Liu (Academy of Management Journal, 2017)
3. People/composition (9) • Henle & Gross (Journal of Business Ethics, 2014)
• Keeves, Westphal, & McDonald (Administrative Science Quarterly, 2017)
• Lian, Ferris & Brown (Journal of Applied Psychology, 2012)
• Liang, Lian, Brown, Ferris, Hanig, & Keeping (Academy of Management Journal, 2016)
• Liu, Kwa, Wu & Wu (Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 2010)
• Mawritz, Greenbaum, Butts & Graham (Academy of Management Journal, 2017)
• Tepper, Moss & Duffy (Academy of Management Journal, 2011)
• Thoroughgood, Hunter & Sawyer (Journal of Business Ethics, 2011)
• Wang, Harms & Mackey (Journal of Business Ethics, 2015)
4. Processes (10) • Aryee, Chen, Sun & Debrah (Journal of Applied Psychology, 2007)
• Butts, Becker & Boswell (Academy of Management Journal, 2015)
• Collins & Jackson (Leadership Quarterly, 2015)
• Hoobler & Brass (Journal of Applied Psychology, 2006)
• Hoobler & Hu (Leadership Quarterly, 2013)
• Rafferty, Restubog & Jimmieson (Work and Stress, 2010)
• Salin (Human Relations, 2003)
• Samnani & Singh (Human Relations, 2014)
• Tepper, Duffy, Henle, & Lambert (Personnel Psychology, 2006)
• Thirlwall (Journal of Management and Organization, 2015)
5. State/condition (2) • Neves (Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 2014)
• Thau, Bennett, Mitchell & Marrs (Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 2009)
6. Structure (4) • Harvey, Treadway, Heames & Duke (Journal of Business Ethics, 2009)
• Liu, Liao & Loi (Academy of Management Journal, 2012)
• Mawritz, Mayer, Hoobler, Wayne & Marinova (Personnel Psychology, 2012)
• Padilla, Hogan & Kaiser (Leadership Quarterly, 2007)
7. Time (2) • Leiter, Laschinger, Day & Oore (Journal of Applied Psychology, 2011)
• Lian, Ferris, Morrison, & Brown (Journal of Applied Psychology, 2014)
regarding the desirability of potential behaviors” through which orga- Supervisor social undermining
nizations can communicative relevant behavior and put pressure on
individuals (Meyer, Dalal, & Hermida, 2010: 122). Porter and Social undermining refers to “behaviors intended to hinder, over
McLaughlin (2006) included several types of stimuli that are relevant to time, the ability to establish and maintain positive interpersonal re-
this influence process, such as hierarchical structure and goals in the lationships, work-related success, and favorable reputation” (Duffy,
organization. Ganster, & Pagon, 2002: 332). Unlike other workplace aggression
constructs, social undermining explicitly reflects deliberate, harmful
intent by offenders to negatively impact the outcomes listed for the
Conceptualizing leader workplace aggression targeted individual (cf. Hershcovis, 2011).

Over 150 empirical studies in the leadership and workplace ag-

gression domains have been published to date in leading management
and psychology journals. Drawing from this body of work, I next discuss
prior conceptualizations of leader workplace aggression. Importantly,
although I do not intend to be exhaustive with these descriptions, I refer
to the constructs listed below to illustrate a range of ways that leaders
can aggress against their employees. As part of my discussion, I also
highlight how the constructs are similar or different from one another.
Incivility
Incivility is defined as low intensity deviant acts, such as rude and
discourteous verbal and non-verbal behaviors enacted towards another
organizational member (Andersson & Pearson, 1999). This low level
distinguishes incivility from other behaviors, as does its ambiguous
intent to harm on the part of offenders (cf. Hershcovis, 2011).

Abusive supervision Bullying

Abusive supervision is defined as the “sustained display of hostile
verbal and non-verbal behaviors, excluding physical contact” (Tepper,
2007: 178). Typically, it has been conceptualized as continuous, rather
than episodic, in nature (Ferris, Yan, Lim, Chen, & Fatimah, 2016;
Hershcovis, 2011). However, other research has emerged suggesting
that abusive supervision varies on a daily basis (Barnes, Lucianetti,
Bhave, & Christian, 2015) and more so within, rather than between,
supervisors (see Johnson, Venus, Lanaj, Mao, & Chang, 2012).
Bullying occurs when a person is repeatedly exposed to negative
acts (e.g., constant abuse, offensive remarks or teasing, ridicule or so-
cial exclusion) by leaders, subordinates, or coworkers (Einarsen, 2000).
Scholars have also advanced a definition of leader bullying as “strate-
gically selected tactics of influence by leaders designed to convey a
particular image and place targets in a submissive, powerless position
whereby they are more easily influenced and controlled, in order to
achieve personal and/or organizational objectives” (Ferris, Zinko,
Brouer, Buckley, & Harvey, 2007: 197).

3
P.N. Sharma
Destructive leadership
Destructive leadership has been conceptualized as systematic, voli-
tional, and repeated hostile leader behaviors that violate organizational
interests and/or sabotage employee outcomes such as motivation, well-
being, or job satisfaction (Einarsen, Aasland, & Skogstad, 2007;
Krasikova et al., 2013). It has also been assessed using seven clusters of
behaviors ranging from micro-managing and over-controlling to
creating situations of misery and despair for employees (Shaw,
Erickson, & Harvey, 2011). As these descriptions illustrate, destructive
leadership is both similar to, and distinct from, other constructs via the
influence process involved, duration, range, and hostile and hindering
nature of the leader's actions (cf. Schyns & Schilling, 2013;
Thoroughgood, Padilla, Hunter, & Tate, 2012).
Prior reviews
A number of conceptual and meta-analytic reviews of leader
workplace aggression studies have been conducted in the last decade,
typically focusing on behavior types in isolation of one another (such as
bullying and abusive supervisor, cf. Bartlett II & Bartlett, 2011;
Martinko, Harvey, Brees, & Mackey, 2013; Schyns & Schilling, 2013;
Tepper, 2007). These reviews highlight how leader aggression can vary
according to intent, frequency of occurrence, power or position of of-
fender, intensity, and/or impact on outcomes (e.g., Tepper & Henle,
2011). However, the different behaviors discussed here also reflect
some similarity by involving “employees' perceptions that some of their
fundamental psychological needs are impeded by an authority figure”
such as feeling competent, worthy, valued and having status in orga-
nizations (Mayer, Thau, Workman, Van Dijke, & De Cremer, 2012: 24).
Because there has been caution regarding construct proliferation as
well (cf. Hershcovis, 2011), I use the phrase “leader workplace ag-
gression” in my review. In doing so, I follow the lead of prior con-
ceptualizations of workplace aggression as a psychological form of
mistreatment that involves negative acts perpetrated against organiza-
tional members, with the intent to harm and which targeted parties are
motivated to avoid (Aquino & Thau, 2009; Neuman & Baron, 2005). As
I will later acknowledge in the discussion, however, there are oppor-
tunities for forthcoming research to consider the juncture of the dif-
ferent forms of leader workplace aggression with organizational char-
acteristics.
Contextualizing leader workplace aggression
In the sections that follow, I review and synthesize prior leader
workplace aggression × organizational context findings, identify un-
resolved research questions, and offer theoretically grounded proposi-
tions for future work. Although some of the research I review may
overlap across categories from the Porter and McLaughlin (2006) ty-
pology (given multiple perspectives may be subsumed within particular
work), I place extant studies within one category – as guided by con-
ceptual fit and for theoretical parsimony. In addition, where noted, I
advance and extend the categories by incorporating studies that are
conceptually compelling, or practically relevant, to understanding
workplace aggression and leader-follower dynamics.
Notably, the theoretical propositions I offer for guiding future work
are thematically consistent with salient roles and responsibilities that
characterize leadership (e.g., Yukl, 1989, 2001) and with the practical
realities of contemporary organizational life. Specifically, I highlight:
cultures of stress, anxiety and a focus on outcome-at-any-cost (Category
#1, Culture/climate); goals, power dynamics and employee expertise
(Category #2, Goals/purpose); resolving an apparent paradox regarding
employee proactivity (Category #3, People/composition); faultlines
which can emerge in work groups (Category #4, Processes); resource
scarcity and crises (Category #5, State/condition); different types of task
interdependence (Category #6, Structure); and the role of observers who
4
The Leadership Quarterly xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx
may potentially intervene in instances of leader aggression (Category
#7, Time). Within each category, I offer a two-fold explanation that (1)
highlights the relevance of the chosen topic for leaders' work experi-
ences and aggression dynamics; and (2) draws on prior theoretical and
empirical evidence in support of the proposition offered.
Category #1: culture/climate
Typology
Culture refers to shared attitudes and perceptions in an organization
that are based on a set of basic assumptions, fundamental norms and
values; while climate “involves employees' perceptions of what the or-
ganization is like in terms of practices, and procedures that are re-
warded, supported and expected in an organization (Ostroff, Kinicki, &
Tamkins, 2003; Schneider, 1975). In their review, Porter and
McLaughlin (2006) included those articles that investigated types of
cultures, behavioral norms, and prevailing organizational values. I si-
milarly review studies from these areas.
Existing studies
Climate has been examined both as a predictor and as a moderator
in abusive supervision processes. For example, consistent with a tenant
of social information processing theory that leaders enact behaviors
reflecting expectations from their environments (Lord & Smith, 1983;
Salancik & Pfeffer, 1978), a hostile organizational climate – or a type of
affective climate that emerges when employees feel envious, untrusting,
and aggressive towards others in an organization – predicted abusive
supervision (Mawritz, Dust, & Resick, 2014). Notably, this relationship
was weaker when leader conscientiousness was high – indicative of
hardworking and self-disciplined tendencies (see Costa & McCrae,
1992). Second, a climate of fear as reported by employees – which in-
volves a generalized feeling of apprehension in the workplace, re-
flecting negative emotions in organizational members such as anxiety
(Ashkanasy & Nicholson, 2003) – strengthened an indirect relationship
between abusive supervision and employee defensive silence via em-
ployee fear, attributed to approach or avoidance tendencies in em-
ployees (Carver, 2001; Gray, 1981; Kiewitz, Restubog, Shoss, Garcia, &
Tang, 2016).
Drawing on the person-situation interactional model, and using a
simulation exercise where student participants assumed the role of re-
gional sales manager completing various “in-basket” tasks, Mumford,
Gessner, Connelly, O'Connor, and Clifton (1993) demonstrated that
participants were less likely to make decisions that harmed others un-
less an external authority figure indicated that doing so could be jus-
tified in an organization. Using theories of reasoned action and planned
behavior (suggesting that perceived norms directly influence intentions
to engage in a behavior (see Azjen, 1991; Fishbein & Azjen, 1975),
Restubog, Scott, & Zagenczyk, 2011 showed that abusive supervision
was predicted by leader-reported aggressive norms (Douglas &
Martinko, 2001), referring to the extent to which organizations reward
employees for being aggressive, confrontational and negative (and
abusive supervision mediated a relationship between the norms and
employee psychological distress).
Taken together, extant research suggests that organizational cli-
mate, signals from senior-level leaders, and norms promote leader
workplace aggression directed towards employees. In addition, climate
can exacerbate the harmful effects of leaders mistreating their em-
ployees.
Future directions
To complement, and extend, the above pattern of findings, a critical,
and timely, area of inquiry regards understanding how the impact of
adverse cultures or climates on leaders can be alleviated. Although a
range of cultures can exist in contemporary settings, leaders face unique
pressures as part of their role responsibilities including managing lay-
offs, downsizing, and work schedule and technology changes. As a
P.N. Sharma
result, leaders are likely to experience cultures involving stress or an-
xiety norms, as well as a focus on achieving outcomes at any cost
(Hambrick, Finkelstein, & Mooney, 2005; Hauge, Skogstad, & Einarsen,
2007; Lovelace, Manz, & Alves, 2007; Salin, 2003).
First, the phrase stress is generally used by scholars to refer to
“conditions or events in the situation; the person's reaction to the si-
tuation; or the relationship between the person and situation” (Bliese,
Edwards, & Sonnentag, 2017: 2). Prior empirical evidence at the group
and individual levels indicates that leaders who experience workplace
stressors, such as interpersonal conflict or resource constraints, are
more likely to engage in aggressive behaviors (Burton, Hoobler, &
Scheuer, 2012; Harms, Credé, Tynan, Leon, & Jeung, 2016; Hershcovis
et al., 2007; Jenkins, Zapf, Winefield, & Sarris, 2012). Second, research
suggests that norms can exist in organizations which dictate leaders
working productively at all costs (Ferris et al., 2007), and even valuing
toughness in organizational members to achieve desirable ends for the
organization (termed bottom line mentality, see Greenbaum, Mawritz,
& Eissa, 2012). Such norms likely would run likely counter to leaders
functioning within reasonable work-life boundaries, engaging in tactics
which reduce their burnout, and building positive relationships with
subordinates.
While stress or anxiety and outcome-at-any cost cultures are a likely
deterrent to fewer incidents of leader workplace aggression, the con-
comitant practical reality is that organizations cannot necessarily re-
duce stressful stimuli for leaders, or easily change the pressures em-
bedded in their work settings (Hannah, Uhl-Bien, Avolio, & Cavarretta,
2009; Sharma & Pearsall, 2016; Weick & Sutcliffe, 2001). However,
therein lies an imperative for organizations to invest in resources that
can help cultivate and sustain their leaders' health and well-being in the
face of pressures, and gradually introduce improvements to unhealthy
work norms. Empirically, support at the organizational level (i.e., from
senior-level leaders) and engaging in exercise have been shown to al-
leviate the negative effects of stress for leaders, again both individually
and in groups (Burton et al., 2012; Sharma & Pearsall, 2016). Building
on such findings, and how senior-level leaders are known to set the tone
in their organizations (Bandura, 1977), future research should consider
how values regarding leader mental well-being and physical health can
be cultivated. As examples, this could take the form of senior-level
leaders modeling practices and use of organizational resources to em-
phasize leader self-care, self-compassion, mindfulness training, and
goal-setting programs (Brendel, Hankerson, Byun, & Cunningham,
2016; Good et al., 2016; Greenfield, 2017; Levinson, 1996; Liang et al.,
2016; Neff, 2016; Parzefall & Salin, 2010; Quick, 1979; Weller, 2017).
Accordingly, I propose:
Proposition 1a. A positive relationship between cultures of stress,
anxiety or achieving outcomes-at-any-cost and leader workplace
aggression may be alleviated through senior-level leaders' engaging in
practices focused on mind-body health, thus setting a tone focused on
wellness for other leaders.
Proposition 1b. Organizational use of resources devoted to cultivating
preventative measures regarding leader burnout may reduce the
likelihood that stress, anxiety, or outcome-at-any-cost cultures will
promote leader workplace aggression.
Category #2: goals/purpose
Typology
The second category includes goals, strategies, and missions of in-
dividuals, groups, and organizational units. Porter and McLaughlin
(2006) reviewed articles that investigated group goals, leader power
motivation, and the role of goals in contributing to leader emergence
and effectiveness. I similarly include articles on topics of leader goals
and power, and also incorporate outcome dependency – given its re-
levance for power-based dynamics inherent to leader-follower
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The Leadership Quarterly xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx
dynamics.
Existing studies
Goals are indicative of states an individual seeks to either attain or
avoid (Levin & Edelstein, 2009). Goal accomplishment in particular is a
key component of a leader's job role (Hemphill & Coons, 1957; Rauch &
Behling, 1984). Consistent with this perspective, Mawritz, Folger, and
Latham (2014) drew on the cognitive theory of stress and found that
exceedingly difficult job goals assigned to supervisors predicted their
abusive behavior, as mediated by supervisor hindrance stress, anger
and anxiety. According to Lian, Brown, Ferris, Liang, Keeping, and
Morrison (2014), and drawing on a self-control framework, abusive
supervision and aggression by employees against leaders were more
strongly associated when employees (1) were low in self-control capa-
city – referring to individual differences in the ability to restrain re-
sponses not aligned with one's best interests – and (2) perceived their
leaders to be low in coercive power – reflecting the leader's power to
punish aggressing employees.
Also, Walter, Lam, van der Vegt, Huang, and Miao (2015) drew on
moral exclusion theory and found that employee performance (as per-
ceived by the leader) was negatively linked with abusive supervision
when there was a high level of outcome dependency for the leader. This
dependency occurs when a leader perceives an employee's contribu-
tions influence his/her outcomes – for example, achieving work goals
and receiving rewards, and recognition. Perceived employee perfor-
mance positively and indirectly was related to subsequent objective
employee performance through abusive supervision under conditions of
higher outcome dependency for the leader as well. In other, related
research, Wee, Liao, Liu, and Liu (2017) referred to power dependency
theory and showed that when a targeted employee engaged in tactics to
increase an abusive leader's dependence on him/her (termed approach
balancing operations), this resulted in reduced future abuse and an
increase in the leader's attempts to reconcile the relationship.
The prior work discussed highlights the important roles that goal,
power-based, and outcome-related factors can play in determining the
occurrence and impact of leader workplace aggression.
Future directions
Building on this body of research, I propose that the theory of goal
interdependence (Deutsch, 1949) and related empirical findings can
help predict leaders aggressing against employees. When cooperative
goals exist, individuals are likely to help one another due to the belief
that their goals are positively related; while in competitive goal set-
tings, individuals believe their goals are negatively related, which
weakens relationships (Johnson, Johnson, & Maruyama, 1983). Such
patterns suggest the importance of organizations ensuring that leader-
employee goals are appropriately intertwined in order to promote
supportive interactions, and reduce leader aggression. Indeed, as noted
by Hershcovis and colleagues, “when one is dependent on another to
complete work tasks, it is important to maintain a positive relationship
so that performance is not adversely affected” (2012: 5).
By contrast, those in power are more likely to engage in behaviors in
line with their own goals and to mistreat others (Fast, Halevy, &
Galinsky, 2011; Galinsky, Magee, Gruenfeld, Whitson, & Liljenquist,
2008; Vredenburgh & Brender, 1998). Organizations are thus well-
served to structure leader goals in ways that promote power asym-
metry, where the leader is more dependent on his/her employees for
goal achievement – rather than the typical characterization of leader-
follower relationships as an employee being more dependent on his/her
leader (see Hollander & Offermann, 1990). More broadly, according to
a “power of the weak” idea (Mechanic, 1962), increasing a stronger
party's dependence on a less powerful individual can render a power
imbalance less salient. Empirical evidence suggests that employees can
form coalitions with others in the organization (Casciaro & Piskorski,
2005) and having unique expertise – as was the case when French to-
bacco workers improved their power in a factory setting by not
P.N. Sharma
allowing managers to have access to their machinery knowledge
(Crozier, 1964).
Modern organizations can simultaneously encourage cooperative
goals and increase leader dependency on employees by recognizing and
utilizing employee expertise (Mechanic, 1962; Wilson, Sin, & Conlon,
2010). Specifically, goals can be set that are consistent with those of a
learning organization – where information exchange, knowledge
sharing and communication are valued in top down, bottom up and
lateral ways (Senge, 1990). Ideally, accountability for such behaviors
can be embedded in leader job descriptions and written into an orga-
nization's goals, mission or strategy. Integrating these ideas together, I
thus propose:
Proposition 2a. To reduce leader workplace aggression, organizations
should (a) structure cooperative goals for leaders and their employees;
(b) create power asymmetries between these parties; and (c) align
leader goals – such as task accomplishment and performance – with
valuing employee behaviors of information exchange and knowledge
sharing across hierarchical levels.
Proposition 2b. In addition, to lower likelihood that leaders will
aggress, organizations can promote leader accountability for goal
accomplishment through promotion and career advancement
decisions which support and reflect valuing employee expertise.
Category #3: people/composition
Typology
The third category refers to demographic characteristics or varying
capabilities of people or groups in organizations. Porter and
McLaughlin (2006) discussed articles on gender issues and hetero-
geneity at different levels of analyses. I similarly review gender-focused
research; and also extrapolate to include findings from three sub-cate-
gories of employee individual differences, which are important for
leaders managing today's workforce: (1) personality (demographic
characteristics); (2) performance (employee capabilities); and (3) cul-
tural values (per the changing composition of workers – as well as in
response to a recent call to incorporate diversity and leadership per-
spectives and theories together, cf. Chin, 2010).
Existing studies
First, Keeves, Westphal, and McDonald (2017) found that in-
gratiating managers (or the deliberate use of flattery or ‘other en-
hancement,’ as well as opinion conformity to strengthen the relation-
ship with a target individual) were likely to develop feelings of
resentment towards the company CEO especially when s/he was a ra-
cial minority or a woman – due to managers perceiving the CEO as a
higher-status out-group member. In turn, feelings of resentment trig-
gered social undermining by top managers of the CEO. The authors
explained how (1) ingratiation can violate managers' prevailing ideals
of authenticity, autonomy, and meritocracy and pose a threat to their
positive self-regard; and (2) “attribution biases can cause the ingratiator
to externalize blame for the esteem-threatening behaviors” to the CEO
(Keeves et al., 2017: 3). Also, Thoroughgood and colleagues demon-
strated that in climates intolerant of aversive leadership – referring to
leaders relying on coercive power through use of intimidation tactics
and reprimand (Pearce & Sims, 2002) – “female leaders who break the
rules are perceived more aversively than their male counterparts when
their rule-breaking is linked to negative organizational performance”
(2011: 662) – due to employees' likely attributing the financial per-
formance to female leaders' incompetence, consistent with societal
stereotypes regarding gender and leadership. Further, when financial
performance was negative, employees reported higher whistle-blowing
intentions towards female, rather than male, aversive leaders.
Second, workplace aggression scholars have drawn on victim pre-
cipitation theory and examined the predictor role of employee
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The Leadership Quarterly xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx
personality. According to this theory, certain individual characteristics
can elicit hostile and aggressive responses from potential offenders
(Curtis, 1974) – including due to “personality driven attitudes, emo-
tions or behaviors that induce tension and conflict” (Henle & Gross,
2014: 463). Empirically, Wang and colleagues (2015) demonstrated
that employees high in neuroticism or low in conscientiousness re-
ported higher levels of abusive supervision partially through their self-
reported deleterious job performance. The authors explained that lea-
ders may perceive employees who are neurotic as demanding, threa-
tening, and having an adverse effect on the group's processes; thus, may
become frustrated or annoyed by employees who are low in con-
scientiousness. Similarly, Henle and Gross (2014) found that emotional
stability (reflecting aspects such as an individual's ability to withstand
stress, have a positive outlook on life, and being calm, secure and re-
laxed, see Costa & McCrae, 1985) and conscientiousness negatively
predicted abusive supervision, as mediated by negative emotions.
In the performance domain, Liang et al. (2016) referred to a self-
control framework and demonstrated a negative relationship between
employee performance and leader hostility towards the employee was
stronger when leaders had high hostile attribution bias (or a tendency
to attribute hostile intent to others' actions, even when the intent is not
readily apparent, Tedeschi & Felson, 1994). Relatedly, Tepper, Moss,
and Duffy (2011) found that leader perceptions of relationship conflict
and employee performance mediated the relationship between per-
ceived deep-level dissimilarity and abusive supervision. The authors
surmised that low-performing employees could be perceived as threa-
tening to leaders' own reputation and ability to accomplish work –
hence such employees would become targets of leaders' hostility. In
addition, the indirect effect of perceived deep-level dissimilarity on
abusive supervision through relationship conflict was stronger when
employee performance was low because some employee “adversaries
are perceived to deserve fair treatment when they are good (‘higher’)
performers” (Tepper et al., 2011: 284). As another example, Mawritz,
Greenbaum, Butts, and Graham (2017) drew on self-regulatory theory
and found that when employee performance was high, an indirect effect
of employee deviance on abusive supervision through leader self-reg-
ulation impairment was stronger. This finding was likely due to how the
employee deviance × high performance intersection provided leaders
with inconsistent behavioral information regarding the employee's
utility to the leader and organization, hence inducing difficulty for the
leader to self-regulate and constrain his/her abusive tendencies.
Fourth, due to the ongoing globalization of the workforce, there is
increasing variance in employee cultural values that managers may
encounter as part their organization's context in which they are si-
tuated; and which may determine how employees are affected by leader
workplace aggression (Javidan, Dorfman, Sully de Luque, & House,
2006). As one example, Lian, Ferris, and Brown (2012) found that
employee power distance – or how individuals perceive and react to
authority – such that high power distance individuals are more likely to
respect, defer to, and trust their leaders – (see Kirkman, Chen, Farh,
Chen, & Lowe, 2009; Sully de Luque & Sommer, 2000) (1) strengthened
the relationship between abusive supervision and subordinate inter-
personal deviance, drawing on social learning theory (Bandura, 1977);
and (2) weakened the relationship between abusive supervision and
employee ratings of leader interpersonal justice. Additionally, Liu,
Kwong Kwan, Wu, and Wu (2010) demonstrated that low employee
traditionality (i.e., the degree to which individuals uphold traditional
values, Schwartz, 1992 – for example, traditional Chinese values of
male domination and a general sense of powerlessness) strengthened
relationships between (1) abusive supervision and employee revenge
cognitions; and (2) abusive supervision and leader-directed deviance.
Revenge cognitions mediated the abusive supervision × employee
traditionality interaction on deviance towards the leader as well, re-
ferring to “thoughts of a victim about inflicting damage or injury on the
supervisor judged to be responsible for producing the harm” (Bradfield
& Aquino, 1999; Liu et al., 2010: 836).
P.N. Sharma
Collectively, prior people/composition research suggests that em-
ployee personality and performance can predict leader workplace ag-
gression; and along with diversity and cultural values, can exacerbate
the effects of leaders' behaviors on employee outcomes or the effects of
different relational factors on leader behaviors.
Future directions
To supplement the above work, an important area of future inquiry
regards how organizations carry a responsibility to consider ‘fit’ be-
tween leader-employee demographics or capabilities when pairing their
leaders and employees to work together (Krasikova et al., 2013; Tepper,
2007).
For example, due to increasing volatility, uncertainty, complexity,
and ambiguity in today's business environment, it is difficult for orga-
nizations and leaders to predict in advance what needs to be done
(Bateman & Crant, 1993; Stewart, Courtright, & Manz, 2011). As such,
there is a practical imperative for employees to engage in proactive
behaviors, or “anticipatory action that employees take to impact
themselves and/or their environments” (Grant & Ashford, 2008: 8).
Paradoxically, however, there is growing empirical evidence that some
leaders will actually respond less positively – such as skeptically or with
lower performance evaluations – due to negative attributions of these
behaviors, or not sharing their employees' perspectives (Frese & Fay,
2001; Grant, Parker, & Collins, 2009). Further, proactive behaviors can
signal that a leader's influence is less needed (Manz & Sims Jr., 1980),
and potentially induce a sense of threat to a leader's identity (Burris,
2012; Williams, 2014). Individuals are known to derogate sources of
threat by discrediting their validity (Branscombe & Wann, 1994;
Petriglieri, 2011; Sykes & Matza, 1957); so some leaders might in-
tentionally disparage proactive employees' reputations, work products,
and relationships with others in organizations (Duffy et al., 2002).
Theoretically, these possibilities can be situated in identity, follower-
ship, or social interactionist perspectives (DeRue & Ashford, 2010;
Stryker, 1987; Stryker & Burke, 2000; Sy, 2010; Tedeschi & Felson,
1994); while empirically, there is evidence that high-performing em-
ployees are likely to be targets of victimization or interpersonal
harming in groups due to mechanisms including envy and social com-
parison (Kim & Glomb, 2010; Lam, Van der Vegt, Walter, & Huang,
2011).
Taken together, prior research suggests that organizations should
find ways to help resolve a potential discrepancy between their need for
employee proactivity and leader negative responses including aggres-
sion. One approach can involve organizations mindfully pairing leaders
and employees together whose demographic backgrounds or pre-
ferences for varying capabilities are complementary (Grant, Gino, &
Hofmann, 2011). In addition, organizations can host or encourage
leader training and development opportunities on topics such as emo-
tional intelligence to help leaders understand their own capabilities,
perhaps driven by individual differences, as well as to help leaders feel
more valued and less threatened when their employees demonstrate
personal initiative. I therefore propose:
Proposition 3. Organizations should seek to resolve the proactivity
paradox by (a) understanding what level of employee proactivity is
desired in the work settings; (b) pairing employees and leaders together
in ways that are complementary with regard to demographics or
varying capabilities; and (c) supporting training initiatives for leaders
to develop skills, such as becoming more self-aware, regarding their
preferences and responses towards employee proactivity.
Category #4: processes
Typology
Processes in organizations include mode of governance; type(s) of
technology; task factors such as differentiation, complexity and ambi-
guity; human resource management (HRM) policies; as well as degree
7
The Leadership Quarterly xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx
of standardization or perceived fairness of policies. In their review,
Porter and McLaughlin (2006) discussed articles pertaining to trans-
formational leadership, governance, and total quality management
(TQM); formal communication processes; and procedural fairness of
company policies as related to leadership dynamics. I similarly discuss
the role of task difficulty, communication processes, and human re-
source management policies including perceptions of fairness and
compensation practices.
Existing studies
First, Collins and Jackson (2015) demonstrated that during difficult
performance tasks, lower levels of attentional resource capacity for
leaders increased the adverse impact of leaders' pre-task negative
emotions on their ineffective self-regulation, leading to their higher
post-task negative emotions and engaging in abusive supervision. The
authors referenced the neuro-cognitive model of self-regulation
(MacCoon, Wallace, & Newman, 2004) and suggested that some leaders
may be vulnerable to cognitive overload and stress in dynamic and
demanding situations in which psychological resources are limited, and
in turn, will respond by abusing their employees.
Second, Hoobler and Brass (2006) referred to displaced aggression
theory (Tedeschi & Norman, 1985) and demonstrated that (1) a positive
relationship between leader reports of psychological contract violations
(such as feeling betrayed by one's organization, which can generate a
sense of loss and injury for individuals, Rousseau, 1995) and abusive
supervision was more pronounced when leaders held high attribution
bias (as earlier mentioned, refers to an extrapunitive mentality where
individuals tend to project blame onto others, Tedeschi & Felson, 1994);
and (2) in turn, family members of abused employees experienced so-
cial undermining in the form of negative affect and evaluations directed
towards them.
In another study, Hoobler and Hu (2013) drew on organizational
justice theory and demonstrated that leader perceptions of interactional
injustice (or the interpersonal dimension of organizational fairness, see
Moorman, 1991; Tyler & Bies, 1989) were associated with abusive su-
pervision via leader state negative affect as the mediating mechanism in
this process. Similarly, Rafferty, Restubog, and Jimmieson (2010) found
that leaders' experienced interpersonal injustice (such as not being
treated with kindness and consideration when decisions were made
about their jobs, see Colquitt, 2001) predicted abusive supervision (and
in turn, employees experienced psychological distress and insomnia).
The positive interactional injustice-abusive supervision relationship
was also stronger for leaders experiencing high levels of psychological
distress (including feeling fearful, see Derogatis, 1993). Tepper, Duffy,
Henle, and Lambert (2006) further demonstrated that leaders' percep-
tions of procedural injustice predicted their abusive practices towards
employees, as mediated by leaders' depression, which can be associated
with individuals' feeling powerless and engaging in deviant or ag-
gressive behavior to regain control, a sense of self-worth, and/or power
(and this mediated relationship was stronger when employees were
higher in negative affect).
In related research, Aryee, Chen, Sun, and Debrah (2007) demon-
strated that supervisors' perceptions of interactional justice and abusive
supervision were more strongly associated for supervisors high (rather
than low) in authoritarian leadership style. The authors attributed their
findings to displaced aggression and interactionist perspectives
(Hattrup & Jackson, 1996; Tedeschi & Norman, 1985), given that for
leaders who desire asserting absolute authority and demanding un-
questionable compliance from subordinates, “the aversive experience of
interactional injustice creates a favorable situation for such individuals
to satisfy their underlying need for control by engaging in abusive su-
pervision” (Aryee et al., 2007: 193).
Also, Butts, Becker, and Boswell (2015) demonstrated that anger by
employees was more likely to occur in response to electronic commu-
nications that were negative in affective tone, when abusive supervision
was high and the communication originated from supervisors. The
P.N. Sharma
authors explained their findings by referring to social cognitive theory,
which suggests that individuals develop relational schemas for knowing
what to expect when interacting with others and that these schemas
help with interpreting incoming information (see Andersen & Chen,
2002; Baldwin, 1992; Horowitz, 1991). Employee experiences with
leader workplace aggression can further be impacted by communica-
tion with their organizations via human resource professionals, as was
evidenced in research by Thirlwall (2015) which showed that organi-
zations can demonstrate inaction when employees report bullying.
Specifically, the findings suggest “sequestering” can occur with orga-
nizations (1) reframing employee responses to help, such as by making
the problem seem trivial; (2) rejigging requests, such as by offering
temporary solutions; and (3) rebuffing the requests from employees,
such as by ignoring concerns.
Finally, there is growing conceptual interest in compensation and
reward systems, as important determinants of leader workplace ag-
gression. As examples, scholars have suggested that reward systems in
organizations can incentivize behaviors including bullying if re-
muneration is provided to organizational members based on (1) relative
rankings comparing and contrasting performance differentials (that is,
bullying others and sabotaging their success can help improve one's
own ranking); or (2) team performance, such that an offender might
aggress against weaker or lower performing members (Salin, 2003).
Weakened targets are also less likely to openly compete with offenders
who can gain rewards of higher levels of productivity and pay for
outperforming others (Samnani & Singh, 2014).
Collectively, prior empirical evidence and conceptual thinking in-
dicates that leader perceptions of task difficulty, fairness in the orga-
nization, reward systems, and employee perceptions of communication
can play important determinant and/or exacerbating roles in workplace
aggression by leaders.
Future directions
Leaders are often in charge of, or themselves interact in, groups
where differences can be pervasive and divide leaders and members
into subgroups or faultlines (Carton & Cummings, 2012; Lau &
Murnighan, 1998; Wageman, Gardner, & Mortensen, 2012). This pos-
sibility carries important implications for predicting leader aggression
with regards to organizational processes, in at least three ways.
First, team-building in an organization can provide an important
antecedent to reducing leader workplace aggression. Such training can
promote team identification or a superordinate identity, referring to
perceptions by leaders and group members of one-ness with the team,
“thereby obscuring differences and lowering comparative fit” which
“should thus decrease the likelihood that negative effects of diversity
occur” (Homan, Hollenbeck, Humphrey, Van Knippenberg, Ilgen, & Van
Kleef, 2008: 1208). Indeed, the strength of members' attachment to the
group (i.e., team identification) may bind members together into a
powerful psychological entity that makes it less likely that leaders will
abuse their own team members, either their employees or other leaders
(Van der Vegt & Bunderson, 2005).
Second, forthcoming studies can explore organizational use of
crosscutting task role assignments, as a decategorization strategy, in
groups where faultlines exist. This approach has been shown to pro-
mote a productive inter-subgroup in which the leader is unified with
his/her employees and psychological distance and biases between
members are reduced (Bezrukova, 2013; Gaertner, Mann, Murrell, &
Dovidio, 1989; Rico, Sanchez-Manzanares, Antino, & Lau, 2012). Third,
organizations can consider building in appropriate levels of competition
into pay-for-performance and reward structures for their leaders. Such
an approach can help create the perception that the leader and his/her
employees are fighting a ‘common enemy’ – such as other groups of
leaders and employees – which acts like a regulatory strategy (Sagar,
Lavallee, & Spray, 2007), promotes group solidarity (Collins, 2011),
and redirects focus towards a universal (as opposed to intra-group)
threat (Brewer, 1999; Tajfel, 1982). The potential downside or cost of
8
The Leadership Quarterly xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx
such intra-organizational competition, however, could be that leaders
would be more likely to aggress towards others in the organization with
whom their groups are competing. I propose:
Proposition 4. The use of human resource management policies and
practices such as (1) team-building or team development training; (2)
crosscutting task role assignments; and (3) rewarding competition
between a leader, his/her employees and a ‘common enemy’ will be
negatively associated with leader workplace aggression towards the
leader's own employees, but may be positively associated with
aggression towards those with whom the leader's group is competing.
Category #5: state/condition
Typology
According to Porter and McLaughlin (2006), state/condition refers
to elements including availability of resources, an organization's fi-
nancial and reputational health, and whether it is in a state of stability
or crisis. The authors reviewed articles on topics including resource
issues, organizational change, and crises, and I follow their lead.
Existing studies
First, Neves (2014) referred to the theory of displaced aggression
(Tedeschi & Norman, 1985) and found that as employee core self-eva-
luations (which subsume one's self-esteem, generalized self-efficacy,
neuroticism, and locus of control, see Judge, Erez, Bono, & Thoresen,
2003) and coworker support (reflected through decreased care and
concern from colleagues about one's well-being, and valuing a person's
contributions, see Rhoades, Eisenberger, & Armeli, 2001) decreased,
abusive supervision increased, and this was especially pronounced in
downsized organizations. The authors suggested that organizational
downsizing is a particularly powerful trigger for leaders to abuse given
such circumstances enhance employee vulnerability and expose leaders
to submissive employees who are even less likely to react due to un-
certainty and potential threats as survivors. Other scholars have also
previously noted that restructuring and downsizing promote increased
pressures and stress and lower thresholds for aggression for organiza-
tional members (Baron & Neuman, 1996; Hoel & Cooper, 2001;
McCarthy, 1996), “due to the elimination of layers and positions,
thereby compressing promotion opportunities, increasing workloads
and internal competition, and lowering job security” (Salin, 2003: 19).
Second, Thau, Bennett, Mitchell, and Marrs (2009) found that positive
relationships between abusive supervision and deviance towards the
leader and organization were stronger when authoritarian management
style was low, which was referred to as high situational uncertainty. To
explain their findings, the authors drew on uncertainty management
theory (UMT) – which suggests that uncertainty perceptions make the
treatment that employees receive from their leaders more salient (Lind
& Van den Bos, 2002; Van den Bos & Lind, 2002). Together, these
studies' findings highlight how downsizing as well as situational un-
certainty can increase the likelihood that leaders will mistreat em-
ployees.
Future directions
An important avenue for future research regards resource con-
straints, which are increasingly characteristic in contemporary organi-
zations (Jick & Murray, 1982; Lovelace et al., 2007). While resource
constraints are a previously identified antecedent of leader workplace
aggression towards employees (due to frustration-aggression theore-
tical explanations, see Fox & Spector, 1999), I advance, and extend, this
prior work – and the focus thus far in my review on leader-directed
aggression towards employees – by suggesting that leaders may aggress
against one another as a means of protecting their own department and/
or employees when resources are scarce (versus when a munificence
exists). It is even possible that employees of the aggressing leaders
would report having a high quality exchange with him/her and
P.N. Sharma
positively evaluate his/her effectiveness (Bauer & Green, 1996;
Scandura & Graen, 1984).
Conceptually, this possibility extends follower implicit leadership
theories by furthering knowledge about employee perceptions of those
behaviors that characterize effective leadership (Epitropaki, Sy, Martin,
Tram-Quon, & Topakas, 2013; Uhl-Bien, Riggio, Lowe, & Carsten,
2014). Prior scholars have theorized and empirically demonstrated a
positive relationship between resource provision to leaders facilitated
by their organizational contexts and employee perceptions of higher
quality LMX (along with leaders being able to lead more effectively due
to higher levels of discretion and latitude, see Gibbons, 1992). Further,
my theorizing can help (1) respond to recent calls for a more balanced
perspective regarding benefits and costs of negative workplace inter-
actions (Labianca & Brass, 2006; Lebel, 2016; Pierce & Aguinis, 2013);
and (2) add to the burgeoning stream of empirical research focusing on
exploring positive outcomes in the wake of negative on-the-job events
or exposure to adverse workplace stimuli (Harris & Kacmar, 2006;
Knight & Eisenkraft, 2015). Importantly, while leaders should not de-
liberately aggress in their work settings so as to be viewed more ef-
fectively by their employees, our conceptual understanding of em-
ployee mental models for leadership effectiveness can nevertheless be
advanced by future research exploring these avenues.
Another possibility within this category regards how when an or-
ganization is in crisis, leaders may be more likely to mistreat their
employees (Hannah et al., 2009). A crisis is defined as a situation that
threatens high priority goals (severity) and which occurs suddenly with
little or no response time available (pressure, see Hermann, 1969). Such
intensified time pressure can increase the risk of leader workplace ag-
gression due to “little time for the ‘niceties’ of business life” (Pearson,
Andersson, & Porath, 2000; Pearson & Porath, 2005; Salin, 2003: 1222).
Empirically, crises have been shown to turn leader attention inward,
making them less available and aware of their subordinates' needs. For
example, when two planes collided and 583 lives were lost in the Te-
nerife air disaster in the Canary Islands off the western coast of Africa,
scholars attributed this in part to a cognitive narrowing of attention by
the airplane pilots and their individualistic behaviors in the cockpit
(Weick, 1990). Although this research did not explicitly incorporate
aggression by the leaders as an outcome, the findings are suggestive
that leaders in crises are less likely to behave in ways that are positively
directed towards, and support, their employees. Extrapolating from
prior work, I propose:
Proposition 5a. Resource scarcity will be positively associated with
between‑leader workplace aggression, and employees of the offending
leader may be more likely to (a) report higher quality exchange
relationships with him/her, and (b) evaluate his/her effectiveness
more positively.
Proposition 5b. In addition, and conversely, crises in organizations
will be positively associated with leader workplace aggression towards
employees.
Category #6: structure
Typology
The structure in an organization can refer to aspects including size,
shape, type, formalization or centralization, hierarchical levels, span of
control, and spatial distance between leaders and employees. Porter
and McLaughlin (2006) reviewed articles pertaining to type of organi-
zation, hierarchical level, spatial distance, task, and organizational
structures, which I likewise seek to explore here.
Existing studies
A few studies have drawn on theories of social learning, social in-
formation processing and attribution (Bandura, 1977; Heider, 1958;
Mikula, 2003; Salancik & Pfeffer, 1978) to explore abusive supervision
9
The Leadership Quarterly xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx
processes spanning different hierarchical levels. Cascading leadership
research reflects understanding relationships between leaders at dif-
ferent hierarchical levels given the premise that lower-level leaders are
linking pins – or individuals who have membership in multiple orga-
nizational groups at different hierarchical levels, thereby positioning
them to serve as concomitant recipients of influence (i.e., as followers)
from senior leaders and as sources of influence (i.e., as leaders them-
selves) for their direct reports (Likert, 1961). Through this dual mem-
bership, leaders determine organizational effectiveness and the quality
of employee work experience by facilitating information flow and re-
source provision and enhancing cooperation among personnel (Graen,
Cashman, Ginsburg, & Schiemann, 1977).
In work by Liu, Liao, and Loi (2012), the authors empirically as-
sessed cascading abusive supervision and showed that the positive re-
lationship between senior-level (managers) and lower-level (super-
visors) abusive supervision was stronger when supervisors attributed
the abuse due to their managers having performance-promotion mo-
tives (or mistreating subordinates to enhance their performance as the
intended objective), and was weaker when the attribution was due to
injury-initiation motives (or purposely mistreating subordinates). Fur-
ther, a negative relationship between supervisor abusive supervision and
employee creativity was stronger when employees perceived their
leader's motives as injury initiation and weaker when perceived as
performance promotion. Second, Mawritz, Mayer, Hoobler, Wayne, and
Marinova (2012) found that abusive manager behavior was positively
related to abusive supervisor behavior, which in turn was positively
related to work group interpersonal deviance (and the supervisor
abuse—work group interpersonal deviance positive relationship was
stronger when hostile climate was high).
In addition to cascading approaches, in a conceptual paper ex-
ploring antecedents to destructive leadership, Padilla, Hogan, and
Kaiser (2007) suggested that organizations missing a system of checks
and balances may inadvertently facilitate abuses of power by leaders.
That is, while leadership requires autonomy, such as in decision-
making, leader discretion can facilitate destructive behaviors especially
in (1) senior-level positions where supervision is less; (2) younger and
smaller organizations with limited governance mechanisms; and (3)
high growth or rapidly transforming industries (Hambrick &
Abrahamson, 1995).
As this theorizing and the findings of prior empirical studies suggest,
the occurrence of leader workplace aggression can be a function of
cascading processes, governance, growth and spatial factors in parti-
cular organizations and industries.
Future directions
Extending extant findings, researchers can further consider how
factors of task interdependence and potentially relatedly, space or
distance, can enhance or reduce the occurrence of aggressive leader
behaviors in workplaces towards employees or other leaders. Task in-
terdependence generally is known to foster positive relationships be-
tween organizational members, including helping behaviors (Allen,
Sargent, & Bradley, 2003) so by extension, could limit the likelihood of
aggressive behaviors by leaders. Empirically, there is evidence that
when an offending individual has high formal or referent power and low
task interdependence with a targeted individual, the targeted party is
more likely to engage in deviance against the offender (Hershcovis,
Reich, Parker, & Bozeman, 2012).
Building on this, it is possible that different forms of task inter-
dependence will precipitate leader aggression and even could be likely
to occur in opposing ways. According to Thompson (1967), (1) pooled
interdependence refers to when individuals work independently, then
combine their work such that the end product reflects the sum of each
person's contributions; (2) sequential interdependence is a classic as-
sembly line division of labor in that each person has a particular skill to
use or task to perform which produces the output necessary for the
performance by the next unit – hence there is a level of one-way
P.N. Sharma
dependency on others for inputs; and (3) reciprocal interdependence
reflects a bi-directional relationship between parties such that the
output of one person becomes the input of another in addition to an
exchange of inputs and outputs. The minimal level of interaction be-
tween individuals in pooled and sequential task interdependence set-
tings could dually suggest that leaders will be less likely to aggress
against employees, or more likely to do so due to lower investment in
the relationship, hence more willingness or ability, to attack. In re-
ciprocal task interdependence situations, a higher level of aggression
may emerge due to leaders simultaneously feeling pressure to perform
at high levels and tethered to their employees, or leaders will not ag-
gress due to having to work with the employees in order to be successful
at task accomplishment.
Such ideas broadly reflect how since the early 1970s, management
scholars have explored contingency variables in leadership processes
and developed an ongoing body of theories and paradigms which to this
day, offer explanations for the moderating effects of these variables
(Howell, Dorfman, & Kerr, 1986). The contingency perspective explores
situational influences to the relationship between an individual's lea-
dership style and effectiveness: under condition A, a particular lea-
dership style is appropriate; while under condition B, a different style is
the better choice. Indeed, Fiedler (1967, 1978) proposed that effective
group performance for employees depends on the proper match be-
tween leadership style of the group leader and moderator factors in-
cluding task structure.
Conceptually, Harvey, Treadway, Heames, and Duke (2009) have
proposed that contextual antecedents to bullying can include when
employees are physically isolated from one another. Empirically, there
is support for the roles of (1) physical distance in reducing the potential
for leaders to directly influence their employees (e.g., Bass, 1985;
Podsakoff, Todor, Grover, & Huber, 1984), and (2) close situations
enhancing effects of transformational leadership on follower perfor-
mance (Howell & Hall-Merenda, 1999). While this work's focus was on
more positive leader behaviors, and task interdependence and physical
distance are not identical features of organizational structures, I infer
from these findings to suggest the importance of exploring whether, and
how, the different types of task interdependence can provoke leader
workplace aggression. Drawing together prior perspectives, I therefore
propose competing propositions as follows:
Proposition 6. Situations involving reciprocal task interdependence
between leaders and employees will be more positively or negatively
associated with leader workplace aggression, as compared to situations
involving sequential or pooled task interdependence.
Category #7: time
Typology
Finally, Porter and McLaughlin (2006) discussed articles on time-
dependent issues such as lasting effects of transformational leadership,
and life cycle effects. I likewise include studies that reflect durational
effects of leadership, as well as cycles to organizational life that are
important to be accounted for when seeking to understand leader
workplace aggression (Porter & McLaughlin, 2006). This research re-
flects scholarly calls for work that considers the extent to which tem-
poral dynamics (Ancona, Goodman, Lawrence, & Tushman, 2001), such
as feedback loops (Edwards, 1992), operate in leadership processes.
Existing studies
Notably, upon my initial search, there were well over two dozen
published leader workplace aggression articles that have used time-
lagged designs for their data collections. Of these, I include work here
that (a) used time and related factors in theoretically grounded ways –
such as via terms including “cycle,” “reciprocal,” “newcomer sociali-
zation,” and “intervention”; and (b) specifically referred to the orga-
nization and/or its context in some way.
10
The Leadership Quarterly xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx
For example, Lian, Ferris, Morrison and Brown (2014) used a cross-
lagged panel and found support for a reciprocal relationship between
abusive supervision and organizational deviance when there was a 6-
month lag between measurement occasions, but not when there was a
20-month lag in a separate study (also, the effects of abusive super-
vision on organizational deviance were moderated by subordinate self-
control capacity and intention to quit, such that the effects were only
significant when subordinates had low self-control capacity and turn-
over intention). The authors referred to social interaction theories of
aggression (Tedeschi & Felson, 1994) and victimization perspectives
(Aquino & Bradfield, 2000; Milam, Spitzmueller, & Penney, 2009) to
explore how “subordinates may actually be the deviant causal actors,
whereas supervisors play the role of effected audiences, abusing the
subordinates whose behaviors deviate from organizational norms”
(Lian et al., 2014: 651).
There are also intervention studies that have examined leader
workplace aggression. Specifically, Leiter, Laschinger, Day, and Oore
(2011) used a CREW (i.e., Civility, Respect, and Engagement at Work)
intervention at a 6-month time point and found greater improvements
in the intervention groups than in the contrast groups for coworker
civility, supervisor incivility, respect, cynicism, job satisfaction, man-
agement trust, and absences. The intervention was at the organizational
level and was operationalized through employees meeting with cow-
orkers on a bi-weekly basis to work on interpersonal interactions with
guidance from trained facilitators and use of structured exercises such
as active listening, using metaphors in conflict resolution, and brain-
storming. This body of prior work highlights how time-based processes
can offer more theoretically nuanced explanations for how leader
workplace aggression unfolds and impacts employees.
Future directions
Future research can focus on incorporating other temporal pro-
cesses, to supplement existing work. For example, the very act of leader
workplace aggression is an interactive event that involves multiple
parties such as senior leaders, who may be in a unique position to fa-
cilitate positive effects. Typically the observer literature has focused on
negative responses, such as retaliation and anger against an aggressing
leader (Reich & Hershcovis, 2015; Umphress, Simmons, Folger, Ren, &
Bobocel, 2013). However, by drawing from a temporal lens and affec-
tive events theory (Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996), I posit that there is the
possibility that feedback loops can exist to reduce leader aggressive
behaviors. For example, other employees or enior leaders who observe
aggression might feel compassion as an appraisal response for targeted
parties, and offer support or speak up, thus potentially changing the
offending's leader trajectory and interrupting a spiral of aggression in
an organization. Indeed, an unanswered question remains as to whether
offenders may recognize the detrimental impact of their behaviors as a
result of others' feedback, and will reduce their subsequent tendencies
to undermine (i.e., allowing for feedback loops; Edwards, 1992). Thus, I
propose:
Proposition 7. Interventions by observers, such as employees or senior-
level leaders, will be negatively associated with leader workplace
aggression, due to leaders experiencing compassion for targeted
parties and engaging in behavioral outcomes, including offering
support and speaking up.
Discussion
I sought to summarize existing studies at the intersection of orga-
nizational context and leader workplace aggression within seven com-
ponents of: (1) culture/climate; (2) goals/purposes; (3) people/com-
position; (4) processes; (5) state/condition; (6) structure; and (7) time
(Porter & McLaughlin, 2006). Through my systematic review, I identi-
fied contextual factors that can help explain: (1) when, why and how is
leader workplace aggression more likely to occur; (2) how the adverse
P.N. Sharma
effects on employees may be amplified or reduced; and (3) how orga-
nizations can proactively manage their internal dynamics to prevent or
reduce incidences.
Theoretical implications for future research
My review provides several theoretical implications for future
leader workplace aggression research. First, my use of a contextual lens
starts to recognize organizations as influential actors themselves in
leader workplace aggression phenomena. The role of the organizational
context has been largely absent in both leadership and workplace ag-
gression research with regard to theoretical explanations as well as
research designs (Antonakis et al., 2004; Porter & McLaughlin, 2006).
More is also generally known about consequences, rather than ante-
cedents, of leader workplace aggression (cf. Hershcovis & Reich, 2013;
Schilpzand et al., 2014; Tepper et al., 2017).
Second and relatedly, my review highlights accountability by or-
ganizations for the quality of the work environments in which their
employees are embedded. While leaders are ultimately responsible for
their actions, personality and other individual differences can reduce
the likelihood of their engaging in behavioral changes (Krasikova et al.,
2013). Employees themselves are often powerless to change situations
involving leader aggression – hence look to their organizations for
guidance and involvement (cf. Einarsen & Skogstad, 1996; Tepper,
2007; Tepper et al., 2017). Accordingly, my review helps inform those
precipitating factors to leader workplace aggression which are within an
organization's control, such as its culture, structure, human resource
practices, and rewards systems. Senior-level leaders specifically, in-
cluding the CEO and top management team members in an organiza-
tion, can manage these factors to translate to setting the tone in their
work settings. New leaders are even socialized in their organizations by
observing how upper management behaves (including how they re-
spond to or justify others' aggressive actions, see Anand, Ashforth, &
Joshi, 2004; Bandura, 1977), highlighting the importance even further
of senior leadership roles and responsibilities.
State of the literature
There are several overarching conclusions about the current state of
the leader workplace aggression research that can be drawn, which
inform ways of meaningfully moving the theoretical needle in future
work. Three themes characterizing existing studies include: (1) the
frequent examination of abusive supervision and its nomological net-
work; (2) use of attribution, stress, and displaced aggression theories to
explain aggressive leader behaviors towards employees (e.g., Bowling &
Michel, 2011; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984; Tedeschi & Norman, 1985);
and (3) exploration of “processes” (Category #4).
To extend, and advance, extant research, other theoretical per-
spectives can be drawn on regarding when, why and how other forms of
leader workplace aggression besides abusive supervision might be
likely to occur as a function of organizational context factors. As one
example, as discussed by DeRue and Ashford (2010), leadership iden-
tity is co-constructed when individuals claim (i.e., assert one's own
identity) and grant (i.e., actions to bestow identity on another party)
identities as leaders or followers. If an employee therefore seeks to
overtake the leadership role as a function of his/her own capabilities
(Category #3, People/composition), some leaders could refuse to re-
ciprocate such “claiming” of the leadership identity with “granting,”
and instead try to deliberately sabotage the employee's work relation-
ships or successes through engaging in social undermining.
Further, while the majority of leader workplace aggression studies
have focused on dynamics involving the leader-employee dyad (like
abusive supervision), between‑leader aggression remains an under-
explored area of management research. This is important to consider
given organizations are increasingly relying on teams of leaders to ac-
complish work goals and engage in decision-making (Day & Harrison,
11
The Leadership Quarterly xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx
2007; Wageman & Hackman, 2010). My review offers some initial ideas
to explain leader-to‑leader aggression, e.g., due to resource guarding
and protection by leaders (Category #5, State/condition). Reflecting re-
ward and compensation practices, aggression between leaders could be
also more salient in settings that use ranking systems to compare and
contrast leaders at similar hierarchical levels, or who are doing related
work, for promotion and/or advancement decisions. Importantly, un-
like employee-directed aggression by leaders, which typically involves
status and power differences, between‑leader aggression requires a
different theoretical perspective that can be informed through an or-
ganizational level of analysis perspective.
Third, although I reviewed studies in separate categories and
treated these as orthogonal dimensions of organizational context, the
categories can work in conjunction with (1) one another; and (2) leader
and/or employee individual differences. As Porter and McLaughlin
noted in their original review, and referencing other work by Johns
(2006) and Rousseau and Fried (2001), there is a “need to study the
effects of interactions among two or more components of that context”
and “the effect of organizational context will be more evident if we look
at bundles of contextual elements” (2006: 573). As an illustrative ex-
ample, goals (Category #2) and structure (Category #6) may intersect
with one another to determine leader behaviors. Further, following
person-situation interaction theory, the categories are likely to interact
with individual leader differences (Mischel, 1977). In line with work by
Dalal et al. (2015), personality strength can reduce or enhance varia-
bility in behavior across situations within persons.
Conclusion
The field is wide open in terms of moving towards a better under-
standing of the organizational context × leader workplace aggression
intersection. I hope that my review has provided a helpful roadmap for
future researchers to follow (and build upon) in better theoretically and
empirically understanding these important leader behaviors over the
next decade. I eagerly anticipate future research that organizational
scholars will produce in this impactful arena.
Acknowledgement
Thank you to David Day and the two anonymous reviewers for their
helpful feedback. I also thank Mary Mawritz, Lisa Marchiondo, Danielle
Tussing, and Bradley Kirkman for their review of earlier drafts of this
maunscript.
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