A significant amount of research has been conducted regarding the detrimental effects of abusive leadership. However, a recent study by Wang et al. (2024) delves into a new inquiry: how does experiencing both offensive and ethical leadership simultaneously impact employees? The researchers suggest that the ambiguity of having a leader who exhibits contradictory behaviors can be more harmful than a leader who is consistently offensive. Furthermore, they explore how employees react when witnessing their own supervisor being inconsistently treated by higher-level leaders.
Overview of the Study
The study comprised three different experiments. In the first study involving current employees, it was found that offensive leadership, in conjunction with high levels of ethical leadership, led to employee burnout, subsequently affecting their performance negatively.
Studies 2 and 3 utilized experimental designs with online participants. In both experiments, participants were presented with scenarios involving fictional leaders who displayed varying degrees of ethical and offensive behaviors. As anticipated, participants reported feeling more emotionally affected when the leader exhibited both offensive and ethical traits compared to when the leader was solely offensive. This emotional response persisted even when the inconsistent treatment was directed towards their supervisor rather than themselves.
Study 3 revealed that when organizational leaders at a higher level treated the participants’ direct supervisors in a mix of offensive and ethical ways, the participants questioned their supervisors’ ability to secure crucial resources from upper management effectively.
Practical Implications
The findings suggest that being inconsistently treated, or engaging in such behavior with one’s own supervisor, can have severe negative repercussions on employees. Organizations are advised to take preventive measures against this type of “Jekyll and Hyde” leadership by selecting leaders with strong self-control, providing training to maintain consistent behavior, and holding them accountable for any abusive conduct. Establishing secure channels for employees to report instances of inconsistent treatment can also mitigate these effects. Given that these dynamics occur across different leadership levels, it is imperative for organizations to monitor both higher-level leaders and lower-level supervisors.
Xu, H., Hannah, S., Wang, Z., Moss, S.E., Sumanth, J.J., & Song, M. (2024). Jekyll and Hyde Leadership: examining the direct and deputy experiences of offensive and ethical leadership through a variability lens for justice. Journal of Applied Psychology. Advance Online Publication.
Image Credit: Unsplash+