The dark side of leader–member exchange: Observers' reactions when leaders target their teammates for abuse

Abstract

We draw on deonance theory and social learning theory to propose a framework that explains how individual team members with varying levels of leader–member exchange (LMX) with their team leader have different emotional and behavioral responses upon observing teammate‐directed abusive supervision. After employing a social relations paradigm with two‐wave round‐robin data collected from a sample of 378 engineers on 89 work teams, we did not find that witnessing teammate‐targeted abusive supervision increased sympathy for the targeted teammates, but we did find that observers with a higher level of LMX were more likely to legitimize such abuse and less likely to sympathize with its victims. Furthermore, we found that for individuals with a higher level of LMX, perceiving leaders' abusive supervision of teammates was negatively related to providing help to those teammates through the mediating role of sympathy for the teammates.

Addressing the Dark Side of Leadership in the University System Using Community of Practice (CoP) Approach

“…Lastly, this paper argues that social interaction can also address the issue around the dark side of leadership in the university system. That is, this paper reaffirms existing research that suggests social interaction can be an effective strategy to address the dark aspects of leadership within universities (Hu et al 2022). Such interaction could assist in creating a more transparent environment in which to manage organisational change within these systems.…”

Job engagement trajectories: Their associations with leader–member exchange and their implications for employees

“…This association between LMX and unethical behaviours could be related to the fact that employees with high‐quality LMX may feel the need to reciprocate that benefit, in turn leading them to experience more pressure to support their supervisors (Harris & Kacmar, 2006). For instance, employees reporting higher levels of LMX were more likely to perceive legitimate abusive supervisory behaviours directed at their teammates, and less likely to help, or sympathize with, the victims (Hu et al, 2022). More generally, employees with high levels of LMX tend to reciprocate by increasing their levels of performance and organizational citizenship behaviours (e.g., Liden & Maslyn, 1998; Restubog et al, 2010).…”

Third-party perceptions of mistreatment: A meta-analysis and integrative model of reactions to perpetrators and victims.

“…Some scholars have grounded relationships between third-party perceptions of mistreatment and empathy toward the victim by describing deonance theory before citing more victim-focused empirical studies (Hericher & Bridoux, 2023). Other scholars have drawn on the tangential deonance theory passages cited above while assuming the theory's handling of the moral emotion of anger could also be applied to the moral emotion of empathy (Hu et al, 2022). Still, other scholars have included a brief citation of deonance theory before grounding empathy predictions in arguments rooted in the empathy literature (Liang & Park, 2022a).…”