Mitigating the psychologically detrimental effects of supervisor undermining: Joint effects of voice and political skill

Abstract

It is of growing concern that supervisors sometimes engage in destructive leadership behavior to undermine their subordinates, which exacts a psychological toll on these employees. How can employees mitigate and overcome the adverse psychological effects of supervisor undermining? Invoking theories of personal agency and social competencies, this study addresses this important question by examining the effectiveness of employee voice in buffering the adverse effects of supervisor undermining on employee work-related wellbeing and turnover intention. Through a three-wave field study, we found that voice plays a buffering role in the relationship between supervisor undermining and these outcome variables only when employees possess high levels of political skill (i.e., three-way interactions), and that this buffering effect is realized through mitigating the adverse effects of supervisor undermining on employee psychological empowerment. In contrast, when employees possess low levels of political skill, engaging in high levels of voice exacerbates the detrimental effects of supervisor undermining on employee psychological empowerment, and subsequently decreases employee work-related wellbeing and heightens employee turnover intention. The theoretical and practical implications of our findings are discussed.

Drilling under the COVID‐19 pandemic: A diary study of professional football players' mental health and workout performance

“…Finally, future research should extend our study by incorporating other psychological and leadership resources such as psychological resilience (Fletcher & Sarkar, 2013), hardiness (Funk, 1992), self‐talk (Tod et al., 2011), leader's social support and undermining (Duffy et al., 2002) that may also affect how individuals deal with the impact of a pandemic upon their mental health status and work performance during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Focussing on these psychological and leadership behaviours is also consistent with our guiding theory given COR theory suggests that some people can remain resilient and hopeful despite facing mass trauma (Doane et al., 2012; Hobfoll, 1998) and that leadership represents a critical source of support as well as a source of draining experience (Duffy et al., 2002; Gerpott et al., 2020; Sun et al., 2021). Nonetheless, we highlight that we focus on visionary leadership in the current study for both theoretical and practical reasons.…”

Forty years of political skill and will in organizations: a review, meta-theoretical framework and directions for future research

“…In general, for example, it has been widely established that politically skilled individuals experience job satisfaction and organizational commitment at work (Epitropaki et al, 2016;Hayek et al, 2018;Li et al, 2017;Munyon et al, 2015); even when distrust in management is accounted for (Gallagher et al, 2016). Political skill also indicates a positive association with career satisfaction (Fidan and Koç, 2020), whereas it demonstrates a negative association with turnover intentions (Garc ıa-Chas et al, 2019;Sun et al, 2022).…”

“…Accordingly, it's been reported that politically skilled individuals thrive in central network positions as they are better able to manage associated role ambiguities (Cullen et al, 2018). Owing to their ability to understand themselves and others at work (Frieder et al, 2019), politically skilled individuals have also been found to be able to cope with adversity in work environments, such as workplace incivility (Karatepe et al, 2019;De Clercq et al, 2019), workplace aggression (Zhou et al, 2015), supervisor undermining (Sun et al, 2022) and abusive supervision (Li et al, 2016;Holmquist, 2020).…”

“…Multiple studies have found that political skill also buffers the detrimental effect of workplace ostracism, coworker incivility and victimization (Ali and Johl, 2020;Bentley et al, 2017;De Clercq et al, 2019;Karatepe et al, 2019;Wu et al, 2012;Yang and Treadway, 2018;Zhao et al, 2013). While facing detrimental behaviors from coworkers and supervisors, politically skilled individuals are less likely to engage in counterproductive behaviors because they are more confident and able to find solutions to the issues (Bentley et al, 2017;Sun et al, 2022;Zhao et al, 2013).…”

Image risk as a deterrent to remedial voice: The moderating effect of proactive personality and moral identity

“…High political skilled individuals possess the ability to effectively influence others' behaviours and attitudes, including toward them (Brouer et al, 2011). Further, research indicates that political skill facilitates the success of individual agentic behaviours (such as through opportunity recognition and capitalization; Sun et al, 2021;Wihler et al, 2017). Thus, they may believe that they will be able to frame remedial voicing in a positive light, for example as a constructive approach to resolving interpersonal differences and enhancing congeniality in the workplace and may influence others to maintain a positive impression of them as congenial rather than confrontational.…”