Skip to main content
  • 1526 Accesses

Synonyms

Abusive supervision; Abusive supervisory behaviors; Destructive leadership; Supervisor undermining; Supervisory abuse; Tyrannical leadership

Introduction: What Is Abusive Leadership?

There exists a litany of disparate constructs for describing abusive leadership, such as abusive supervision, petty tyranny, supervisor aggression, supervisor incivility, supervisor undermining, workplace bullying, and negative mentoring experience. Although these terminologies differ in describing abusive leadership, they all overlap to some degree. One dominant construct in the literature that has a unifying theoretical framework is abusive supervision, which is defined as subordinates’ perceptions of the extent to which their supervisors engage in the prolonged display of nonphysical hostile verbal and nonverbal behaviors––such as public ridiculing and belittling, taking credit for subordinates’ work, giving subordinates the silent treatment, and invading subordinates’ privacy (Tepper 2000).

The...

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Aquino K, Thau S (2009) Workplace victimization: aggression from the target’s perspective. Annu Rev Psychol 60:717–741

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bandura A (1973) Aggression: a social learning analysis. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs

    Google Scholar 

  • Cropanzano R, Mitchell MS (2005) Social exchange theory: an interdisciplinary review. J Manag 31(6):874–900

    Google Scholar 

  • Liang LH, Lian H, Brown D, Hanig S, Ferris DL, Keeping LM (2016) Why are abusive supervisors abusive? A dual-system self-control model. Acad Manag J 59:1–22

    Google Scholar 

  • Mawritz MB, Mayer DM, Hoobler JM, Wayne SJ, Marinova SV (2012) A trickle-down model of abusive supervision. Pers Psychol 65(2):325–357

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ryan RM, Deci EL (2000) Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. Am Psychol 55(1):68–78

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tepper BJ (2000) Consequences of abusive supervision. Acad Manage J 43(2):178–190

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tepper BJ (2007) Abusive supervision in work organizations: review, synthesis, and research agenda. J Manag 33(3):261–289

    Google Scholar 

  • Thau S, Mitchell MS (2010) Self-gain or self-regulation impairment? Tests of competing explanations of the supervisor abuse and employee deviance relationship through perceptions of distributive justice. J Appl Psychol 95(6):1009–1031

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lindie H. Liang .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

About this entry

Cite this entry

Liang, L.H., Brown, D.J. (2016). Abusive Leadership. In: Farazmand, A. (eds) Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31816-5_2552-1

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31816-5_2552-1

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-31816-5

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Economics and FinanceReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences

Publish with us

Policies and ethics